“It is a magnificent feeling to recognize the unity of complex phenomena which appear to be things quite apart from the direct visible truth.â€-Albert Einstein
We witness, in act two of our intense narrative, the inciting action, where the tone is set for our fair tale, the players fully established, and turns safely guarded in mystery. Our story is not the continued clash of pace versus defense, stodge versus vigor, nor some sort of coming-of-age for Amar’e. Instead it’s about unity, the centralization of effort from man to man, because for the first time, since the game which ended under the cloud of THE HIPCHECK, the Suns have pushed the Spurs against the wall and landed a haymaker. They’re not dangling off a cliff, but that breeze at their back ain’t the gentle sea.
Thing was, the game was mince meat. Easy to swallow Spurs domination. And then Jared Dudley took cover completely for a quarter and things were never the same. Dudley crashed the glass and brought with him the same attitude back to the Suns they had in Game 1: “We will not be bullied, we will not be frustrated, we will not be out-worked. If you defeat us, it is because you hit contested shots and things went your way again. But we’re not losing by beating ourselves. Not this time.” And the Suns responded.
I had several conversations with Graydon throughout this game, and after the third I called and told him “The Spurs are making super athletic plays and the Suns are lying in the weeds, tracking them by making the extra pass and running efficient offense. Where the hell are we?!”
The final five minutes though, were absolutely insane. There was no sense to it. None. Channing Frye picks up his fifth foul, and the Spurs fail to capitalize on it. The Suns run the pick and roll, the Spurs take six tries to figure out a solvent for it. The Spurs turned to George Hill’s perimeter game… and it worked. But The Suns had every answer, including two huge Amar’e Stoudemire rebounds. That’s right. Amar’e Stoudemire collected huge rebounds down the stretch. Please collect your bottled water on the way to the bomb shelter.
The role reversal in this game is what has Spurs fans stunned today. It was the Suns’ blue collar bench coming in to outwork the Spurs. It was Goran Dragic doing a remarkably great job on Tony Parker for the first six minutes of the fourth. It was the Suns fighting back from a deficit. It was the Suns overcoming the Spurs’ athletic dunks by Richard Jefferson with well-timed passes and cohesion. In essence, the moon flipped to the ground, did a handstand, smoked a bowl, and then ran away with the spoon.
Up is down, hell is heaven, and the Suns have their first 2-0 lead over Duncan’s Spurs.
There is not a person, not a single one, that thinks this is over. But what has happened is relevant. Because if the Suns are to defeat the Spurs, it has to start with something. It has to start with confidence, and they have that. They took a shot from San Antonio, a Tim-Duncan-rocking, Tony-Parker-midranging, George-Hill-treying shot and beat them on the glass and from the arc.
The point where it was over? Alvin Gentry sent Amar’e Stoudemire and Jason Richardson to join Steve Nash on the bench early in the fourth quarter. Popovich stuck with Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and re-inserted Tim Duncan. From the 9:30 mark of the 4th quarter until 5:47, the Suns faced the Big 3 with not a single one of theirs. The result?
The Suns bench unit outplayed the Big 3 plus Jefferson and George Hill. Even if it’s just a point, it means the Big 3 came back in rested and ready to work the pick and roll. Which they did, to the tune of one of Amar’e fiercest dunks and a final +5 run to put the foot to the throat. The same foot that’s been missing for so, so long against the Spurs.
Another interesting sideplot to that stint without Nash was this: via Synergy Tony Parker, two turnovers, 0 field goals with Goran Dragic defending.
Goran Dragic was the counter to Tony Parker that Nash wasn’t. Let that one rattle around in your brain. Dragic has the youth to maintain speed ahead of Parker, and is bigger than Nash to keep a physical edge on LeBaguette. It may have only been for a game, but Dragic’s work on Parker deserves considerable notice.
Meanwhile, everything Matt Bonner is not, Channing Frye is. Confident, able to knock down shots with a defender closing, a good inside defender, capable, actually belonging on a professional basketball floor. If the hope is that Bonner will counter Frye, the early results indicate a knockout for the Suns.
All this, and Lopez still didn’t play.
There is plenty to be concerned about. Ginobili is still creating havoc, and while the Suns have done a good job of focusing on not allowing layups at the rim like the Mavericks rolled the red carpet out for, the weakside clean-up by Duncan is pretty devastating. There’s still a lot of work to be done, and all of that is before the fact that George Hill is getting his feet under him and knocking down threes, both of which can be devastating if they become consistent. But also recognize that after all the talk of D’Antoni’s super-tight rotations and their failure to win in the playoffs, Popovich only had seven players play double digit minutes last night, and one of those was Matt Bonner. So really, he only had 6.25 NBA players play double digit minutes last night.
So now our scene changes and we begin the rising action, wherein the conflict is introduced. Whether that conflict will be the vicious response of a wounded Spurs team in front of a home crowd or the crescendo of Phoenix’s finest hour on the road, we honestly don’t know. The question as to the result of this series has been re-opened. Hope, glorious hope is on the horizon. But beyond it lies the same dark cloud of history. As I told Graydon, “All this means is the Spurs are bent on finding a new way to kill their souls.”
Fin. Act II.
