Pistons stop Suns: 110 - 105 / OT - Bright Side Of The Sun

Pistons stop Suns: 110 - 105 / OT

by Phoenix Stan on Mar 24, 2008 9:18 PM MDT in Game Coverage

Welcome to the playoff's my friends. If you are anything like me watching the final 3 minutes and then the OT you have just finished restarting your heart, changing your shorts, and apologizing to the dog for booting him across the room. Not that he didn't deserve it for those bad calls and missed rebounds!

But its all good.

If you asked anyone who follows the NBA before this game to rank the top 5 teams it might look something like this or like this. And then if you asked them to really rank the teams based on their legit changes to win the title is would be more like this:

1a and 1b - Pistons/Celtic
2 - Lakers
3a 3b and 3c - Spurs/Suns/Jazz

And that's how this game turned out. Despite some crappy calls, right now the Pistons are just that little bit better then the Suns. But its close. And after all the turmoil of the season and just coming out of the big mid-season pre-season rebuild project you can't be too unhappy about that. For this new Suns team to learn how to win these close games you sometimes have to lose them. That's one of those things that you gave up in the trade; - that team memory for how to get it done on a night like this. and yes, I went all semi-colon on your ass right there grammar police!...and got busted for it...:(

On the Bright Side:

The Suns shot 50% against the league's 3rd best defense and held Detroit to 45% from the field. Most nights that's going to get it done. Tonight they played a grind it out sub-100 point game and barely lost on a few bad bounces (and questionable calls). And give Sheed credit. As Eddie Johnson said on the Suns telecast, when this guys shows up, he's a top 5 player. He's one of the worst matchups for Amare.

On the Brighter Side:

The Suns gave up a few more offensive boards which were crucial at the end of the game but played well enough to win a tough one on the road. I'll take it.

I am going to hold off on the POG and some other thoughts until after I have finished watching the game. I listened to Al McCoy for the first quarter from my desk (still a real treat) and then caught most of the 2nd and all of the last 4 minutes and over time.

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Oh and Go Warriors!

Beat LA!

Phx - where artistic vision happens

by Phoenix Stan on Mar 24, 2008 9:46 PM MDT 0 recs

even with the loss

it was good to see us play like this, if we got that much better over the last 2-3 weeks, I imagine we can get a little better before the playoffs.

Hill for playor of the game for me, easy call. R.Wallace if your looking at them.

Nothing in this Verse can stop us!

by jasonsuns1 on Mar 24, 2008 10:24 PM MDT 0 recs

love Grant, but...

Can't give Hill POG with those missed free throws

'07-'08 Suns: It's clobberin' time!

by Hawk42 on Mar 25, 2008 8:47 AM MDT up 0 recs

Just Got Back

Great game to see live despite the result. Got to the Palace about an hour and a half before game time and watched Pike and Marks shootaround for a good half hour or so. Decent amount of Suns fans all things considered. As for the game itself heres my take.

Positives:

- Steve Nash with his usual timely shots to keep the Suns perpetually within striking distance.
- Amare dropped 33 and continued his recent excellence from the line going 15-16.
- Grant Hill made big plays on offense and defense for the first three quarters in a return to his old stomping grounds.
- Defense was very good overall, its easy to see the prescence of Shaq stopping penetration.

Negatives:

- Defensive rotations became slow and haphazard at the end, allowing Chauncey Billups to take over.
- Boris Diaw did not come to play tonight shooting only 1-7 for 2 pts.
- Gordan Giricek looked lost on offense after making a decent impact early on.

I felt that we were in the game until the end but could have executed better in the fourth quarter and overtime. Some plays that killed us were Grant missing two free throws and Raja losing a jump ball. I will say that the refereeing at the end of the game was terrible but that is a risk you run in any game, particularly on the road.

The coolest plays to see live were Gordan Giricek's block to prevent a fast break bucket and Shaqs and-1 layup in the fourth quarter. Hope to see the Suns in person at the Purple Palace next season.

Tough loss, but lets concentrate on finishing this road trip strong. Lets go show Beantown who they don't want in the Finals! Go Suns!

by MichiganSunsFan on Mar 24, 2008 10:25 PM MDT 0 recs

Whiny LIttle Elf

The ire at the refs is understanble because the calls were bad and it's just tough to figure out why the Suns lost this game. It's not complaining as much as it is exasperation while looking for an explanation.

With the exception of failing to change the defensive scheme on Billups, there is little to criticize (although The Principal may have been able to give a few good minutes, but that didn't make a difference). Mr. Occassionally-Makes-A-Big-Shot drove well and shot well.

