If Coach D’Antoni is Right, Then Why Can’t the Phoenix Suns Beat the San Antonio Spurs? By Jason Kelly
04.25.2008 - Updated on 04.25.2008
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When Bluntman and I were walking to our pre-game dinner and beer at Seamus McCaffrey’s, he noticed something. “Your Shaq jersey is fading,” he said, “I hope it’s not an omen.” As we were leaving the arena, I took it off and began flailing it around. Walking away, I composed myself just in time to notice a homeless beggar. He now owns my Purple People Eater jersey. It will do him more good than me.
To be fair, Shaq has met or exceeded most expectations. He’s done just about everything tangible he was supposed to do on the court. He’s yet to deliver on those intangibles, though.
Can he, though, with this squad? With this coach?
Mike D’Antoni has been running his mouth off that the Suns are the better team and that they will “bust up” the Sp*rs sooner or later. I’m not mathemologist or anything, but I do remember Logic 101.
If the Suns have the better players, but keep losing, they must be worse at something else. Hmmm … the weakness on the Suns? What could it be?
I wonder what the locker room looked like at halftime tonight.
“Guys, don’t worry, we’re the better team. We’ll win.”
“Coach, how should we defend the pick-and-roll that’s been killing us for two and a half games?”
“Well, try harder. Play with more energy. And, by all means, try to hit more shots.”
While I tried to be modest in my last post, admitting that Coach D probably knows more about the Xs and Os of basketball, I have to wonder why he pulled Leandro Barbosa in the fourth when LB was the only guy hitting shots. Why wasn’t Steve Nash in more of the fourth? Really. Losing Game 3 is bad, coach. Were you resting them for Sunday?
The only solace that we have is that this series could lead to the firing of Mike D’Antoni. Bluntman sent a text message to his buddy (who shall now be forever known as “Chronic” – Bluntman’s sidekick), saying that Coach will surely be fired now. Chronic responded, “Kerr should have fired him at halftime.” Truer words may never have been spoken.
Except these words: After The Big Acquisition, Bluntman told me that the Suns would be a six seed, get bumped in the first round and Mike D’Antoni would get fired. So far, it looks like he’s two out of three. Of course, he also said that if the Suns could keep it to 12 turnovers or less, the Suns were a lock for the title (they had 9 tonight).
One last note in my stream of consciousness rambling:
On the radio, I heard a voice of discontent from the locker room. Amare Stoudemire lauded the Sp*rs’ offensive efficiency saying that they make the most of each possession and get good looks; they do not, paraphrasing his words, try to get up any old shot in the first few seconds.
[top image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blitheimages/]
