Hawks-Suns Preview

By MATT BEARDMORE
Posted Feb 15 2012 2:16AM

Phoenix Suns coach Alvin Gentry gave a couple of his veterans the night off, and the result was not pretty.

There wasn't much that looked good about the Atlanta Hawks' most recent performance.

Phoenix goes for its fifth consecutive victory over the Hawks on Wednesday night at US Airways Center, where it closes out its first back-to-back-to-back set of games this season.

After the Suns (12-17) began this three-game stretch Monday with a 102-96 loss at Golden State, Gentry gave 38-year-old Steve Nash and 39-year-old Grant Hill the night off Tuesday. Phoenix responded by shooting a season-low 33.3 percent from the field in a 109-92 loss at Denver.

"(Nash and Hill are) a little run down. I don't feel it's necessary to stick them out there with the possibility of injury," said Gentry, whose team has dropped three of four following a season-best three-game win streak.

Opening a stretch of 13 of 16 at home, the Suns go for the season sweep over Atlanta after Nash - who was playing with a sore shoulder - led them to a 99-90 road victory on Feb. 6 with 24 points and 11 assists.

Nash has double-digit assists in six consecutive games for the first time since a 10-game run from Feb. 7-28, 2011.

"He's still one of the better point guards in the league," Hawks coach Larry Drew said after the Suns sent his team to a season-high third consecutive loss. "He's very crafty. He gets the ball to the open man. He's still making shots."

Atlanta (18-11) didn't do much of that on Tuesday, hitting a season-worst 34.4 percent from the field while opening its five-game trip with an 86-78 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Hawks had won their previous four road games.

"We just missed a ton of point-blank shots, and we turned the ball over at some crucial times," said Drew, whose team is 0-6 when making less than 41.0 percent. "Obviously you can look at our stats and see that their size and length did affect us, but we gave it our best shot."

Atlanta shot 39.3 percent on Feb. 6, missing 18 of 24 from 3-point range.

The Hawks, though, still have the league's best road scoring defense at 89.1 points per game.

The Suns are averaging 94.0 points while losing five of seven in Phoenix.

However, they've won four straight at home in this series and have dropped just four games to Atlanta in the desert since the start of 1986-87.

Hawks All-Star and leading scorer Joe Johnson, who missed 10 of 17 shots and scored 15 on Tuesday, is averaging just 12.8 points on 31.3 percent shooting during the losing streak in Phoenix, where he played from 2002-05.

He finished with 17 points last week against the Suns, while teammate Josh Smith added a team-high 18.

The Hawks will have to do a better job on the boards on Wednesday after getting outrebounded by 10 the last time these teams met.

Marcin Gortat and Channing Frye each grabbed nine boards in that game in Atlanta, while Hawks center Zaza Pachulia had a team-high eight in 26 foul-plagued minutes.

Gortat is among the league leaders with 17 double-doubles after scoring 10 points with 14 rebounds on Tuesday.

He had 13 points and 12 boards off the bench in the Hawks' last visit, a 105-97 Suns victory on Feb. 23.

Smith's 26 points led Atlanta.

Smith rallies Hawks past Nash, Suns 101-99

By BOB BAUM
Posted Feb 16 2012 12:28AM

PHOENIX (AP) The Phoenix Suns took Joe Johnson out of the game. So Josh Smith took over.

Smith matched his season high with 30 points and grabbed 17 rebounds to rally the Atlanta Hawks to a 101-99 victory over the Suns on Wednesday night.

Smith, whose career best is 32, had 20 points and 12 rebounds in the second half as Atlanta snapped a two-game skid and won for only the third time in eight games.

Steve Nash, back after a night off as the Suns played their third game in three days, had 22 points and 16 assists. Grant Hill, who also sat out Tuesday night in a loss at Denver, scored 18 points for Phoenix.

Willie Green added 20 for Atlanta, including 4 of 6 3-pointers.

Johnson, hounded by Hill all night, scored just six points on 2-of-10 shooting.

"I just wanted to be a little aggressive," Smith said. "I know they were keying on Joe and we needed offense somewhere else and me and Willie picked up the slack tonight."

Hawks coach Larry Drew said he was going to take Smith out of the game for a bit early in the fourth quarter and Johnson said don't do it.

"Joe said, `Leave him out there. He's young,"' Drew said. "I thought he was tired and he played quite a few minutes last night and I wanted to give him a quick blow. He wanted to stay in and I am glad he did because he played a phenomenal game. Inside and out and defensively he was all over the place."

Atlanta trailed throughout, and by 15 early in the second half, until what amounted to a four-point play with 7:38 remaining. Smith scored on a drive, was fouled and referee Tre Maddox called Nash for a technical. Nash was incredulous afterward but the official ignored him and walked away. Johnson made the technical, and Smith added his free throw to put the Hawks ahead 82-81. That started a 10-0 run that put Atlanta up 88-81 on Green's fast-break layup with 6:27 remaining.

Nash said that he was trying to tell coach Alvin Gentry that Atlanta was going into the zone defense, and the referee thought he said something else.

