PHOENIX — The 76ers throttled the Suns in US Airways Center for the second consecutive season days before New Year’s, but the two losses could not have been more different.

Last season’s defeat stemmed from a pitiful defensive effort that frustrated new center Marcin Gortat so much he spewed a verbal postgame rampage bemoaning the kind of feeble resistance that so often plagued the Nash era.

But to score 34 points in the first half and then go scoreless the first 6:12 of the third? That’s not the way the Phoenix Suns are supposed to lose.

“What can I say?” head coach Alvin Gentry asked. “Obviously it’s not what we anticipated. We’re struggling mightily right now offensively, and because of it everything is just kind of so hard for us to get a shot off and so hard for us to get into any kind of a rhythm.”

The Suns have lost games many ways over the years, but I can’t remember a time when the offense looked less potent than in Phoenix’s 103-83 loss to the Sixers Wednesday night.

After a 19-0 Sixers run to begin the third Phoenix trailed 67-34, and it seemed possible that the Suns could score a franchise-low point total (68, in case you’re wondering).

The starters could not buy a bucket, bricking their way to 24 combined points (including 14 from Grant Hill) on 7-for-35 shooting. Channing Frye continued his slump with an 0-for-4 night, Jared Dudley did not score in 24 minutes and Gortat was quiet with a 1-for-6, but as is the case with most things for the Suns’ offense tonight’s struggles began with Steve Nash.

Nash scored just four points on 2-for-11 shooting and dished one assist to six turnovers in 17 minutes of play before Gentry pulled him when the game got out of hand.

Nash said the way the Sixers played the pick-and-roll made it important for him to make them pay as that would have opened up the defense and created openings for his teammates.

“If I don’t make them pay when they’re playing us that way, they are just going to feel more entitled to play that way,” Nash said. “There were some openings there that I didn’t make the most of, and I think that hurt us.

“That was about as bad a game as I’ve had personally, and team-wise it’s obviously as well. It’s shown over the two games we’re just struggling offensively to find a connectivity and rhythm together.”

The Suns once again found no consistency from deep, hitting just 2-of-11 three-pointers on the game. Phoenix shot also just 41.3 percent, including 30 percent from beyond nine feet.

The bench came in and played well during garbage time when the game was long decided.

After earning a dreaded DNP-CD in the opener, Hakim Warrick provided a nice offensive boost with 14 points on 7-for-13 shooting, and Ronnie Price matched a career high with 16 points on identical 7-for-13 marksmanship.

“There were a few bright spots. I thought Hakim Warrick and Ronnie Price and Robin and those guys, they did a good job,” Gentry said.

Now the Suns must go back to the drawing board to figure out how to jumpstart an offense that’s lagging for the first time in the Nash era.

A game after recording an unimpressive 93.3 offensive efficiency, the Suns were even worse by averaging 90.2 points per 100 possessions in this one. Phoenix’s defense will never be good enough to combat that kind of lack of offensive execution.

“I believe the guys in this locker room can shoot better from the field and finish at the rim,” Hill said. “Sometimes when it rains it pours, and certainly it was pouring out there tonight. I’m not sophisticated enough to figure out why, we just weren’t in a good rhythm and our offense is rhythm based. We’ve just got to do a better job of finding it.”

Nash feels the Suns’ struggles are a combination of many things, including the shortened training camp and a lack of familiarity.

Gentry cautioned not to blame the offensive ineptitude on the team’s focus on defense, as ideally the Suns want to push the tempo as they have in previous seasons.

The Suns are used to doing what they had to do after the last Philly home loss, which is to return to practice to figure out a way hold down opponents just enough for their elite offense to prove victorious.

With the defense still a work in progress (112 defensive efficiency tonight), the Suns for once must figure out a way to score without a dominant unit on the other side of the ball to mask their deficiencies.

“I’m really disappointed, but you can’t stay there,” Gentry said. “I’ve got to start thinking about what we are going to do in the next game and try to build from there. We don’t have time to linger in pity or anything like that. We’ve got to regroup and figure out what we can do.”

Suns expected to sign Michael Redd

The Phoenix Suns worked out Michael Redd on Wednesday and are expected to sign him on Thursday, according to The Arizona Republic.

I’ve been on the Redd bandwagon for quite some time because he’s a former 20 ppg scorer, and the Suns clearly need somebody who can stroke it as we’ve learned in the first two games. We don’t know how much he has left in the tank after his knee surgeries, but it’s hard to see how taking a shot at catching lightning in a bottle with Redd could hurt.

