Friday Link Dump
Not a good week thus far for the Suns. Brutal, overtime loss to the Pistons with awful officiating? Check. Painful, embarrassing loss with guys just not showing up? Check.
A win in a revenge game against a suddenly red-hot Sixers team followed with a solid practice against the Nets will go a long way in getting this team back on track and ready for a home and home next week with a Nuggets team who just got a shot in the arm.
Some links from this week:
-GREAT post from TrueHoop on the rules for timeouts and how technical fouls are tied in. See the update for how the Suns/Celtics triple-overtime thriller helped rewrite the rules.
Still can't believe Westphal is coaching with Avery.
-pretty rare, but the Suns as a team made Basketbawful's worst of the night for their performance against the Celtics. Couldn't agree more. They STUNK.
-also via Basketbawful, video of Charles Barkley dropping 56 points on the Warriors in Game 3 of their '94 playoff series. I encourage you to watch the whole video, I really do.
It's every point Barkley scores and its incredibly fun to watch. Note Chris Gatling being prominently involved and the complete lack of defense played by both teams. Also note that was a great, great Suns team and Mario Elie can burn in hell.
-Jack McCallum sees the Suns with a first-round matchup against the Jazz. It's usually at this point where I say how scary the Jazz are and that Deron Williams and Boozer's eyebrows give me nightmares...but every team in the West has something that scares the hell out of me.
Point is, there's no way to predict what will happen and how the cards will fall. No one wants to play anyone.
-Simmons also weighs in on the Western Conference and how he sees things shaking out. He does a damn fine job (I wish he'd just write NBA all the time, I really do) and hits the nail on the head for the Suns, especially with this:
Biggest weakness: Other than the obvious defensive deficiencies with Nash (and to a lesser extent, Barbosa and Amare), you know what's weird about this team? They never, ever, EVER seem to get calls in big moments. You'd think with good guys like Nash, Shaq and Hill that the refs would be falling all over themselves to favor Phoenix, but it's actually the opposite -- for instance, in that Detroit game this week, the Suns lost in overtime because of three indefensibly horrible calls in a row. We might see Mike D'Antoni pistol whip a referee before everything's said and done this season.
(Follow-up tangent: It's incredible to me that Shaq, one of the 12 greatest players of all-time, doesn't get any respect from the refs at this stage of his career. Remember the way Kareem was treated from 1985 to 1989? You couldn't breathe on him without getting a foul, which made no sense because nobody liked Kareem! Meanwhile, everyone loves Shaq and he gets called like he's Jamaal Magloire. It's legitimately bizarre. Even Reggie Miller was getting every call at the end of his career, and he wasn't one-fourth of the player that Shaq was. I don't get it.)
I'm not so sure I'm prepared for losing in the playoffs but if it's at the hands of the Lakers in the Conference Finals as he predicts, I will completely derail.
-Shaq thinks KG doesn't play defense. I know he's trying to prop up Amare and give him more confidence every day, but this is ridiculous. Apparently he didn't watch Amare whimper through the 3rd quarter and most of the 4th against the Celtics the other night.
KG clearly got in Amare's head and rearranged some furniture. He completely shut him down.
-big surprise, Pat Riley can't keep his mouth shut. The bitch of the entire situation is that if Shaq had done just that, none of this would be going on in the first place.
Shaq, we love you, but there's a time and a place for dirty laundry.
-Doc Rivers is happy for his former player.
-the guys at Hardwood Paroxysm were good enough to link to the blog. Thanks again, guys. Via their site comes David Stern being a sarcastic dick and dropping another "help me out."
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Posted by Black Jesus Disciples
I Wish I Had Three First Names Like Coach D.
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