"It was tough. It really changed the momentum of the game," Nash said. "(Kirk) Hinrich called double-fist, which is their zone defense, so I went to the sideline and I really just mouthed to Alvin, `They're in a double-fist I guess and what zone offense do you want us to run?' and he (Maddox) thought I said, `They're horrible.'

"I don't want to make any comment about the referees. I'll just say it's unfortunate that he misinterpreted what I said. It was just a tough break. It changed the momentum.

The Hawks disrupted the Suns with a late zone defense.

"I thought their zone slowed us down, threw us off," Nash said. "We got some decent shots, but they're a little bit out of our rhythm, shots we weren't normally accustomed to because we haven't faced a lot of zone."

Green's 3 put the Hawks ahead 98-89 with 2:17 to go. Nash drove the lane, then somehow flipped the ball over his head with just enough spin on it for a layup while being fouled. The three-point play cut it to 98-95 with 42.9 seconds to go. The Suns got the ball back after Johnson's miss and Nash found Channing Frye open for what would have been the tying 3-pointer from the top of the key. But he missed and the Hawks escaped from there.

"The one thing we didn't do was panic," Drew said. "The tendency is to panic when you get down a little bit. We maintained our composure,"

The Suns, 0-3 in their stretch of three games in three nights, took the lead with an early 14-0 run that put them up 31-17 on Michael Redd's three-point play with 1:13 left in the third quarter. The Hawks, coming off a loss to the Lakers in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, went 5:40 without a point during Phoenix's outburst.

Atlanta twice cut it to two points in the second quarter, the last time at 42-40 when Zaza Pachulia sank a 15-footer with 5 1/2 minutes left. Nash and Frye followed with 3-pointers to boost the lead to 48-40 and Phoenix led 56-47 at the break.

Nash went down hard on the court with 4:41 to play in the third quarter and came up limping, but walked it off during a timeout and stayed in the game.

Notes: In the last three games, Hill has held Tyreke Evans, Monta Ellis and Johnson to a combined .205 from the field (8 of 39). ... The teams split the season series 1-1. The Hawks haven't won a series against the Suns since 1999, when the teams played only once. ... Atlanta is 7-10 when Johnson scores fewer than 20 points. ... The Suns committed 20 turnovers to Atlanta's 14.

Notebook: Hawks 101, Suns 99

Posted Thursday February 16, 2012 12:47AM

By Mike Tulumello, for NBA.com

THE FACTS: The Atlanta Hawks are perfecting the art of the zone defense. The Phoenix Suns, who led for almost all of the first three quarters Wednesday night in Arizona, couldn't crack the Hawks' zone when it counted most: down the stretch in a 101-99 Hawks' win.

"We couldn't get anything going against their zone...This is the team that probably plays more zone than anybody," Suns coach Alvin Gentry said.

"We got bogged down," Steve Nash said.

The Hawks moved their record to 19-11 while the Suns fell to 12-18. The Suns' season is hanging by a thread after losing all three of their first of two back-to-back-to-back sets.

Josh Smith led the Hawks with 30 points, which tied a season high, and 17 boards. Nash had 22 points and 16 assists for the Suns. Smith said he realized the Suns were keying on Joe Johnson, so "We needed offense from somewhere else."

The Suns, seemingly buried late in the game, went on a 6-0 run keyed by a falling-down, back-to the-basket, 3-point play by Nash to draw within 98-95. Channing Frye's 3-pointer with 12 seconds left could have tied it, but his shot fell well short.

"A great shot...I just didn't get enough of my legs into it...with a triple back-to-back." Frye said.

The Hawks, who rested Tracy McGrady on the hind end of a back-to-back set, broke a five-game losing streak versus the Suns.

QUOTABLE: "I was going to pull Josh (Smith) early in the fourth quarter. I was going to give him a quick blow. But he wanted to stay in. I'm glad he did. He had a phenomenal game."
-- Hawks coach Larry Drew.

THE STAT: Willie Green had 20 points off the bench for the Hawks. None of the Suns' reserves broke double figures.

TURNING POINT: The Hawks took off on a 12-0 run early in the fourth quarter to turn an 81-76 deficit into an 88-81 lead.

QUOTABLE II: "We did a great job of taking Joe Johnson (guarded by Grant Hill) out of the game. But that left other guys open, and they knocked shots down."
-- Gentry

FANTASY SPOTLIGHT: Rookie Markieff Morris and veteran Michael Redd have been, by far, the Suns' best bench players lately. Redd has averaged 12.0 points the past six games. Morris has averaged 14.3 points and 5.3 rebounds the past four games. Other Suns' reserves likely aren't going to do much for a fantasy team.

NOTABLE: The Hawks are 12-1 when scoring 100-plus points.

UP NEXT: For the Hawks, Saturday @ Portland, Monday @ Chicago and Wednesday @ NY Knicks. For the Suns, Friday @ Los Angeles Lakers, Sunday vs. Lakers and Monday vs. Wizards.

• Hawks: Collins, Horford
• Suns: --

• Hawks: --
• Suns: Nash, Price

• Lead Changes: 8
• Times Tied: 4

• Arena: US Airways Center, Phoenix, AZ
• Officials: #71 Rodney Mott, #55 Bill Kennedy, #73 Tre Maddox
• Attendance: 15392
• Duration: 2:13