Game 21: Suns @ Lakers - 6:30pst on My45

[SALMIEN]

Suns win

118-113

Yes they did

[TASTIC]

Hey whin uhm i mean suns fans, if you actually won a championship than maybe stern would give you a better schedule to start the season. You guys talk about the lakers as if you are some sort of imposing force. You guys whooped LA for 3 years. You had a chance of winning a championship but always came short. LA got their chance and clinched the deal. Sour grapes. The phoenix suns will not win a championship in our lifetime. You will make the playoffs but get bounched early. Nash will break down, Amare isn't the superstar you thought he was. You will be stuck in mediocrity.

Great time to be a suns fan

Consider this a public warning for trolling

This is the Suns board - remember where you're posting this.

[hourockman]

The scheduling complaint is flat out freakin' stupid. We all play the same games and same teams. HOWEVER, my complaint is that there's no reason for the scheduling to be so imbalanced. Why should the Lakers have cake at home early then be on the road so much so late? Why should the Suns be everywhere and go through rough stretches early then have a drastically easier time later on? Just make it even. Makes no sense.

I can respect that.

I don't know about the Suns, but the Lakers always have a home heavy schedule to start the season because of the Staples Centre schedule lateron.

I don't know where you guys are getting that it means anything where the Lakers play. They are the league champions. They won 65 games last year. They're going to win a lot of games no matter what. They can play 30 b2bs and still take the 1st seed.

It hardly matters.

[hourockman]

We are who we are, and so are they. I would just like to see a little more of the Rockets' balls and heart in our guys. We seem to have lost some of what we had - losing will do that, I know, adn I hate to use the word Swagger but we need some of that

It's not balls and heart, the Rockets play committed defense for 48 minutes and crash the boards, they have thugs without the best offensive talent in the paint for them. They're able to push the Lakers big men a bit, which is the only tactic that will give you success against the Lakers. It's why the Miami Heat nearly won the game the other day too. They were physical w/ Pau and Bynum.

The Suns are an offensive team that doesn't bang and they're short.

[Frank Lee]

The Suns are an offensive team that doesn't bang and they're short.

kind of reminds me of insert least favorite poster here


edited to avoid further conflict

[TXSun]

even nbatv said it. the early schedule favors the Lakers and only the lakers. we have now played 14 road games vs 7 home games. while the lakers have played 15 of 19 games at home. this loss does not concern me at all. we are tired of being on the road, you can tell. the players will unleash hell in every home game that's fore sure. remember we are the only undefeated team at home thats left. keep the faith guys!!

[TASTIC]

We lost on the road, to the CHAMPIONS, after a win the night before. Was anyone expecting a win?

I certainly wasn't.

The schedule's unfortunate, but look at the Lakers sched after new years, it's brutal.

I'd rather have ours - we're 16 and 6 with ALL those road games, I think they're far outperforming where I initially had us. Much rather finish with an easier run

[PHXfan85]

Hey whin uhm i mean suns fans, if you actually won a championship than maybe stern would give you a better schedule to start the season. You guys talk about the lakers as if you are some sort of imposing force. You guys whooped LA for 3 years. You had a chance of winning a championship but always came short. LA got their chance and clinched the deal. Sour grapes. The phoenix suns will not win a championship in our lifetime. You will make the playoffs but get bounched early. Nash will break down, Amare isn't the superstar you thought he was. You will be stuck in mediocrity.

Great time to be a suns fan

Hey since you can predict the future, which stocks should we all invest in?

Ill predict the future and say the kid doesn't break 500 posts before he is banned,

[DaDragicShow]

I'm wondering if Barbosa and Amundson played last night, would that have made somewhat of a difference in the game?

[schnakenpopanz]

for nearly three quartes we hung around.
we need something more than amare jumpers.
so its hard to get offensive boards for us.
if we have the chance i would prefer to trad j rich for a decent c and a pick.

[JohnVancouver]

I wish I could say that missing Barbosa and Almondson was a good excuse for getting dominated like we did.

I'll still sticking with the back to back excuse though.

Why do you need an excuse? How about the simple fact that we're simply not as good as them, and are unable to combat terrible officiating with our performance otherwise?

Well clearly I wasn't being serious- but we lost by 20+ because it was a back to back. What else explains us keeping it relatively close in the first quarter in both games, then it being blown wide open in the second/third? Fatigue. That's how most back to backs are. That's why they're ruining basketball. But the sad part is that they're never going to stop because they're a sure way for David Stern to dictate how his West/East rankings end up.

Maybe the Lakers ARE better than the Suns, but it has yet to be proven. I don't know about you- but the fact that both of our games against LA have been on the back end of back to backs proves absolutely nothing other than David Stern is a genius.

--- Trust me on this - it's been proven. The Lakers are a better team right now. They were also a better team last year. My theory is that being better helped them win league championship.
It's no knock on my beloved Suns to say that LA simply has more firepower and one of the two most game-changing players in the league today. It is what it is, get used to it.

