Phoenix Suns Vs. New Orleans Hornets: Las Vegas Summer League Game 3

The Phoenix Suns Summer League squad (1-1) takes the court tonight at 5:30 AZ time to take on the New Orleans Hornets (0-2). The game will be shown live on NBA TV and can also be seen online via Summer League Broadband on NBA.com.

The Suns are coming off of their first lost after falling to the Cleveland Cavaliers 89-74. For the second straight game, Suns forward Markieff Morris was the best player on the court. He struggled a bit from the field but went 9-10 from the free-throw line an posted a monster double-double with 24 points,17 rebounds and also chipped in 6 blocks. However, he continues to rack up the fouls. Hopefully he can finish the game with less than six fouls.

Tuesday night's game was also the professional debut of rookie Kendall Marshall, although it was less than impressive. Marshall finished the game with just five assists to go with five turnovers, an air-balled his only field goal attempt. Marshall appeared to be nervous and perhaps a tad bit rusty after having to stay off the court for some time while recovering from the injury that ended his college career.

Look for Marshall to settle in a bit more today an play more under control. Hopefully he can develop some chemistry with his teammates and show off the distributing prowess that made him the 13th pick in the draft. Summer League head coach Dan Majerle said after Tuesday's game that he wants the rookie to be more aggressive and look for his own shot a bit more, so we'll have to keep an eye on that.

The Hornets are lead by Austin Rivers, the tenth overall pick in this year's draft. Rivers has been less than impressive in the Hornets' first two games, averaging 10 points an 3.5 assist while shooting 21.1% from the field including 1-8 from beyond the arc. Rivers is playing plenty of point guard for the Hornets, so the match-up between he and Marshall is one of the major story-lines of this game. Apparently, the Marshall-Rivers match-up won't be happening as Rivers is hurt and will sit out this game.

Lance Thomas, the second year man and undrafted forward out of Duke has probably been the team's best player and is coming off of a 22-point performance. We might see a little bit of him matching up with Morris, which should be fun to watch (although Thomas is playing the 4 and Morris has played mostly 5 for the Suns). Other players to keep an eye on are Xavier Henry, the 12th overall pick in 2010 and Darius Miller, their second round pick this year.

Now here are some news bullets for you:

• As Alex noted here, the Suns have officially invited forward Charles Garcia to training camp. Garcia is a 6-foot-9 229 pound forward who is playing for the Suns in Vegas.
• The Portland Trailblazers have signed former Suns guard Ronnie Price to the veteran's minimum. Price may not have lit it up as a Sun, but he was a true professional an played hard every time he got on the court. Best of luck to Ronnie from us here at the Bright Side.
• Goran Dragic will officially be introduced as a Sun (again) tomorrow after signing his contract. For those of you who haven't heard Dragic will be wearing the number 1 instead of the 2 he wore in his last stint as a Sun.

Now I leave you with some words of wisdom from Kendall Marshall as he prepares for tonight's game:

Swimming pools.

— Kendall Marshall (@KButter5) July 18, 2012