Tonight's game followed a familiar plot line for those of us who have been watching the Suns regularly the past few seasons:
- The Suns face a team that on paper should be vastly inferior due to injuries or lack of talent (the former applying in this case).
- The game stays close in the first half as the underdog opposing team valiantly hangs in there, and maybe even leads at the break.
- The Suns blow the game open in the third quarter.
- The opposition gets somewhat back into it in the fourth, but never really threatens again.
Player of the Game: This is a very tough call, but I'm going with Shawn Marion. He got some very timely steals and rebounds that were key in closing out the Clips for good. Amare Stoudemire and Steve Nash are also good candidates.
Runner-Up: Sam Cassell. He looked more like 28 years old than 38 en route to 26 points on a 9-of-16 shooting night.
Grading the Game: B first half + A second half = A- overall.
Update: Props to ClipperSteve at Clips Nation for mentioning something in his recap that I forgot. The Suns out-rebounded the Clippers 52-41. A big part of the credit for this goes to Boris Diaw, who seemed to be making an extra effort to hit the boards, and ended up with 11 rebounds to go with Amare's 11 and Shawn's 17. When the Suns can put three guys in double-digit rebounds, there's a good chance the game ends in a "W". More, please.