The Post Up: Fun Suns

by Holly MacKenzie

Had a little bit of a struggle last night.

Lakers @ Warriors. And it was a close one. My heart was entirely conflicted. This is why I need to learn to be solely a basketball fan instead of a basketball fan who grew up Lakers and has fallen in love with the Warriors.

Unfortunately for me, (or fortunately, depending on which half of my heart you were asking),  the Warriors fell apart in the final minutes after leading for most of the game. They played so well and worked so hard, but it was all for naught.

I need to be honest and say we won’t have too much in the way of recaps today because I didn’t see much of anything last night. I saw Lakers/Warriors and a few minutes of Phoenix/Clippers and that is it. Besides Bron doing his thing in Toronto, of course. I’m hoping you guys can help me fill in the blanks.

The news of the night was the Chandler-Wilcox/Smith trade being rescinded after Chandler failed his physical. Imagine how awkward it is for the front office of New Orleans, to “welcome back Tyson with open arms”. You don’t really have much choice now, do you? I loved the idea of Tyson in OKC, but I’m happy for Chris Paul and Byron Scott who were so obviously not feeling the trade.

Thrilled to see Gerald Wallace with a great game for the Bobcats last night. Big win for Charlotte over Indiana and even better to see G-Wall healthy.

I didn’t want to hear that Danny Granger left that Pacers/Bobcats game in the first quarter with a sprained ankle. Let’s hope that isn’t anything too serious.

While sitting at the game last night, I realized I need to figure out this Twitter madness. I’ve got an account, @stackmack (shout out to Stack Jack!), but I don’t know, I can’t seem to get the hang of it. I’ve been reading the stuff other people have been writing, but I don’t get the exchanging of messages, I always forget to update, I’m an awful twitter-er.

That we have video of Ivy getting rid of the ‘rows up on TrueHoop makes me wonder about the world we live in. This media accessibility we have is amazing. The fact that I sat through three plus minutes of Iverson getting a haircut (it was at the half, at least), makes me shake my head.

If you only read one newspaper article today, please, make it this one. I jacked this off of a friend’s facebook profile, so thanks go to him for posting it so I could read and be thankful once again of the lessons this beautiful game can teach and for the pain that it can heal.

Really, read the article.

I want to ask a player to let me try out their Beats headphones. Those things are everywhere.

The speed that LeBron can switch from mature, professional NBA player giving a postgame interview to 24 year-old guy getting ready to go shower, singing, wailing and joking with his teammates is amazing.

Pretty fun to watch, too.

Sebastian Telfair. It feels so good every time I see this guy pull out a great game and last night against the Heat, he had 30 points and 8 assists and it felt great. 5 turnovers? Whatever, I’m basking in the 30 points. The Wolves won that one 111-104 as well.

Can someone explain the Brad Miller to Chi trade for me? I just don’t really get it. Thanks. The Bulls managed to defeat the Bucks last night, 113-104, behind 31 points from Kirk Hinrich off of the bench and 18 points and 9 assists from Derrick Rose. The Bulls won despite being outrebounded 50-38, as the Bucks shot only 38% for the game.

The Hawks won 105-100 against the Kings last night and Al Horford had a nice line of 18 points and 18 rebounds.

Brandon Roy led the Blazers over the Grizz 94-90, with 24 points and 9 assists.

Anthony Randolph has the best angry face. He has such a baby face. If Jermaine O’Neal looks like he’s 12, Randolph looks like a toddler. He was great last night though and finished with 14 points and 12 rebounds in the loss while Stephen Jackson led the Warriors with 24 points and 9 assists. Corey Maggette had 24 off of the bench and Jamal Crawford added 23. The Lakers were led by Kobe Bryant’s 30 points and 8 assists. Pau Gasol had 24 points, 12 rebounds and 5 rebounds, Lamar Odom added 20 points and Trevor Ariza scored 17 off of the bench including back-to-back three’s to help the Lakers take control of the lead in the final minutes. The Lakers took the game 129-121, thanks to a fourth quarter that saw them outscore the Warriors 39-29.

The Raptors were without Chris Bosh and with their two newest players, Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks. Unfortunately, those two didn’t replace the one who was out and while the Raptors were able to hang with the Cavs in the first half and trailed by only six at the half, they lost control of things again in the third quarter when they were outscored 24-15, and fell behind by as many as 21 in the fourth quarter. The Cavs handled this one easily, cruising to a 93-76 victory. While LeBron started out distributing the ball to his teammates, he started scoring in the third and finished with 20 points, 9 rebounds and 9 assists. Shawn Marion finished with 10 points, 6 rebounds and a team-high 6 assists as Joey Graham scored 15 and Jose Calderon had 13 but only 3 assists to go with 3 turnovers. Zydrunas Ilgauskas scored 22 for the Cavs and Mo Williams added 17.

The Suns dropped 140 points on the Clippers Monday night. Last night, they headed to L.A. for another game against the Clippers and the result was the same, except the Suns added two to their points total. Taking down the Clippers 142-119, the Suns showed once more that they can play the running game that they’d all missed so much under Coach Porter. While Amar’e Stoudemire had been involved in trade rumors all over the break, it appears they may keep him in Phoenix, especially after he put in a 42-point, 11-rebound performance last night on 15-20 from the floor. While the Suns topped 30 in each quarter, they had 41 in the fourth while the Clippers had 29. The Suns had 34 assists to only 7 turnovers and shot 58% from the floor as compared to 47% from the Clippers. Al Thornton had 33 points to lead LA while Eric Gordon scored 23 and Fred Jones added 20 off of the bench. Steve Nash had 21 points and 12 assists for the Suns and Shaquille O’Neal added 16.