For all the "sky is falling" people out there, a healthy Steve Nash looks awfully good. The team went from getting blown out by terrible teams to blowing those teams out. The Clippers shouldn't be a terrible team but for some reason they just aren't gelling this year. The Clippers are like poorly made Jello. You've got the water, the sugar, the gelatin but for some reason it's not all coming together to make something that's fun to eat. Instead you end up just pouring it out and trying again. Yes, I know that's a really bad analogy but I couldn't think of anything else.
The Suns on the other hand looked like a 7-course meal by a master chef. Everything came together nicely and the orchestrator of the entire dinner was Steve Nash. He only played 27 minutes (great!) and didn't shoot as well as he usually does but just having him on the court helped with the team's confidence. He ended the game with 12 assists and 13 points. He also drew several offensive fouls.
Shawn Marion had an awesome game as well. He was everywhere. There was a stretch of several possessions in a row where Shawn was in the right place at the right time and he ended up saving the Suns' possession. He ended the game with 36 points and 9 rebounds. Not a bad showing any night.
Amare Stoudemire had 22 points and 9 rebounds on 10-15 shooting. He had some monster dunks. And not all of them were off passes from Steve. Amare also had 3 assists! 3 doesn't sound like a lot but it's a huge difference from the beginning of the season where he would try to take the ball inside and basically was a black hole. Now he's not only looking to shoot, but if he doesn't have the open shot, he looks to pass as well. That's a nice change.
Pat Burke got into the game early and actually produced! He played 18 minutes (that's a full quarter and half another!), he had 7 points on 3-5 shooting and he had 10 rebounds. But the best stat on Pat was that he only had 2 fouls. Remember last game when he had something like 5 fouls in 13 minutes? Hopefully those days are long behind us - or at least few and far between now.
This game was a great win for the Suns and it's nice to have their leader back. I like that everyone stepped up and played well once the Suns got a 20 point lead and that D'Antoni didn't have to be tempted to bring Steve back into the game.
The Suns play the Celtics tonight. More on that game later today.