Another sun-filled day in the desert, but this one carries more meaning. This one is the last day. The last day before that ugly, she-devil named ‘school’ rears her head back and returns into my life. Oddly enough I actually become a better blogger when school is back in session…it distracts me. Anyways, take a pause from football this weekend so I can give you my thoughts on the Suns/Bucks game from last night.
”Suns/Bucks? What?” Was probably your reaction…or you Google’d something inappropriate. I’m not a psychic. But last night I was fortunate enough to attend the Suns/Bucks game. And unlike Coup in Boston, I did not sit next to JoJo White. I did however find myself 5 rows behind the courtside seats and surrounded by rich white people. And the funny thing is the entire ‘rich white’ spectrum was covered. I saw the kind that wanted to lynch me and probably muttered to themselves ‘Now how did he get those seats?’ I saw the overly nice kind, like the stereotypical sweet grandmother. I also saw the stuck up, Cruella DeVille type. It was pretty neat to be honest. You’d be surprised just how much passion these people could have in them. And only because some of them look like they should be on a deathbed, not screaming at Boris Diaw.
As the few longtime readers may know I absolutely abhor Suns fans for their blind stupidity and belief in their club. I mean there is a difference between being really passionate and delusional. If any Knicks fan were to argue that they could make the playoffs…you’d label them an idiot. Ditto for the Suns fans as for three years I have had to deal with ‘Kobe’s not that good’, ‘Steve Nash is the greatest player ever’, ‘Amare kills Tim Duncan’ and the always great ‘The Suns ROCK!’. But they definitely made me raise an eyebrow last night. This may be a bold statement, but there are signs that Suns fans have gotten spoiled. When I went to the Celtics/Suns game last year there was a completely different vibe and atmosphere. The fans were wrapped and in tune with the game, cheering every amazing pass (even if the Suns didn’t score), showing all sorts of enthusiasm, generally having fun. At that same game a lady behind me even threw me useless Steve Nash trivia. She thought I should have been on ESPN because I knew he liked soccer and went to Santa Clara, her face paralyzed with shock as if I didn’t get the memo these were super secret things only Suns fans knew. Things have changed.
Suns fans have either gotten spoiled, lost their patience or something because the atmosphere for the first two and a half quarters of last nights game was tense to say the least. And I’m talking ‘you come home from school and your mom is waiting with your porn stash’ kind of tense. They’re taking advantage of the beautiful basketball they get to see night in and night out from Nash and co. Suns fans were groaning every time the Bucks scored, you would think that Phoenix was some sort of defensive juggernaut. And as dumb as I call them, even THEY know Amare has no defense. Although the man behind me said ‘Man he got posterized’ when Bogut simply hit a right hand jump hook over him. I don’t know what kind of posters he’s been looking at. He probably just heard that the other day and couldn’t wait to bust it out at the game. But I disgress. In a sense, the heavy expectations are putting entirely too much pressure on the Suns. I mean at every arena there are going to be hecklers, and people who are nervous…but when the whole arena seems nervous there is a semi problem. Your home crowd is supposed to lift you up, and while the crowd did get rocking (more on that later) they only did it when Phoenix had cut the lead down to 2. It feels like if there is any adversity in US Airways Center (and there will be when Duncan comes to town), the fans may not rally as quickly as they have in the past, it seems as if the fans are in ‘Oh not this mess again’ mode.
(On second thought…can I blame them? They’ve had a break go against them in nearly each year of these runs. Sure they’ve overreacted to them, but losing Amare, Joe Johnson that one year…has it taken a toll? No. They’re just soft.)
Enough about the fans…onto….The observations:
- I love US Airways Center for a couple reasons. The first is its intimate, box-like feel. There are only 2 levels and the luxury suites aren’t gaudy and don’t seem to interfere with the game-watching experience. The other…the women. I missed at least 10 of Boris Diaw’s 21 points just staring. If the Bucks hadn’t of played so well in the 1st half I would’ve been able to play ‘OMG Are Those Fake?’ and ‘How much money does that guy have?’ Awesome.
- Suns really struggled guarding the pick and roll. Amare stepped up to help off penetration late which led to Bogut layups or Amare played the pick too soon and Bogut slipped to the hole. That has to get fixed ASAP.
- Andrew Bogut absolutely demolished Amare Stoudemire. Look at the box score, 29 points, 11 rebounds, 14/16 shooting. He killed him and even the fans knew it. They must melt when they hear Duncan’s name. I mean Amare’s post defense was basically to let Bogut post where he wanted and then lean on him. Basketball 101 tells you when you have the ball in the post as an offensive player you want to feel where your defender is. Amare helped Bogut out and he pivoted his way to 29 on the night.
- By the way…if Bogut had a killer instinct he could be really, really, good. He didn’t once demand the ball, he was just happy facilitating the offense in the second half. Milwaukee should have pounded Amare all day until Phoenix had to double-team. Instead in the 3rd quarter they went to the ‘pass, cut, move, insert player’s name shoots a jumper’ offense that gave them 18 points.
- I’ll tell you how bad Boris Diaw is: I didn’t even know he had 21 until I looked at the box score this morning. I guess you could call it a ‘quiet 21’ but come on now. If I was an opposing coach and I wanted one player to grab 21 offense rebounds it would be Boris Diaw becuase I know he would miss 75% of the putbacks.
- Steve Nash was lights out last night. Lights. Out. I’m not sure we’ll be able to properly appreciate him until after his career is over but he can do so much on the court its not even funny.
