| Suns Can’t Miss, Take Game 1 Authored by J.T. Magee - May 9, 2006 - 12:21 pm
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Even with Elton Brand going off against the diminutive forwards Phoenix calls a front court, the Suns just couldn’t miss their shots. They wound up with a big win in Game 1, winning 130-123.
After being named the MVP in the shoot around, Steve Nash led the charge both in the lane and on the wing, scoring a game-high 31 points to go along with 12 assists and 3 three pointers. Raja Bell added 22, including 4-8 from beyond the arc. Shawn Marion, matching up against the much bigger and stronger Brand and Chris Kaman, scored 20, grabbed a game-high 15 rebounds and was perfect from the free throw line (10-10). Boris Diaw, also matched up with both Brand and Kaman for most of the night, scored 19 points, grabbed five rebounds and dished out five assists.
Leandro Barbosa and Tim Thomas came off the bench to score 17 and 12 points, respectively.
Brand was a beast tonight, scoring a game-high 40 and grabbing nine rebounds. He was 18-22 from the floor.
Sam Cassell scored 28 points and dished out four assists. Corey Maggette came off the bench to score 20 points. Shawn Livingston has one the best all-around games in his young career, scoring ten points, grabbing six rebounds and dishing out nine assists.
Quinton Ross scored nine points and Kaman had eight to go along with ten rebounds.
L.A. stuck to their game plan, running when they needed to and keeping it close for most of the game.
The Suns simply went on a huge run in the 4th quarter and closed the game out early, something they are going to want to do for the rest of the series if Brand continues to abuse their front-line. The 17-6 run after the official time out in the fourth quarter sealed the deal for Phoenix.
Phoenix allowed 60% from the floor, but they kept the game going and that’s what they want to do. When L.A.
went small, the Suns took advantage by continuously attacking the basket because Brand had to play away from it to guard either Marion or Diaw. They executed their game plan to perfection. Give the Clippers credit because they kept it close the whole game. They made sure that they were the ones closing out each quarter instead of the Suns. But Phoenix could not be stopped on offense. Why?
The MVP. It’s simple: whenever he gets named the MVP, he goes off. Last year, it was against his former team, the Mavericks. He only had a 13 and 11 game against them in Game 1, his average on the season, but he had two back-to-back triple-doubles (he missed a third by one rebound in OT) in that series. He went off tonight, scoring at will. He was able to do it in every way possible: pulling up for 3. Driving for the lay up. Scoring from the free throw line. To put it simply, he dominated. The Clippers must stop him before they stop the rest of the Suns.
If Phoenix wants to win this entire series, they must bait L.A. like they did tonight. Every media outlet will talk about it and it’s true: if the Clippers run, they will lose. They have to control the pace and not let Nash do his thing. Lucky for Suns fans, the Clippers have one of the few coaches who just can’t seem to get it done when it’s needed most: Sam Cassell.
Mike Dunleavy is a very solid coach and he’s definitely coached some teams that just couldn’t get over the hump. But Cassell is their coach on the floor. When he runs, the rest of the team will run.
When he makes sure Brand scores, everyone will play around him. But when he can’t play defense on the MVP, the rest of the team won’t play defense on their man because they will try to stop Nash from scoring. Lucky for Phoenix, Sam I Am lived up to that name tonight by not being able to contain Nash. Even when he wasn’t guarding him, he didn’t inform the likes of Quinton Ross on where to send Nash.
It’s simple: the Suns score like this and win one on the road, it’s over. They have to make sure they close out the game as early as they did. Once they do that, they will have a lot of time to rest for the winner of the Spurs-Mavs series, which should be one of the best Western Conference Semifinals in a long time. Congrats to Nash for the MVP and congrats for being able to go off and prove a point: this overachieving Suns team is for real. |
