The past two days since the Suns win over Utah have been blissfully quiet. Wins tend to ease the mind of everyone.
Today, the Suns attempt to show that the formula stumbled upon on last Sunday have to more to do with good Suns play and less to do with lackluster Jazz play. The Milwaukee Bux team come to UAC as a veritable mystery to me. I've never paid attention to the "Christmas Deer" team in the past 20 years. I confuse them with the Timberwolves all the time,except that the Timberwolves are always more newsworthy. Today is no exception, and I gleefully can't wait to see Kevin McHale coach that squad. Something about crapping in one's bed and then having to sleep in it gets me interested. Meanwhile, the Bux never been all that threatening or full of potential. They probably have a better roster than they've ever had, with Redd and Jefferson headlining for them. Bogut and Ridnour are serviceable. Ramon Sessions is awesome, although he now receives little playing time behind Redd.
As for the Suns, we're seeing sensible coaching changes. They are progressively rolling back to the winning formulas of yesteryear by starting Grant Hill and allowing Nash to run after both makes and misses.
Startitis
Startitis is that weird disease that affects many players. On the one hand, starters play stiffer competition so you might expect moving to the bench ought to improve their play. On the other, they don't play with better players either, so they don't get the best feeds or they may become the focus of the defensive pressure when the starters are resting.
Manu Ginobili doesn't have startitis. Neither does Jason Terry. Boris Diaw has it. LB plays better when he starts.
Grant Hill has it bad and sometimes there's no other cure than just to start him. As long as the Suns keep winning, Grant is going to start. There's no reason why starting requires increased minutes, so I don't know why people tie those two things together.
Q: What was the problem with the Suns?
The Suns remind me of the 1994 film, Speed. The film is best known for it's solution to hostage crises, ("What do you do?" "Shoot the hostage") and for featuring Sandra Boring Bullock as a U of A alumni. In it, the answer to every problem was, "Go faster". Every time you wanted to stop and get off, stopping would kill you.
As obvious as it has become, the Suns are a team built to run and they need to run, on makes and misses. For most, speed kills. But the Suns are speed addicts and they need it to win. Expect to see the Suns' pace climb and everything to fall in place once they run more.
Will Amar'e come to play
Amar'e's jeckyll/hyde routine is disturbing. He can get his stats, but his mental focus can really change the teams fortunes for good or ill. He was everywhere in the final 5 minutes of the game in Utah. We are a different better team when he is active.
He was completely out of plays early in the game. I don't want to see stat jogging ever. Let's see an agrgressive start on the boards from Stat today!
The Shaq question
We have a game tonight at home against the Bux and a game tomorrow at LA. What do you do?
One view is that the Bux game is winnable without Shaq and we need all the help we can get against the Lakers big lineup.
As much as I like to see Shaq punish "Ericka-Dampier-with-a-mustache", I lean toward playing Shaq in tonight's game. After all, Andrew Bogut is greatest quote is the abysmal "I'm faster than Luc Longley". He just can't compete with Shaq.
I think clearly the Suns are not ready for the magnitude of a real LA showdown. This means the Suns need to keep working on getting better and try to get every single win they can from winnable games. That means starting Shaq against the Bux and hoping for someone else to step up against LA and possibly stealing a game from them.
Poll
Do you rest Shaq against the Buck or Lakers?
This poll is closed
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68%
Sit Shaq against the Bucks (Shaq vs. Lakers)
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31%
Sit Shaq against the Lakers (Shaq vs. Bucks)