RealGM

I watch most of the game last night between the Phoenix Suns and the Atlanta Hawks and I was both impressed and disappointed by the Suns. On the one hand, I thought they did some great things on defense and offense, especially in the first half against the upstart Hawks. But then in the second and fourth quarters, they lost their focus and let the Hawks back in the game.

To focus on the positives, I thought the Suns are really becoming a great defensive team. For one thing, they're no longer running the 2-3 zone they used to run last year a lot (at least I haven't seen it this year in the few games I've watched). They're fundamentally a M2M team but what they do is have Shaq do most of the help defense down low. In a way, you could say he's zoned up. This allows the defender 1 pass away to stay on his check, and when the offense reverses the ball, they rotate. Take a look,