NBA Hoops Night: Hornets at Suns

This is the first of an occasional, perpetual series where we watch a ball game, college or pro, and break it down all big-picture-like.

I know the Hornets are down (how long are they keeping Byron Scott around, seriously?), but I still had hopes for a competitive and entertaining game in Phoenix. I got one of those, anyway.

[UPDATE: Scott was fired like two hours after I wrote this. I'm sure I wasn't the first with the idea, but still.]

Steve Nash’s counting stats won’t look amazing, because the game was out of hand so early, but oh my God. He is back in a big way, along with that fast-break offense. I can’t emphasize this enough: that was among the best games I’ve ever seen Nash play. He seemed to openly mock the Hornets on the court, dancing between listless defenders and threading passes through them. Some of this was due to the Hornets’ apparent lack of effort. I can’t find any other way to describe their defensive performance. On one pick-and-roll between Nash and Amare, David West didn’t even bother to slide into the lane to prevent Stoudemire from unleashing a vicious dunk, taking a half-step in that direction before throwing up his hands and looking quizzically at his teammates. And this was the first quarter.

The rest of the Suns looked excellent as well. They began to run a little more last year after Alvin Gentry took over, and this year they have amped it up to a near-D’Antoni level. I was concerned about the post matchups for the Suns, with Channing Frye at center and the Hornets bringing West and Emeka Okafor. Well, it didn’t turn out to be much of an issue; West got hurt early and wasn’t effective after returning, while the Hornets simply didn’t give the ball to Okafor down low. Maybe it was because he missed badly on his first shot of the game, but I think throwing it down to Okafor at least once a possession could have slowed the game down (and he did show some nice post moves at times). As it was, the game was fast as could be, and the Suns were hovering around 40 after a quarter, they hit 75 at halftime, and they had 100 before the end of the third.

Jason Richardson is key for Phoenix. He’s good from distance, he can create his own shot, he gets out on the break, and he’s surprisingly agile guarding the post, as Frye played on the wing a lot, even defensively. When Richardson was on West, he held his own. Let’s see how he does against better scorers, though, or at least ones who aren’t mailing it in. A harsh critique of West, sure, as I’ve loved the guy ever since he wore the Xavier purple. But there’s really no other way to interpret what I saw last night. The Hornets are in need of a major shake-up, and I think the coaching staff is probably as good a place as any to start.

Things look much brighter for the Suns (oh yeah, I went there). Grant Hill has been steady now that he’s found the fountain of durability, and Frye and Jared Dudley are young, big bodies who can shoot from distance efficiently. Most intriguing to me was I guy I’d never seen before, Goran Dragic. Backing up Steve Nash, this kid is silky smooth and even flashed a decent jumper. He seems to know how to run the offense passably (at minimum), which means that Nash will have the luxury of getting extra rest as the season moves along. Last night, with the game clearly moving toward Phoenix early, Nash’s customary 1st-to-2nd quarter break was extended nearly to halftime, and the Suns didn’t miss a beat.

It’s hard to tell if all this is really a great portend for the Suns, or if it was just the leading edge of a massive Hornets’ collapse, but with questions like that, the answer is generally, “a little bit of both.” So it’s safe to lower expectations on New Orleans, maybe even out of the playoff zone. And Phoenix is the real deal. These guys score like mad, and they play a little defense to boot, something D’Antoni’s squads never did.

P.S. It seems wrong to write an entire post about a Hornets game and not mention Chris Paul. So, uh, Chris Paul is still amazing. There, I feel better.