Suns Post 7th Straight Against Overmatched Kings
In a game that wasn't even close, the Phoenix Suns were victorious over their Pacific Division rival Sacramento Kings. The most glaring stat of the night was Steve Nash's 20 assists, an NBA season high. The mark is only 2 off of Steve's career high of 22 assists also.
The Suns have now won 9 of their last 10 games after starting the season 1-5. This shouldn't be a surprise, as most basketball analysts picked Phoenix to make it to the NBA Finals this year. After a slow start, working in Amare and some other new guys, the Suns are starting to play their style of basketball - the rest of the NBA is in trouble.
Phoenix was paced by Leandro Barbosa's 26 points, Shawn Marion with 23, Amare Stoudemire with 17 points & 13 rebounds, and a big surprise from Kurt Thomas who finished with 12 points, 6 rebounds and 3 blocks. Mike Bibby led Sacramento with 21 points, but the Suns were so far ahead he could of scored 40 and it wouldn't have made a difference.
Knowing that Raja Bell was close to setting a record for 3-pointers in consecutive games (4 per game for 6 games so far), D'Antoni put Bell back in the game with just over three minutes to go. While making “some” effort to get him the ball so he could hit his fourth 3-pointer of the night, the overall team effort to get the ball to him was minimal. Sharp shooter (not) Pat Burke took it upon himself to shoot everytime he touched the ball in those last three minutes, and while he did make three 3-pointers and a couple other shots, it seemed pretty dumb watching it.