Amare and Raja lead Suns to easy win in Philly
(AP Photo/H. Rumph, Jr.) Stoudemire scored 22 points, Bell added 20 as the Suns beat the Sixers 107-93 last night in Philadelphia.
Raja playing back in the city where is NBA career begun (and home to the other well known Bell) had a very good game, shooting 5-of-8 from 3-point along with 7 assists and 5 rebounds. Diaw and Barbosa had 17 points each off the bench for the Suns.
The Suns started the contest really well, playing a solid overall game and making shots, to take a 38-19 lead after the first period or, as summarized by Coach D’Antoni “Tonight it wasn’t like we are suddenly the best defensive team in the league. The Sixers couldn’t make shots, missed foul shots, and flat out started out slow”
The 19-point lead was more or less safe throughout the game as the Suns responed with an 11-2 run when the Sixers closed within 10 points in the third quarter. As usual, these days, the third quarter makes the difference as the trailing team tries a come back. It didn’t work and both teams went into the “Energy saving” mode. Even Strawberry and Skinner had a couple of minutes in the game.
Philadelphia, one of the hottest team in the league (11-3 in March), turned cold last night (39.3 percent in the game) while the Suns played a good game, shooting the ball well (51.2 percent from the field and 45 percent from 3-point range).
Philadelphia controlled the boards much of the game (22 offensive boards for the Sixers) while Shaq patrolled the paint for the Suns grabbing 13 of the team’s 39 rebounds. When you shot 39 percent, not to mention 12 percent on 3-pointers you tend to lose games in this League anyway, good rebounding or not.
Andre Miller led the Sixers with 16 points while Iguodala had 13 points but shot 3-of-12 from the field. Worthy of notice were also 15 rebounds by Dalembert including 8 on offense, most of them when the game was over anyway.
The Suns (48-24) avoided a 3-game losing streak, the only team in the League without one so far, and won a game without having to spend too much energy.
“A winning streak’s about to start,” Stoudemire said in his post game comments in The AZ Republic.
That’s good news since they’ll play again tonight in New Jersey (4:30 PM).
Yours truly, Steve Fan
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Posted by Steve Fan
Blogger and Steve Nash enthusiast. Don't get in his way, he'll MVP your ass.
http://sonsofstevenash.blogspot.com
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