Suns (5-1) at Wizards (2-4) pregame
By: Craig Stouffer
Examiner Staff Writer
11/08/09 12:36 PM EST
Suns (5-1) at Wizards (2-4)
The Wizards have lost three games in a row, and head coach Flip Saunders didn’t like anything he saw Friday night at Indiana. The Phoenix Suns have taken down two undefeated teams in their last three game with Steve Nash (19.0 ppg, 11.0 apg) showing a return to MVP form, Amar’e Stoudemire (19.7 ppg, 8.3 rpg) dominant inside in his return from injury and Jason Richardson (17.8 ppg, .522 3-pt pct) and Channing Frye (13.5 ppg, .485 3-pt pct) patiently waiting on the wings to knock down three-pointers.
What’s not to like?
“This is a difficult team to play, from an effort standpoint because they play two-man basketball,” said Saunders. “Nash and somebody else are playing and three guys are standing around, watching for you to help out, make a mistake and hit 3-point shots. It’s not a team that generates energy for you. You’re going to have to generate your own energy, no question.”
That job falls to Gilbert Arenas, who should have plenty in the tank – even if it is an afternoon game – because he only took 10 shots and finished with a season-low 13 points against the Pacers.
“Sometimes the best way to go against a good offensive player is to go at him at the other end, so they gotta play defense,” said Saunders, who didn’t expect Nash to guard Arenas. “That’s what you try to do as much as you can with Phoenix. They like to have a lot of possessions in a game, and they have players that like to get a lot of possessions. He’s going to have to be aggressive. The thing is, he’s got the ball, as far as to make decisions, and he has to be aggressive. If he has open shots at the beginning, he has to take those shots but not do too much to force things. I think at times he thought because we had some defensive players on the floor, he had to take over, and he just got himself into some trouble in the previous game and I think he made a conscious effort not to do that in the last game. What happened is, he bogged down a little bit, and everybody did.”
Saunders is putting Randy Foye back in the starting lineup after Nick Young’s one-shot-one-block-and-done performance on Friday. Running the second unit, then, will fall to some combination of Young, DeShawn Stevenson and Mike James….
Last and best quote from Saunders, on having Fabricio Oberto in the lineup: “We’re going with Fab because he’s one of our better guys in pick and roll. Nash is only going to run about 70 of them tonight.”
Get the fruit plate ready.
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