I've got to thank Leander, though. I was pouting about the calls and swearing that the Suns would've won if the refs were paying attention and then Leander showed me how stupid that thinking really is. His first interview "question" to Antonio McDyess after the game was to ask McDyess what he thought about the Pistons getting so many good calls (and non-calls). Now, I like a little homerism in my hometown broadcast team, but even that went too far for me.

So, I want to thank Leander for making me realize how whiny I would sound tomorrow if I was going to blame this game on the refs instead of giving Detroit credit for controlling the tempo, making important stops, feeding 'Sheed from behind the line and out-rebounding the Shaq-fortified Suns.

Mmmmm ... Guinness

by JSun on Mar 24, 2008 10:47 PM MDT 0 recs

Whiny Little Frenchman

And Doris ... the Suns also lost becuase he was once again horrible from the field. If he had shot just slightly better than 1 for 7, I think the Suns would have scored more points -- which is important when you want your team to win.

Mmmmm ... Guinness

by JSun on Mar 24, 2008 10:51 PM MDT 0 recs

Sheed

has some sort of personal vendetta against Amare as if he comes out trying to embarrass STAT. Ill be at the game in Boston on Wednesday. Lets hope Amare takes this loss out on KG.

"Hes very cerebral when he plays out there"--Hubie

by Snowbird on Mar 24, 2008 11:29 PM MDT 0 recs

just aguess

but Amare strikes me as a guy with a huge ego and mouth, I think he gets calls against him (even when he did nothing) because the refs don't like the way he acts during games. (just a guess), look at how he talks trash to k.g., granted trash talk is probably very common in the nba, I heard Bird was one of the best, but I think it's something else with Amare,

I can say we need to use Hill, Barbosa, and Nash against this team offensively (and I mean a lot) if we're going to win against them.

Boris was horrible.

Nothing in this Verse can stop us!

by jasonsuns1 on Mar 25, 2008 12:27 AM MDT up 0 recs

Trash talk...

KG has the biggest mouth in the league, he gets everybody going.

by hcblankscreen on Mar 25, 2008 1:20 AM MDT up 0 recs

I've heard something like this

I wonder then why Amare gets so many phantom calls, I'm not talking about the one's where he gets off his feet, I mean others. Last night again, on the replay (it was either hill or amare) and the pistons player drove to hoop to score and wasn't touched by suns, and a foul was called. Many gross mistakes. The close games aren't much fun when you get that many missed calls. Like the one where Nash was passing but they put him on the line.

Nothing in this Verse can stop us!

by jasonsuns1 on Mar 25, 2008 7:35 AM MDT up 0 recs

Grammar ticket

That is a semi-colon, but it's incorrectly used.

In other news: great recap. I want to hear as much as I can, since this game falls in the category of "ones I watched via Yahoo gamecast." And, well, those little dots aren't that riveting.

And, though I'm usually more of a bright side kind of guy, I really think it hurts that as well as we were playing we couldn't get this game when the Pistons were without Hamilton.

by rosewood on Mar 24, 2008 11:30 PM MDT 0 recs

Thanks

but I think I am going to fight this ticket officer:

Independent clauses are series of words that could stand alone as complete sentences. When you have two otherwise complete sentences that you want to connect to form one long sentence, use a semicolon between them.

In other non-grammar related news, I didn't yet watch the rest of our game. I ended up watching the end of another important overtime game that was decided too much by the whistle.

Phx - where artistic vision happens

by Phoenix Stan on Mar 25, 2008 8:32 AM MDT up 0 recs

Sentence Fragment

The problem is that you're missing a verb in the second independent clause. Therefore, it's more of an exclamation that an independent clause.

Mmmmm ... Guinness

by JSun on Mar 25, 2008 9:11 AM MDT up 0 recs

Doh!

Damn those missing verbs! They get me every time....

I guess that's why I am an unpaid blogger and have someone copy edit everything I write for my "Clark Kent" job.

Phx - where artistic vision happens

by Phoenix Stan on Mar 25, 2008 9:27 AM MDT up 0 recs

Fuck

I'm pissed. I hate these OT losses. We could have won this game. Maybe we should have won this one.

It's tough to say something like that, but when Boris only score 2 fucking points we're about to lose. That's the sad part.

Walk on, walk on With hope in your heart And you'll never walk alone You'll never walk alone

by Nobs on Mar 25, 2008 1:24 AM MDT 0 recs

boris was a big part of why we lost

The pistons stuckey - new young player did well and hit open shots, our boris sucked!

