Here come the Suns

The Suns play game two with the Lakers tonight. I'm very excited, although apparently we haven't won a game two in the last five series that we've played. That's ok, I have faith that today they'll pull through with relatively few headaches.

And then tomorrow it's a double header of games that I care about (even if mostly marginally). First up Denver will hopefully beat San Antonio's ass again. Although I don't know how likely that is with the full court press of doom and the ability to completely control the tempo of the game. The Spurs defense has been written about by much smarter people than me, but suffice it to say that San Antonio worries me more than any other team in the playoffs, even Dallas.

Speaking of, in the second game tomorrow night we get to see if Golden State can win two games in a row in Dallas.

TNT is running a short little ad that makes me very happy. In it they call the team "Leandro Barbosa and the Suns." I know it's because of his team high 26 points, but still to have a bench player be treated by the media like he's the star of the team? Very cool. Also indicative of the way this team works together.

And! Indicative of the fact that Barbosa just got the 6th Man of the Year award. I suddenly can't remember if I had previously capitalized that or not. But whatever, I'm just so very excited that he got it. As a result, there's all sorts of press on him right now. He seems to have appropriate perspective on it too. He still has his focus on the Championship where it belongs.

I've recently started getting Suns podcasts from suns.com, both video and audio. So far they're very good. I may talk about them more later, I may not--but right now it's way past my bedtime. Goodnight, and good luck to our heroes.

A few articles and some talk of the Suns v Spurs

First of all, I'm linking to a few Barbosa articles that made my day yesterday (regardless of the outcome of the Spurs game).

This article is about the "race" for 6th Man of the Year. Mostly it's a nothing article, but the head to head stats at the end are kinda interesting. I didn't see anything too surprising or notable in them though. Just kinda interesting.

This one is also about the 6th Man of the Year award, but it has nice little details about Barbosa's path in the NBA as well as a kind of discussion about the difference between a bench player and a 6th man.

Basically, Suns coach Mike D'Antoni does not consider either Barbosa or Ginobili "bench players." A true sixth man, D'Antoni said, is just as valuable as any starter.

I had been arguing that for awhile, well at least to my former roommate and to my sister, but this article says it much better. I'm not sure anyone really would argue differently, but I get tired of there being such emphasis on being a starter.

This is basically Paul Coro saying, "I think Barbosa is great, you should love him too!" I do, Paul. Thanks. (There's not a lot more that can be said about that one, but it's still worth a read, IMHO.)

I also found a blog entry tonight about Raja Bell being a vegetarian from the time he was two and Boris Diaw being difficult.

Speaking of Bell and the Spurs game on Thursday, it struck me as odd that he was the highest rebounder (with 13) in the entire game. He's not a big guy like Duncan and Stat, and he's much more of a perimeter player than those guys. No other Suns player was even in double digits. I have no answer as to why or what it means, but it was weird.

Nash also didn't do as well as usual with his assists (7, which isn't shabby in general), and he had a bunch of turnovers (well, 6). I think it's because of the amazing Spurs defense. I mean, they kept us to 38% shooting. Obviously, if the team can't make the shots, then the passes for the shots don't count as assists.

I wish Amare had caught that beautiful would-be pass between Duncan's legs, though.

Sometimes when I look at box scores I get irritated with announcers. They kept saying things like, "and another Phoenix turnover..." Which lead me to think that the Suns must be doing really poorly in that regard compared to the Spurs. But no, it was about the same for both teams.