- The halftime entertainment was horrifiying last night. I’d rather have watched middle school girl’s basketball than that. Here’s the description so you can feel the gut-wrenching pain I went through. The PA Announcer said ‘Royal Dance Works’. I should have known something fishy was up but I stayed positive. Silly me. I knew I was in trouble when a bunch of middle school to high school aged white girls started running out on to the court. (Off the subject but I hate the fact that girls can be anything between 12-21 these days.) They were soon joined by white males. This was going to be a car-wreck. The music started playing and they immediately started krumping like they were in Rize. Except they were horrible. I’ve never felt bad for people this quickly in my life before. And this ‘dancing’ continued for minutes, I’m not sure I can describe but there were moments where I felt like I was watching two people who couldn’t dance, awkwardly try at homecoming all over again. And then, as if the Big Man upstairs is toying with me..they bust out the SUPERMAN! They brought it back from the grave and killed it again. It was the worst group superman ever, even Soulja Boi would be ashamed. And the worst part is their routine kept dragging…players started coming out and looking at each other like ‘What’s going on’. Finally it ended…but it was painful. Thankfully all the rich people went to go do what rich people do.
- I saw Steve Kerr for 0.5 seconds. Yep…that’s my Steve Kerr story. If he had been walking slower I would’ve dropped an ASU over U of A comment…but he was waving to old, rich people. I’m not feeling him with hair though. Oh my god I’ve turned into a girl.
- Sean Marks claps….a lot. It was so funny to
watch him, DJ Strawberry and Piatowski conversating at the end of the bench. I haven’t had that much fun imagining a conversation since Matt Caroll and Boumtje-Boumtje warmed the benches at the Rose Garden. - One of the highlights of the nights: Sean Marks and Jake Voskuhl exchanging a handshake/hug before warming up for halftime. Unreal. Also unreal was Michael Redd conversating with D’Antoni during halftime warmups. No…that wasn’t the unreal part. It was that as Redd was finished, Voskuhl went up to him and chit-chatted and then Charlie Bell did right after. D’Antoni was practially there the whole time but like a 15 year old boy with his crush I guess they didn’t have enough courage to talk to the man. I can also only assume Charlie Bell said ‘Please trade for me, I’m way better than Marcus Banks, save me please.’
- I wanted to go tell Mo Williams he got the last laugh by not going to Miami but I didn’t.
- Second favorite highlight of the night: the Suns dancers. Good looking but cannot dance to save their lives. Before the start of the second half they were out-of-bounds dancing. If you’ve been to an NBA game you know the dances you don’t pay attention to because a) the game is about to start again and b) they really aren’t doing anything but bouncing around. Except these girls were so spastic and random it was hilarious. There was no coordination, each girl was doing her own thing. And what made it classic? There was a delay to fix one of the baskets so they had to keep dancing. You could visibly see their smiles getting phonier and phonier, their brains shrinking trying to think of a new way to clap their pom-poms or stick their butt out. I’ve never seen a group of people so relieved when that delay was over.
- Back to getting on the Suns fans case…they are definitely bandwagon fans right now. Suns were down 72-64 and it was dead silent in the arena. They tried to get a DE-FENSE chant going. Except for the whole posession the crowd said nothing, it was one of the most awkward arena silences I’ve ever witnessed. I mean wait till you hear ‘BAM BAM’ and then nothing instead of defense. What made this horrifiying is that when the Suns cut it to 72-70 the fans were cheering, chatting, clapping, on their feet, it was ridiculous. I mean at least their honest about the shallowness around here.
- I feel conflicted watching Cedric Ceballos as the in-arena host. Like do I applaud him and give him credit for being really good at his job and keeping the fans hyped up. Or do I scratch my head and wonder if anyone knows that this guy averaged 20 points per game once and was an All-Star? How do you fall like that? Who knows.
- Completely got burned during the t-shirt throwing contest. I’ve always wanted to catch a t-shirt at a game, ever since I was about 8. I had the perfect seat because I knew the girls couldn’t throw that far. Sure enough, “Audrey” tosses a high one in the air. I mean it is practically a lob and I see it is coming right to me. My insides get a little nervous, my smile a little wider and I prepped myself to catch this one. Unfortunately my friend to the right puts her hands up in front of mine, BOBBLES the t-shirt and it drops two rows in front. She recieved the glare of death. But I had another chance. One of the Suns dancers made eye-contact with me as I did the dweebish ‘point to yourself and say right here’ motion. She nodded her head and rared back to throw it right at me. She’s the Byron Leftwich of T-shirt throwers. It sails right, goes right to my friend. I at this point am absolutely crushed. But before I can even get all angry and be like ‘Come on you know that was for me’ she GIVES IT AWAY TO A LITTLE KID BEHIND ME! The nerve.
- Yi is going to be good in this league because he is so smooth. I know I said this before but damn he is the guy at pickup who looks like he is going to make everything but his team rarely wins and sometimes he scores like 1 point. His mechanics are great. If Michael Ruffin was 6’1 he would be the worst basketball player of all time. Royal Ivey reminds me of the guy in pickup who wears the full tights or an arm sleeve/wrist band, has the shoes and gear on, the guy you whisper to your friend ‘Man we gotta watch out for him’. And then you realize within the first two trips that he really isn’t that good. Also there was no one happier than Jake Voskuhl last night. He has the classic ‘Man I am so happy to be in the L’ smile and face on all night.
- Suns are only going as far as Amare’s D, Raja’s 3, Barbosa’s O and Boris Diaw carry them.