Worst Game We’ve EVER played April 25th, 2008
Wow what an amazing game that was tonight. I can’t even believe how terrible our defense was. Tony Parker looked amazing, Ginobili was up to his usual flopping and cry baby antics, Duncan displayed no emotion or heart as usual. Playing like this I would have thought we were watching an average NBDL team against the defending NBA champs. I don’t want to get too far down the slippery slope here but I have a few things I would like to say to the team.
Diaw
Loved the effort. I’ve been a pretty big critic of yours complaining you’ve not been aggressive enough but tonight you did your best and took it to Finely all night. Sometimes shots don’t fall and eventually you have to know when to say enough is enough.
Shaq
You had the toughest night trying to gaurd Tony Parker and Genobili one on one when the defense made the HUGE mistake of switching. Overall I appreciate your effort however I do have one criticism. We didn’t get you for offense and tonight you should have shared the ball more. It has worked since you’ve got here, draw the double, pass to Amare and he’ll dunk on somebody. Not sure what happened but tonight the plays just didn’t unfold like they should have.
Amare
I’m one of your biggest fans and generally feel relieved when you get the ball down low because I know either your taking it hard to the basket or you’re going to get fouled. Tonight I didn’t see that, not even once. In fact, I’m not even sure you had a single dunk, which tells me you weren’t passionate about winning. When you and Nash would do the pick and roll rather than catching the pass in motion and going in you stopped and shot jumpers. Almost as affective on the scoreboard since your shot has improved so much but there is definitely more energy created among the other players when they see you taking it inside. It looked like you had totally lost all your passion for winning tonight. Case in point: Tony parkers last shot of the half. He splits the top two defenders and you’re down low and you didn’t even come out on him. So instead of a block, changed shot, forced pass, he gets a wide open mid range jumper which just happens to be his bread and butter.
Whatever it is that is bothering you, get over it and get back to playing like you care. Stever Kerr’s job depends on it…
Nash
Nothing to complain about here. I think you did a great job as usual just the other supporting players around you didn’t have the heart or commitment needed to beat the Spurs.
Barbosa
You displayed more heart and character than anyone else out there tonight. Cheers to you for not giving up and trying to make a difference. One thing I would say is don’t be insecure about your abilities. You are the fastest, best finisher in the league. So when a defender hesitates for even a second, drive it right down their throat and make that layup.
Raja
Good looks man, they called some BS on you tonight. The only thing I can’t figure out is why D’antoni had you on Finely all night instead of Parker. You’re our best defender, to me it would make sense that you do your thing on the opponents best player.
Coach D’antoni
I have no idea what was going on tonight with our offense. The plays we were going for were not executed properly and a lot didn’t make sense on the defensive end. As I stated earlier, why not have Raja on Paker instead of Finely. Yeah Finely can shoot but he’s barely an option compared to the Spurs top three scorers.
Secondly, what was going on with using Diaw as the first option backing down Finely in the post? Maybe it was worth a shot a couple of times because of the size advantage but after it didn’t work why keep going to it?
I can’t say enough about the defensive lapses on the court tonight. For a lot of the game it looked like we were able to score relatively easy against the Spurs so that was definitely not the problem. We cannot keep the same match ups and play the pick and roll the same way if we have any hopes to win even one game in this series.
At last I must admit it’s easy to sit on my couch and critique what is going on but I feel what I said should be said in hopes that it inspires you all to make the necessary adjustments to move forward in the 2008 Playoffs. I’m sure no from the Suns will read this anyway so who knows if it even matters…
I’ve been a Suns fan since I was 10yrs old watching KJ, Barkely, Ainge, and Thunder Dan so when you guys are out there struggling making mistakes like that I feel like I’m right there with you. So please (if anyone from the Suns actually reads this) take these words as inspiration rather than a rant from some aggravated nobody…
Hope the next game works out better…go suns…