And 1

• The Suns are now 0-2 for the first time since 1996-97, when they started a franchise-worst 0-13 but reached the playoffs anyway. They have reached the playoffs five of the previous eight times they began a year 0-2 and even reached the conference finals twice.  … The Suns also lost by 20 or more during the first week of the 2007-08 and 2009-10 seasons and ended up qualifying for the playoffs both years. … Philly has won two straight in Phoenix for the first time since 1984-85.
• Dudley recorded a -32 +/- in 24 minutes. Nash and Hill were both -22, and Markieff Morris was plus five in 27 minutes. The rookie from Philly scored nine points and hit 4-of-5 shots.
• Hill said Philly beat the Suns “in all facets of the game” and that the Suns at least “competed for a half.”
• Nash moved into fourth on the franchise’s all-time games played list (684) on Wednesday. He’s one behind Dick Van Arsdale for third.

76ers

Suns

PHOENIX — Sentimental wasn’t the way to describe Phoenix Suns rookie Markieff Morris following his NBA debut.

“I need to cut my hair,” he said to begin his media session following Tuesday’s practice.

And will it bear any significance that the Philadelphia native will get a shot at his hometown Philadelphia 76ers tonight at 7 p.m. in Phoenix?

“When AI (former Sixer Allen Iverson) was done, I couldn’t watch the Sixers no more,” Morris said, dryly.

Tonight’s game, if anything, means Morris can move on from the season opener. It’s just another game, an opportunity to forget his errant pass that went into the first row of the US Airways Center stands and sealed the New Orleans Hornets’ victory against his Suns.

Asked if he kept the game ball or his shoes that he wore in Monday’s debut, Morris shook his head. He just wants to look ahead.

“No, I didn’t save nothing,” he said. “I just left it all on the court. Forgot all about that — (I) was still thinking about that pass.”

Quiet and soft-spoken off the court, Morris isn’t that on it — not one bit.

If Monday’s game was any indication, Morris’ toughness that he developed growing up in the basketball hotbed of Philadelphia will serve the Suns well. He scored seven points, grabbed nine boards, and had two assists, steals and blocks against the Hornets.

With starting power forward Channing Frye struggling in the season opener with a 1-for-6 shooting performance, Morris could play the 25 minutes against Philadelphia that he saw in his first game.

And he proved that he’s plenty capable of going nose-to-nose with some of the most physical power forwards in the NBA. Against a bruising Carl Landry of New Orleans, Morris got his first taste of what’s to come.

“First play, he went through me,” Morris said. “I was like, ‘Wow.’ I had to toughen up and bang with him a lot, but he’s a great player, very skilled and definitely real strong.”

It gets no easier against the Sixers. Morris will likely end up dealing with 6-foot-9, 254-pound power forward Elton Brand, who had 10 points and eight boards in his first game. The Suns’ rookie very well could be the best bet to keep the former All-Star in check.

The only thing that could keep head coach Alvin Gentry from giving Morris more than 25 minutes tonight is foul trouble. He had four personal fouls against New Orleans and had trouble staying out of it in the preseason as well.

“It is what it is,” Morris said of the officials’ calls. “I’m not going to change the way I play.”

Spencer the dispenser

One of the more intriguing matchups for the Suns will be how they defend Philadelphia’s do-it-all center, Spencer Hawes. The 7-foot-1, 245-pound Hawes scored 10 points, grabbed 14 rebounds and came one assist shy of a triple-double in Philadelphia’s 107-103 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers in their season debut.

But with Doug Collins’ squad having a limited bench — he only went eight players deep on Monday — the Suns might be willing to let Hawes have his way. They’d rather focus their defense on the high-scoring guards Jrue Holiday and Lou Williams along with wing Andre Iguodala.

“If Spencer Hawes is scoring, that’s basically what we want,” Suns forward Jared Dudley said. “We want to stop Holiday, Williams and Iguodala’s penetration.

“Against every team, you have to give up something.”

Williams led the Sixers with 25 points off the bench in Monday’s opener, and Iguodala added 22 points, showing an improved three-point shot by hitting 4-of-8 from deep.

Meanwhile, Holiday struggled with only 13 points and six turnovers.

Slow starts aplenty

Gentry wasn’t worried about Phoenix’s poor offensive production in their first game, and he said it’s a lockout hangover that also appeared to hamper playoff squads like the Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks.

It’s not time to panic, not yet anyway.

