Post Analysis

You know looking back, since my ill-fated proclamations before the DEN game back in mid Jan, the Suns lost 10 games before firing Porter and recommitting to the run and gun offense under new interm-coach Alvin Gentry.

The losses were the following:

at DEN
vs MIN
at BOS
at NY
at CHA
vs SA
vs CHI
at GS
at PHI
at CLE

But what if we had changed coaches/philosophies before the losing streak? Here's what I think *could* have happened. Lets say we were going to lose to BOS and CLE no matterwhat. Then we're on the road against DEN and at home against SA. Lets say we split those on account of Melo still being out for that DEN game and we're at home against SA. That leaves 6 games, 4 on the road, 2 at home, but all against sub .500 teams. Say we split those too. That's 4 more wins altogether (3 sub .500 + either DEN or SA). IMHO, those results are completely reasonable and we'd have a 36-20 record instead and be sitting 4th in the west and nobody would think that we'd be lotto bound at all.

And no, I'm not bashing Porter. He had a really tough job given the circumstances and players. In fact, I put equal (if not more) blame on the players for not buying into the system. I mean, it's one thing to try something and have it fail. It's another to not try it at all. Just looking at the renewed engery/effort from the team these last few games under Gentry, you can totally tell they had quit on Porter. I mean, even with Shaq clogging the middle, that's never an excuse for Amare to grab 1 rebound. And even now in the half court, our guys (Barbosa, Barnes, J-Rich) are cutting a WHOLE lot more that before. There's flow and movement. People are getting open for 3s and layups, even in the halfcourt. I've seen LOTS of Shaq-centric games over the years with half court sets in LA and MIA, and the Suns earlier this season were about the worst I've ever seen. Shaq would get doubled but still none of the Suns were open... how can that be? I really doubt Porter ever told the rest of the team to STAY still, DON'T get open, clump together. I'm also seeing a lot more activity on the defensive end too, with Barbosa in particular racking up the steals. Where were those active hands before? Just because you throw it in the post in one end, doesn't mean you don't get in the lanes on the other end. And no, this is not Gentry's doing. These changes were almost immediate and obvious in his very first game agaisnt the Clippers. Naw, our players could have played like this all along and for whatever reason (hate Porter, hate system, not having fun, not getting touches, etc.) choose not too. At least they're getting it now, I just wish they had done so earlier, even if it was under Porter.

Ah wells, enough lamenting on the past and what could have been. On to the future. Big game tonight. Suns at Lakers. Nash isn't expected to play though, after rolling his ankle during the CHA game on Tuesday. I know I'm a bit of homer on Shaq/Suns, but I'm not crazy. I wasn't really expecting us to win tonight even with Nash... I'm just hoping for a competitive non-blowout game. Go Suns!

And for your daily funny (ha, more like bi-weekly if I'm on my game), here's a Shaq funny from the Diesel himself, courtesy of his twitterblog.