Lakers Suns - Commercial Free

I'm flipping back and forth between local coverage and ESPN coverage. I sometimes forget how much Bill Walton annoys me. Every once in a while he'll have a worthwhile insight, but he states the clearly obvious with equal fervor. "Tim Thomas has got to catch that pass!" referring to a wide open dish he dropped while standing under the basket. A veteran forward ought to catch a gimme pass? You think?

Kobe Bryant has 18 points after the first quarter. The Suns are leading. How's that for foreshadowing?

One channel up, Fox Sports AZ is also broadcasting the game. Long-time Sun Dan Marjle is doing the color commentary. "Don't bring Kool-Aid to a beer party!" he exclaims as Suns forward Boris Diaw blocks a shot. That's funny, but don't hold your breath waiting for the national networks to call.

Bryant has 30 points at the half-time buzzer. Suns are up by thirteen.

I've got the ESPN half-time show on. I already know the local one will be insufferable.

I've been worried about my Beloved Suns. The recent slump has brought me from thinking they had an outside chance of winning it all to thinking that they may be a first or second round upset casualty. It's not so much the Amare Stoudemire disaster, though that has to have taken an emotional toll on the team. It is the near absence of defensive concentration later in the game, that has been allowing opponents to overcome double digit defecits to dowse the Suns in the fourth quarter.

The Suns look good in the first half. But they usually have, even during this slump.

The Lakers look terrible. Kobe Bryant is sinking circus shots, or they wouldn't be in the game at all. Suns guards, particularly Nash, are getting to the basket at will, and the Lakers are making mental mistakes: missing point-blank lay-ups and committing silly, technical fouls. Phil Jackson coached teams do not normally behave like this.

Of course, they're playing the Suns, so there's always time to get back into the game...

Must use the rest of half-time to put my kids to bed.

While I am selflessly putting our children to bed, my wife sneaks onto the computer, and stays there, so the rest of these notes are all post-game.

Third quarter, Lakers forward Lamar Odom remembers that he's an all-star. Lakers pick up the defense a little, holding the Suns to 16 points in the third, while Odom and Bryant shoot them back to within one point. But then, with Steve Nash on the bench, Boris Diaw directs an early fourth quarter run that puts them up by a dozen with eight minutes left to go. Diaw might average a triple double some day. Nash came off the bench, Shawn Marion started scoring a bit (he had ten rebounds going into the fourth, but only four points), including a couple of his famously demoralizing alley-oops from Diaw, and the Suns never looked back.

Steve Nash has not lost to the Lakers as a Sun. Aside from spotty defense, mental lapses and an offense that relies on a single player for 50% of its' production, the Lakers love to run. Really, Kobe loves to run, and the rest of the team tends to jog around a bit while watching him.

If you get into a running game with the Suns, you are asking to get blown out. Kobe Bryant finishes with 51 points. Good for him! Suns win, 96-107. Come back in a couple of weeks, and we'll do it all again.