For Phoenix, 30 Games Until the Truth Is Told
The Los Angeles Lakers were in an unenviable position last night in Phoenix. Win, and you’re supposed to because the Suns are getting acclimated to the Big Philanderer, Shaquille O’Neal. Lose, and Phoenix becomes an instant NBA media darling with O’Neal as a conquering hero. Fortunately LA won, 130-124, led by Kobe Bryant’s 41 points. And fortunately Shaq’s biggest effect was on the back of Raja Bell’s - a perpetual-motion hack machine - head with a little less than three minutes remaining in the game. (Now for my NBA officiating crew rant…)
Unfortunately for everyone else, in the third quarter just when LA was about to take control of the game, the Bennett Salvatore-led officiating crew wrestled the game from the Lakers. Salvatore and friends turned what could have been a disastrous 12 minutes for Phoenix and the NBA, into a game that wasn’t decided until the final seconds of play.
Are referees really so stupid that they fall for Steve Nash’s, crumple to the ground as if hit by Shaq running full speed flops, or is he just that good at wool-pulling? And how is it possible that O’Neal isn’t told to walk when he goes low and takes out Pau Gasol’s legs and then has the nerve to get vociferous in his complaint that he committed no such foul?
Despite Steve Kerr’s Big Gamble in bringing O’Neal into the fold, it is clear that Phoenix will play no better defense with him than they would without him. With the loss to the Lakers, the Suns are now 5-12 against the next best eight Western Conference teams; 0-1 with The Big Aged One.
It is apparent that the Lakers’ athletic 10-player rotation causes Phoenix major problems on both ends of the floor. Nash cannot trick Derek Fisher like he tricks officials. He is too slow to beat either Jordan Farmar or Sasha Vujavic off the dribble. Though he is two steps slower than he was 10 years ago, O’Neal is an adept passer and if allowed, can still bully his way to a double-double.
Amare Stoudemire will obviously benefit from O’Neal’s presence by being freed to snare offensive rebounds and take his man off the dribble and drive unencumbered into the lane. The rest of the Suns should be the happy recipients of O’Neal’s passes out of double teams as they cut through the lane.
And yet Phoenix will be no better where it counts - defensively. Sure it’s just one game with O’Neal, but it is painfully evident that the Suns are no better defending than they have been at any point the last three years. O’Neal cannot defend from the elbow to the low post - and Stoudemire refuses to commit to the less glamorous end of the floor. Their combined weakness is ineffectively dealing with the very basic pick-and-roll play.
Los Angeles, within the loose structure of the triangle offense, can morph into a dangerous pick-and-roll team. The play is a staple of the offenses of San Antonio, Utah and New Orleans. That would make four very good basketball teams that can score at will against the Suns. And that makes them, along with the interior defense-challenged Dallas Mavericks, contenders for the next-highest seed in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs.
After the Lakers game The Big Overstater was optimistic about his new team’s potential. “When we get used to each other we’re going to be the most dangerous team ever created.”
Phoenix head coach Mike D’Antoni, on the other hand, was much more sober. D’Antoni intimated that he liked what he saw offensively but was still miffed that even for stretches, O’Neal’s presence did not make the Suns a better defensive team. He said that if they don’t get better on the end of the floor that counts, his team will have to do what it always does to win games: outscore opponents.
Perhaps that was truth spoken in a candid moment, perhaps it was a subtle swipe at Phoenix President of Basketball operations and GM Steve Kerr, who desperately sought O’Neal. Kerr’s vision is to turn the Suns into a team that averages two points less a game than they do now, but allow five points fewer.
Those three extra points on the plus side of the ledger can mean the difference in a team that is a Western Conference semifinalist and the team holding the Larry O’Brien trophy at the end of the season.
Phoenix has 30 games to figure out what they want to be and whether or not they can meet their wants. They - and we - will then know the outcome of this Shaquille O’Neal experiment. In the course of those games the Suns will know what O’Neal can and cannot do and vice versa, so, while they will be more comfortable with each other, will Phoenix truly be any better than they were tonight?
For their sake, they better hope so.
