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Loss Ugly, But Nothing to Worry About
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If this indeed was a preview of coming June attractions we know there’s a horror flick coming soon to an arena near you.
Of course, it was actually nothing of the sort. This isn’t to say the Suns and Piston’s won’t meet in the NBA Finals. They very well could. But what it IS to say is that what we had here was an emotionally and physically drained Phoenix team running into a very good and just beginning to hit its stride Detroit team.
And that’s ALL we had.
This was one of those games that really told us nothing about Your Phoenix Suns. At least nothing we didn’t already know. I mean we knew that if they ever shoot 13 percent from three-point range, got hammered on the boards, and turned the ball over 22 times, and that their defense would not be as good as their three-point shooting, rebounding and ball handling, the results wouldn’t be pretty. Of course, we never dreamt they would actually do all of it in one game.
Yes, I realize there might be a tendency to say that since the Suns and Mavs are now back where they were in the standings before the Dallas game (the Mavs beat Boston on Friday night), that this loss undid all that was accomplished in that double-overtime win. But not so!
For one thing there is no real race for No. 1 in the West. Hasn’t been since the Mavs opened up a five-game lead in the loss column. And for another, the whole idea of the trip to Dallas was to prove that the Mavs were not invincible and still had problems getting over the hump in big games (see last year’s meltdown in the NBA Finals against the Heat). That mission could hardly have been accomplished in a more significant manner on both counts, and nothing that transpired in this performance agains the Pistons undid the impact of that accomplishment.
The bottom line: Think of this game in terms of the NBA’s unwritten no harm/no foul rule. From the Suns’ standpoint, this was certainly a foul development. But no real harm was done.
Now don’t you feel better?