I do think that playing at our absolute peak with this lineup we can give them a run for it but we would lose a seven-game series at least eight out of 10 times. Loving my team does not mean I have to believe in nonsense.
I love my mother but in a game of 21 in the driveway, I'm taking LeBron, even though Mom has homecourt advantage.

[grumpysaddle]

Lakers trolls are out in full force. It would reaaaally make me smile if Artest were to implode at some point this season.

and for the trolls coming here talking about how every team plays back to backs, yadda yadda yadda. this is true. i'm not using the excuse of the B2B solely for this loss, but you can't say it wasn't a contributing factor. that would be ridiculous. every team plays back to backs but you have to look at who they are playing on the end of that B2B, and also where they are playing it. you also have to take into account how the teams scheduling around those B2Bs is. if you have say... 3 days rest and go into a B2B and have 2 days rest after the back to back, you are likely more willing to throw all your energy into both games. if you're playing a game, have one day off, then play a B2B and have one day off before another game, you're gonna be thinking about that. the thought of playing that much along with travel can weigh heavily on performance. lakers are a better team, talent-wise than the suns, but i mean... they did get gasol handed to them for beans. that gives any team a much better chance to be contenders. how about we trade taylor griffin for dwight howard? think we'd have a chance then?

[Classick]

--- Trust me on this - it's been proven. The Lakers are a better team right now. They were also a better team last year. My theory is that being better helped them win league championship.
It's no knock on my beloved Suns to say that LA simply has more firepower and one of the two most game-changing players in the league today. It is what it is, get used to it.

I do think that playing at our absolute peak with this lineup we can give them a run for it but we would lose a seven-game series at least eight out of 10 times. Loving my team does not mean I have to believe in nonsense.
I love my mother but in a game of 21 in the driveway, I'm taking LeBron, even though Mom has homecourt advantage.

Last year, the Suns beat the Lakers when Steve Nash and Amare were both out. We were a much better match up last year than this year. Everyone hated the Shaq trade, but it made us a legit playoff threat.If Amare wasn't stupid enough to not wear goggles after injuring his eye once in the early moments of the season, we would have easily made the playoffs and who knows what would have happened with how injury plagued the playoffs were. Shaq can shut down any big. He's done it to Bynum, D12 and Yao.

The Lakers are good, but they're not good enough to beat the best offense in the NBA by 20 or so two times with out some other game changing factor... which is where the B2B comes in. The Lakers really weren't that good last year. Having the Spurs, Rockets, Magic, and Celtics all injured is why they won. When the Orlando Magic of last year make the Finals, you know the playoffs were a fluke.

The B2B effect even happened to the Lakers. They played a B2B with Denver being the second team (Phoenix was first I think), and they got completely destroyed. It really is undeniable. Basically, the point of all this is that the Lakers have the more impressive starting line up- but they haven't beat the real Suns. Only the exhausted version of the Suns that are stale on offense and even less responsive than usual on defense.

[hourockman]

Classick is a little bit crazy judging by his "arguments". You want to placate someone like him, make him feel comfortable and secure. Keep the sharp objects away and slip him some thorazine in a glass of orange juice. Then strap him down and get visual of him in 15 minute intervals.

[JohnVancouver]

--- Trust me on this - it's been proven. The Lakers are a better team right now. They were also a better team last year. My theory is that being better helped them win league championship.
It's no knock on my beloved Suns to say that LA simply has more firepower and one of the two most game-changing players in the league today. It is what it is, get used to it.

I do think that playing at our absolute peak with this lineup we can give them a run for it but we would lose a seven-game series at least eight out of 10 times. Loving my team does not mean I have to believe in nonsense.
I love my mother but in a game of 21 in the driveway, I'm taking LeBron, even though Mom has homecourt advantage.

Last year, the Suns beat the Lakers when Steve Nash and Amare were both out. We were a much better match up last year than this year.

and we lost to New York therefore New York is better than LA. Anybody can lose to anybody on any given night - that's why they play best-of series.

Well, that and selling tickets.

[thamadkant]

After new years, Lakers

We lost on the road, to the CHAMPIONS, after a win the night before. Was anyone expecting a win?

I certainly wasn't.

The schedule's unfortunate, but look at the Lakers sched after new years, it's brutal.

I'd rather have ours - we're 16 and 6 with ALL those road games, I think they're far outperforming where I initially had us. Much rather finish with an easier run

Well, its looking like the Lakers will prove to the league how good they really are, they'll most likely come out winning 70%+ of their games in January either way.

[MrVince]

We lost on the road, to the CHAMPIONS, after a win the night before. Was anyone expecting a win?

I certainly wasn't.

The schedule's unfortunate, but look at the Lakers sched after new years, it's brutal.

I'd rather have ours - we're 16 and 6 with ALL those road games, I think they're far outperforming where I initially had us. Much rather finish with an easier run

Yeah, problem with our schedule is that it could tire out some of our players for later on in the season.

[rsavaj]

http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/PaulCoro/69024