By Randy Hill
FOXSportsArizona.com
March 8, 2011
PHOENIX -- In an event that threatened to provide as much energy and drama as a junior varsity tractor pull, Tuesday night's intersection of the Houston Rockets and Phoenix Suns turned out to wildly entertaining.
Emphasis on the wildly. While we're not sure about the statistical probability of witnessing a triple shootout starring Vince Carter, Hakim Warrick and Kyle Lowry (they each scored 32 points), the odds had to be longer than Hak's wingspan.
It also should be noted that while watching two teams with their noses pressed against the Western Conference playoff glass, we also received some answers to several nagging questions.
We'll begin with ... drum roll ... what are the potential ramifications of the Suns' 113-110 victory? OK, on a night that included one marriage proposal on the hackneyed-but-still-exciting Kiss Cam (she said "Yes"), the Rockets now may be the focus of the Kiss-It-Goodbye Cam. After winning seven of their last eight and closing to within one game of the ninth-seeded Suns, Houston (33-33) took a damning step backward in a race for the postseason that includes several hot teams above them.
"We missed shots from guys that normally make shots and that's the way the game went," Rockets coach Rick Adelman, whose team shot 34 percent from the field in the first half, said. "It's a tough loss, a tough loss. We didn't guard them well in the second half and they made us pay."
The Suns (33-29) continued treading water during their six-game-road-trip hangover, but still embrace the variable of being even with the sliding New Orleans Hornets and raging Memphis Grizzlies in the loss column. With 20 games separating them from the finish line, the Suns -- now 1 1/2 games behind Memphis -- play seven winning teams in their 10 remaining road games and six vs. winning teams at home.
That brings us to our second question: How did the Portland Trail Blazers fare Tuesday evening in Miami? Well, the sixth-seeded Blazers refused to give the chasers much hope by knocking off a Heat team that is a far cry from what it expected to be.
Next question: Who won the battle of the back-up point guards? Yeah, it's rare that large anticipation accompanies an encounter of substitutes, but Rockets-Suns offered Suns newcomer Aaron Brooks going head to head with the player (Goran "The Dragon" Dragic) he was trade for.
For the record, this "Return of the Dragon" was not exactly compelling; the only Lee involved was Houston's Courtney, who managed four points of the bench.
Anyway, looking quite motivated, Dragic missed all four of his field-goal attempts and had three assists. The first performance against his old team would have looked less than stellar had it not been for Brooks, who managed to foul Dragic three times (Goran made 6 of 8 from the line overall) in his Phoenix debut. Dragic also blocked a Brooks runner and stole the ball from the guy who's supposed to make life easier for Steve Nash.
After missing all of his six shots from the field in two cameos against his former mates, Brooks gave way to Nash in the fourth quarter more than a minute earlier than Coach Alvin Gentry usually prefers. With Brooks looking a lot more tentative than he did in five promising road appearances, the mighty Phoenix bench erupted for 15 total points (13 of those were supplied by one player).
How about those starting points guards? Lowry, who bagged 7 of 11 shots from 3-point distance, certainly looked like a player the Rockets should have been starting.
Nash, slowed recently by lower-abdominal strife, handed out 14 dimes and committed only three of the Suns' 17 turnovers. His limited physical capacity may still be contributing to the diminished scoring (9 points), but he did make five big free throws down the stretch. Unfortunately, the sixth effort was a miss with 13:6 seconds left that kept the door open for Houston. But with Phoenix up by the final three-point margin, he bothered the Rockets' outlet pass and teammate Jared Dudley closed out hard enough to prevent Lowry from squeezing off a three.
"I should have shot it the ball," Lowry, who would have required divine assistance to unleash something reasonable over Dudley, said. "I should have shot it. I should have made it a clean look."
We're now up to the power forward questions. Here's the first: Could the Rockets find any productivity with Luis Scola (knee) missing a game for the first time in his four-year NBA career? Yes! And no. Rookie Patrick Patterson scored 18 points on 9-of-12 shooting off the bench, but starter Jordan Hill had 6 points and 3 rebounds. Scola might have gone for a lot more than those two combined had he played, because the Suns were starting Warrick, who has yet to be mistaken for Bill Russell.
Can Warrick help keep the Suns in contention while the starter is out?
Maybe, because in the space-efficient Phoenix offense, Warrick is pretty good at eating up any spoon-feeding opportunities from his point guard.
Nicknamed "The Wire," Warrick was starting in place of unexpected go-to-guy Channing Frye and bent the rim several times (dunking, not shooting jumpers) as a weakside duck-in during a few attention-diverting, screen-and-rolls involving Suns centers. In addition to posting a career high in points, he also collected eight rebounds.
"I know, collectively, everyone is going to have to step up their game," Warrick said of replacing Frye, whose dislocated shoulder could require 2-3 weeks on the shelf. "He's a big part of this team, this organization, and he's been playing so well for us; so I just wanted to go out there and be aggressive and just do my part."
The Suns' power-forward-by-committee plan -- using their stockpile of small forwards in a little-ball format -- didn't happen against Houston. The committee was a bit shorter than usual, too. One of the small forwards, Mickael Pietrus, exited three minutes into the second quarter after getting in two technical-fouls-worth of crabbing over a blocking foul called against teammate Marcin Gortat (on a drive by former teammate Dragic).
So, with Phoenix going Wireless for less than eight minutes the entire game, they're 1-0 without Frye, a statistic that inspired a post-game, a tongue-in-cheek notation on the board in the Suns' locker room.
How did the Suns deal with a Houston team that opens the game with 6-foot-6 Chuck Hayes at center? The reviews are mixed. By the way, the Rockets also use 7-foot, ground-bound veteran Brad Miller, but neither is an impediment around the rim and 6-10 four man Hill didn't seem all that engaged.
Phoenix starter Robin Lopez broke out of zombie mode long enough to flip in six points, but failed to bump into any rebounds during a foul-shortened 12:03 minutes of work. Gortat had a 13-point, 16-rebound line that looks nice on the surface, but -- looking more like "The Polish Jackhammer" -- he missed 9 of 15 shots from the field and 2 of 3 free throws.
Did the Suns struggle to score (again) in the fourth quarter with the Rockets blitzing Nash on pick-and-roll sets? Unlike most of the Suns' recent foes, the Rockets didn't bother trapping the Hall-of-Famer-in-waiting and surrendered 34 points.
Here's our final question: Could Rocket scoring machine Kevin Martin get any appreciable work done against Suns' serial defensive stopper Grant Hill?
No. After being on lock down in the first half (two points), Martin -- with the Rockets forcing the ball his way in the third -- finished with 17 points on 5-of-16 shooting. Hill, who provoked another post-game sermon on behalf of his defense from Gentry, also scored 19 points, making 5 of 8 shots (2 of 2 from deep).
Martin, cross-matched with Carter at the other end, was the target of several Vinsanity isolation post-ups in the first half and lost track of him several times in the second. Carter, who made 4 of 6 3s in the second half, had 15 in the points fourth while assisting Warrick on carrying the Suns home.
"The last game of the road trip and the first one -- the next one off the trip -- is usually the toughest one," Carter said, "but we were able to fight through it."
