[外電]No sign of stops here
PHOENIX -- Small addendum to the scouting report that says tiny Phoenix, if it
struggled inside with Lakers center Kwame Brown, has no chance with Clippers
big man Elton Brand:
That part couldn't be more true, but it's probably worth mentioning that the
Los Angeles Clippers still have to run after a lot of little Suns.
Which ain't exactly a bargain, either.
Brand punished the Suns with near-perfection Monday night in the Western
Conference semifinals and scarcely slowed them down. The team that likes to
say it has now won five in a row, because it still refuses to believe that Game
4 of the first-round Lakers series ended in defeat, responded to local fears of a letdown or fatigue or a Kobe Hangover to post a couple of 37-point quarters in the second half and win the Game 1 track meet by a robust count of 130-123.
"You can't have one lull against this team," Brand said after his 40 points --
on 18-for-22 shooting -- only inspired Steve Nash, Boris Diaw and Leandro
Barbosa to keep running, driving and kicking.
"They're too good."
Ever since the aforementioned Game 4 at Staples Center, where the Suns couldn't
hold a five-point lead with less than 13 seconds left and lost in OT, they've
been irrepressible. Even with Brand neutralizing a variety of coverages to
drain fallaways and turnarounds that Kwame can only dream of, and even with Sam
Cassell or Shaun Livingston going at Nash offensively and Quinton Ross waiting
for Nash at the other end, L.A.'s new hoop lords never slowed the game down.
"The tempo," Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy deadpanned, "wasn't exactly what we
needed."
Indeed. Nash, Diaw and Barbosa created so many opportunities with their
penetrations, either for teammates or themselves, that the Suns actually
outscored the visitors in the paint by the stunning margin of 48-42 ... on a
40-point night for Brand. After a week off since dispatching Denver, there was
little resemblance between these Clips and the group that finished fourth in
the NBA in field-goal defense (43.5 percent) during the regular season.
The Suns also blew the game open as soon as Dunleavy took the ill-advised risk
of trying to give Brand a brief opportunity to recharge for the stretch run
with 7:15 to play. The hosts' two-point lead quickly became nine before Brand,
who had 38 points when he left and only a deuce in the final 5:34, was rushed
back into the game.
"You're doing great and you sit there and say, 'Do you think you can give him
a minute?'" Dunleavy said. "I guess the answer was no."
Not when the Suns are in this mood, this loose. Raja Bell, just to name one,
couldn't have looked more liberated after seven games of wrestling with Kobe
Bryant. Bell hounded Cuttino Mobley into 1-for-6 shooting (and a spot on the
bench for most of the final quarter) and added 22 points.
Nash was looser still. He was honestly more angst-ridden at the morning
shootaround about the just-released roster of England's World Cup soccer team
-- and the controversial selection of an untested teenager named Theo Walcott
over Jermain Defoe of Nash's beloved Tottenham Hotspur -- than the state of his
tender ankle or the pressure of living up to the MVP statuette he collected
from commissioner David Stern in a pregame ceremony.
But maybe that's because he had already survived three games on the brink of a
much worse fate than a Game 1 defeat in Round 2. Without that comeback against
the Lakers, there would have been no pregame handoff of the Maurice Podoloff
trophy. He would have been forced to accept it at an uncomfortable news
conference while the Clippers and Lakers were meeting in a Hallway Series.
"I would have been so disappointed for him," D'Antoni said. "You can say other
[MVP candidates] were deserving, but don't try to tell me this guy didn't have
an MVP year. Forget all the stats and the 54 wins and the rest of it. People
don't realize the [impact] this guy has in the locker room. The fact we came
back [from 3-1 down] tells me he just might have deserved it."
No dispute from the guys who must quickly find a way to play at something
closer to their pace in Game 2.
"I guess we can look forward to when [Nash] is healed and ready to go on
Wednesday," Dunleavy said.
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http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dailydime-060509
Nash真不愧為MVP!
明天比賽也加油阿!
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