This one was on ABC, so I got to watch the whole thing. A few quick takes:
1. LeBron driving in the 1st quarter, and getting real nice results, but in that 2nd half they just bunched up and dared everyone else to beat us-if you saw, LBJ tried to force a drive once, and he ended up with a tough fadeaway from the left block, which shed some light for me on how tough it is for him to get to the rim when teams go to the "LeBron rules" on him. Real nice game, though: 1 flat-out RAW dunk, 3-6 for 3, hit some deep 2s, a few nice drives, and 1 beautiful feed. Only thing that was missing on his checklist was one of those and1s where someone just bounces off of him. Final line: 30/9/5 on 12-22 FG, 3-6 from the line. (Might like to see him take a page out of the Wade playbook and just go for the hole even when it's not there in hopes of getting a foul more, cause I can't remember the last time Flash only got 3 FTs, but it's tough to get the calls that Wade gets when you're built like LBJ.) Bottom line: King James was in MVP form today, which is especially impressive considering that the smartest kids his age are doing this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0NbrQl--ww&eurl=
2. BOOBIE. Kid is flat-out money from deep (better than DJ), plays good defense, drives, makes good decisions, and that move to set up the floater he missed was absolutely beautiful. There is no excuse for not playing him 20-30 minutes a game. He needs work on finishing inside, but that's about it. He should absolutely be starting, and I think he's better than any of the PGs we want to trade for, especially in our system with his ability to shoot.
3. Drew Gooden is Bipolar. His offense and work on the offensive boards was the only reason we stayed in this game as long as we did. Get ready for a 1-7 night next game.
4. Z got run off of the court, as expected. Not really a story(we all know what his game is), unless you consider that this happened in the Detroit series as well, Washington loves to go uptempo, and our big-money center might just be useless in the playoffs.
5. Larry. Jesus Christ. Unless he had shanked LeBron in the back of the leg during a timeout, I can't think of how he could have helped us less tonight. I think he's a much better player that he showed tonight, but wow. That's beyond bad. Holy crap. And it's not like it was just a shot selection issue-he couldn't get it done when he drove. Wow. I'm going to hold off of saying anything about Larry for a month. Hopefully he can turn himself around in that time.
5. Hot Donald, looking like the player we want him to be. The uptempo game suits him almost as well as...
6. Andy, our best floor-running forward by a long shot, played as many minutes as David Wesley.
7. Mike Brown had us on the edge of our seat tonight. The final minutes played numbers:
LeBron: 42 (duh.)
Gooden: 39 (good.)
Hughes: 38 (?)
Marshall: 25 (he had a good night.)
Boobie: 19 (should have been 30.)
Damon Jones: 20 (he hit 2 3s in 2 minutes, then did nothing of value. Boobie is a better player in every way.)
David Wesley: 16 (absolutely useless-can't even shoot anymore)
Andy: 16 (Why would a fast forward be anymore effective against Phoenix than a slow guard?)
Z: 13 (He got run off the court)
Snow: 13 (Did someone stage an intervention?)
Pavs: 0 (In a game he'd have been perfect in...Mike Brown!)
Bottom line: Phoenix is playing out of their minds right now. Unless something significant happens, which it well might, we have no chance of beating them. What this game reminded me of more than anyting was a Roddick-Federer match. We came out feisty, playing to our strengths and keeping it close, but once they hit their stride it was over. They got 115 points tonight on 77 shots. Mother of god. Nash got 15 assists, and it didn't even feel like he was dominating. Every single player on their team except James Jones had a great game. They were hitting more 3s than they usually can, but so were we, so luck really wasn't a factor tonight-we got schooled by a better team.
Also I don't get why Pollard is in a suit again. Sometimes in games like this, a good hard foul and some nasty picks can change the flow of the game.
but we definitely had some guys step up today, for Player of the Game. Suns' firepower just overwhelms teams though.