PHOENIX — Two years ago the Portland Trail Blazers needed to impose their style of basketball to have any chance in a playoff series against the Phoenix Suns.
On Friday night the Blazers did just that — yet the quicker pace only served to ignite a 102-77 blowout victory for the Suns.
“We had a better rhythm,” [...]

[Read more →]

PHOENIX — All the talk of rock bottom and blowing this thing up is missing one key fact. After Friday’s 115-111 victory over Portland, the Suns trail the Blazers by a mere one game in the loss column and two games overall for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Despite winning consecutive [...]

[Read more →]

PHOENIX — With one of the NBA’s best pick-and-roll duos now extinct and an abundance of small forwards on the roster, it’s hard to tell what type of team the 2010-11 Phoenix Suns team is.
Steve Nash even said it himself on media day: “We have to go out and find out who we are and [...]

[Read more →]

PHOENIX — Alvin Gentry said before Game 5 that there are no more surprises. The Suns and Blazers essentially are who they are and both teams have a fair understanding of what it will take to shut the other team down.
“We’ve shown them everything, they’ve shown us everything,” he said. “It’s just a matter of [...]

[Read more →]

Suns 107, Trail Blazers 88

PHOENIX — The series between the Phoenix Suns and Portland Trail Blazers is tied 2-2, but the team that exerts control of the tempo is a perfect 4-0.
Not surprisingly, much of the talk at practice on Sunday as the Suns enter an all-important Game 5 was about pace.
Now you can [...]

[Read more →]

PHOENIX — Going into their series, “tempo” was the biggest buzzword in this matchup pitting the hare Suns against the tortoise Blazers.
The Suns played the Portland Trail Blazers’ slow, bruising style in their Game 1 loss, but Game 2 featured 48 minutes of Phoenix Suns basketball and along with it the kind of result you [...]

[Read more →]