 (Josh Greene/Suns Photos) |
By Josh Greene, Suns.com
Posted: May 27, 2005
Memorial Day Weekend has always signaled the start of the travel season, so the timing is perfect for the Suns, who find themselves on their most important road trip of the year.
Down 0-2 in the Conference Finals against the Spurs, the Pacific Division Champions boarded their charter flight to San Antonio Friday afternoon knowing that the next two games are as important as any they've played the past seven months. A win in either Saturday’s Game 3 or Monday’s Game 4 will bring the series back home to Phoenix on Wednesday, but the Suns aren't going in looking for a split.
“I don’t want to go out like this,” Amarế Stoudemire said. “We have to fight and play hard in Games 3 and 4, then come home and take Game 5. We got Joe (Johnson) back. We’re a strong powerful team now and we’re ready to go.”
While most playoff teams might look at an 0-2 hole with the next two games on the road as a real detriment, remember that this Suns squad had the best road record during the regular season.
“I don’t think it matters that we’re down 0-2,” Steve Nash said. “I don’t think it matters where we’re playing. I just think we’re ready to go.
“All we can do is keep trying, keep trying to do the best we can. We're going to give ourselves a chance and see if we're good enough. If we're not, we're not. We feel every bit as confident going into this game as going into Game 1.”
While many detractors are claiming the Suns’ fourth quarter woes in Games 1 and 2 were to blame for the back-to-back losses, Jim Jackson said the most damage was caused by the little things that didn’t happen in the early going.
“A fast break here or there, a lay-up here or there, or an offensive rebound – instead of us losing by three, maybe we win by two,” the veteran swingman said. “It's been a bad predicament, going back to the Dallas series. From that first game, every game we played we were down at the end of the first quarter. That's not a good predicament to be in because you're always scrapping to fight back to get back into the game. If you are spotting a team five or six points, against a team like San Antonio, you can't do that.”
Suns Head Coach Mike D’Antoni is perfectly fine giving the Spurs their due. San Antonio's had big contributions from the likes of Manu Ginobli and Robert Horry all throughout the series, not to mention the usual headaches solving the riddle known as All-Star Tim Duncan. Still, he’s confident the Suns can bounce back, and the time to do it is Saturday and Monday at the SBC Center.
“We're not playing just any team,” he said. “We're playing San Antonio, so we're going to have to have some luck, we're going to have to get some calls, we're going to have to hope they miss some shots. Then we're going to make some big shots. It always comes down to that.
“If they continue to play well, we’ll just be a little bit better and we’ll be okay.”