Nothing in this Verse can stop us!

by jasonsuns1 on Mar 25, 2008 7:35 AM MDT up 0 recs

boris

i give up on him. i've defended him more than any other player over the last two years because i remember that magical 06 season (probably my favorite suns team ever because they were so resilient and always had heart)

but i've had it. i have to admit it: he's never going to be the superstar we thought he was going to be in 2006. i admit it now.

what is he? a fantastic role player (more than 50% of the time) and a frustrating player that never tries (for the other 40 or so percent). I'M SICK OF BORIS DIAW.

plusses: 2 grant hill free throws and we win

it's kind of a good thing we lost. we've only had one close game so far and that was with the spurs. we need to lose a few close games before we learn how to win them with a basically new team.

and as well as amare has played, i still think this is steve nash's team. he's been quiet recently (Except for the three point shooting) but just wait. he takes over games himself (remember against dallas last year when he scored 10 points in the last minute to tie it and then took over in overtime?)

by najmsh on Mar 25, 2008 1:50 AM MDT 0 recs

i just realized...

how disjointed that post was. i have to stop posting when i'm angry at FUCKING BORIS DIAW

by najmsh on Mar 25, 2008 1:51 AM MDT up 0 recs

Good point

I also would be angry if I were fucking Boris Diaw as well. That's an impressive feat of agility though, that you can do both at once.

by rosewood on Mar 25, 2008 3:16 AM MDT up 0 recs

It's okay

As you can see by Boris' minutes last night, I think D'Antoni is getting fed up too.

Also, Amare should have had more than 5 rebounds for the entire game. Raja didn't look good and was awful at the end as Billups just blew by him. Grant Hill missing 2 key free throws that would have put them up by 7 in regulation. It just went down the tubes at the end.

Here's hoping they take out their frustrations tomorrow on Boston and get the season sweep!

by TwinnerA on Mar 25, 2008 10:25 AM MDT up 0 recs

STAT on the Boards

Agreed, agreed and agreed.

He needs to average 10 boards a game. Period. He should shut up about the MVP until he can do that.

Mmmmm ... Guinness

by JSun on Mar 25, 2008 11:05 AM MDT up 0 recs

Blame

Surely you can't blame Boris entirely for this loss?
Yes he was 1-7, Bell was 2-5 himself....

I think blaming him for the loss isn't right. Sure you expect more from him, but those Pistons played hard and shot well, after a little drought to knock down the big ones when they needed them in the dying minutes.

Even though the Suns shot 50% from the field to the Pistons 45%, combined with making more threes, they made their shots when necessary. This is a tough loss to take with the tightness continuing, but I'm not disappointed at all in their efforts as a team.

Subscribe to Run N Gun Podcast here www.thesportsstuff.com

by dang on Mar 26, 2008 2:07 AM MDT up 0 recs

Sheed vs. Amare

Rasheed does indeed look to embarrass Amare, but I have to say, Sheed just made some incredible plays.

The unguardable outside jumper over Amare and the block on Amare were just fantastic plays. No two ways about it.

I don't fault Amare, 25, for getting schooled in crunch time by the wily veteran. Amare going to be better than Sheed someday, perhaps even is already, despite this matchup.

Pistons, what a great team. What a solid bench of rookies! I can't fault any of their players. Except McDyess for screwing the SUNS so many times.

by ZonaFlash on Mar 25, 2008 10:52 AM MDT 0 recs

Bench

Check it.

The pistons played their bench for more than 90 minutes, almost 40% of total amount alloted (5 players x 48 minutes).

If you consider that Rip was not in the game, adding Affalo's 21 minutes puts the Piston bench time in the game at over 110 minutes.

For comparison, we played our 3 bench players just under 70 minutes, and we regretted playing them that long. It was their play at the start of the fourth quarter that got us behind by 7. Nash quickly got us back in the game, but in the end is wasn't enough.

by ZonaFlash on Mar 25, 2008 11:04 AM MDT 0 recs

Exactly

The Pistons from starting five to deep bench played some brilliant ball when required and made their looks.

The Phoenix defense wasn't bad throughout (except for LB getting caught out in the zone D and giving Maxiell a baseline dunk).

Subscribe to Run N Gun Podcast here www.thesportsstuff.com

by dang on Mar 26, 2008 2:11 AM MDT up 0 recs

make some adjustment for the extra

OT.

there was an extra 5x5 or 25 minutes in this game of course.

by ZonaFlash on Mar 25, 2008 11:05 AM MDT 0 recs

Barbosa

Another thing, I cringe every time I see Barbosa with the ball in his hands with the shot clocking running down to end a quarter. Seems to me he almost always finds a way to either put up a bad shot or turn the ball over. Believe it or not, I'd rather see Boris trying to make a play there to end a quarter (except the 4th quarter of course).

by TwinnerA on Mar 26, 2008 9:41 AM MDT 0 recs