| Suns Close Out Warriors, Win 8th In a Row Authored by J.T. Magee - December 8, 2005 - 6:11 pm
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The Suns were led by Nashty, who finished with 28 points, 14 assists and shot 10-10 from the line. The other stud for them was Shawn Marion, who scored 27 points, grabbed 14 boards, recorded 3 steals and was 4-6 from 'yond. Kurt Thomas finished with 16 points and 17 boards, but shot just 33% from the floor. Raja Bell scored 19 points, 15 of which came from the 3-pint line. Boris Diaw scored 10 points, had 10 rebounds and dished out five assists.
Baron Davis led the Warriors with 28 points, but missed eight of his 11 attempts from the 3-point line. Mike Dunleavy, struggling throughout most of the season, finished with 21 points and nine rebounds, starting in place of Troy Murphy, who sat out of the game because of flu-like symptoms. Derek Fisher scored 18 points on 9-13 from the floor. Jason Richardson scored 17 points and added nine rebounds, as well as chipping in three steals, two coming in the fourth quarter.
Phoenix has been hot lately, winning their 8th straight. Even though only two of those victories were on the road, they've been doing something that has plagued them from becoming an elite team: holding their opponents to a low filed goal percentage and out reboundinng them. In their eight game winning streak, their opponents are shooting around 41%, and that number is rounded up. As far as their rebounding goes, in five of these eight games, they've out rebounded their opponents a total of 253 to 207, or 50.6 to 41.4. In the other three games, they've been out rebounded by eight. As in in that's the total number of rebounds.
But there are negatives, too. In this game, they allowed too many inside shots. Granted, they don't have a big body to protect the basket, but a lot of those were simple post-ups and cuts to the basket. Golden State made a living going inside and it kept them in the game. Although Phoenix won this game, it was more or less Golden State losing it in the end. The Suns just made key baskets to win it. Phoenix came through on the road, but if they want to win games like this more often, they need to stop teams from going inside. |