“The teams that get off to a really good start, that’s a pretty good cushion to have,” Gentry said. “Eventually, everybody will get their legs under them and play good basketball. Right now, I don’t see Dallas as being a team that’s going to be down 35 in the first two games they play. That’s something that’s not going to happen, and the Lakers are not going to end the season 0 and 66.”

He added that the Suns do need to protect their home court. Especially through the growing pains of the early season, he emphasized to his squad that it needs to make the one or two plays to grind out wins.

“Teams are going to struggle right now a little bit offensively,” Gentry said on Tuesday, “and you’re going to have to stay in the game by doing defensively what we did last night.”

Points of improvement

I asked Gentry how he evaluated the play of his backup point guards in the Suns’ first regular season game. Here’s the obvious answer (you can’t replace Steve Nash) with a little bit on how he plans on helping Ronnie Price and Sebastian Telfair succeed:

“I told somebody, ‘How did the coach do without Peyton Manning?’ (Nash) is who we are, you know, so we just have to be solid with him out. We’ve got to be better than we were last night. Some of that is we’ve got new guys, Ronnie and Sebastian. As a coaching staff, especially me, I’m going to have to put them in a better situation where they can be successful. That may be calling a few more halfcourt sets as opposed to us being more of a freelance situation when Steve’s not in the game.”

The Suns never found an answer for Philly's uber-athletes like Thaddeus Young. (AP Photo/H. Rumph Jr.)

A road trip that started off with so much promise has now finished with the Suns just one game better than they began on this five-game, 10-day odyssey that seemed to revive hope and ultimately put the Suns right back they have often been this month a few games below .500.

After dropping a 105-95 decision to the Philadelphia 76ers on the hands of their disastrous loss in Detroit, a road trip that started with many thinking 5-0 has turned into a so-so 3-2 considering the lack of quality opposition faced this stretch.

In this one turnovers led to a blowout loss that wasn’t as close as the final score might make you think despite Phoenix shooting 51.3 percent (Philly hit for 54.3 percent). As Alvin Gentry said, you can’t defend the turnover, and that’s the biggest reason the Sixers blistered the rims against the Suns for the second straight time. A game after 15 turnovers led to 24 Detroit points, 16 Phoenix turnovers were turned into 30 Philly points, including 23 fast-break points.

The athleticism of Jrue Holiday gave Nash fits and Andre Iguodala and Thaddeus Young put on a show in transition.

“We have to do a better job of protecting the ball,” Gentry told reporters. “It’s just the bottom line. We’re not going to be able to win very many games if we’re giving up 24 and 30 points off of our turnovers. There’s no way that you can defend a turnover. You just can’t do it. I don’t care how good your defense is, if you turn the ball over, usually they’re going to run down and have numbers.”

Added Jared Dudley, “They were scoring on the turnovers. Their confidence got the crowd going and then they took away some stuff from us, and we just didn’t hit shots and they played in passing lanes, taking us out of our rhythm. For us, we can’t turn the ball over as much. We need to understand what we want to execute and do that.”

Perhaps you can blame this one on tired legs to a degree, as fatigue was a bad combination against a young Philly team that used 12 steals to get out in the open court and run the Suns out of this one like Suns teams of yore used to do so often.

Dudley scored 23 points and Nash went for 17 and nine but they didn’t get a ton of help from a tired Phoenix squad that did indeed seem more ready for their return flight to the Valley than settling a score from the last Philly game.

Vince Carter’s trade value continued to take a hit in this one, as the artist formerly known as “Half Man, Half Amazing” scored just a flashy two points on 1-for-6 shooting to go with one rebound and one assist in 22 minutes of play. Since his 29-point outburst in New York, Vince has averaged 6.5 points per game on 25 percent shooting (10-for-40), including 23.5 percent marksmanship from deep.

Gentry has never been a coach who played a guy because of his name, but with two able wings sitting on the bench you’ve got to wonder if the Suns might be better off giving Vince’s time to Josh Childress or Mickael Pietrus — or perhaps both of them.

Sure he can get you 30 every once in a while, but if he’s going to just be a glorified shooter who gets you a couple rebounds and drives hard to the rim for a fancy play once or twice a game, I would prefer the talents of Childress or Pietrus myself.

Childress saw his first piece of action of the road trip in this one, playing the four in a small ball lineup midway through the third. I like the different element that he brings, showing his prowess reading a defense and cutting to score his only two points in 20 minutes while also collecting a steady four rebounds and two assists.

The Suns once again are three games below .500 and would need to win four out of five on this tough upcoming homestand just to crawl back to the .500 mark that has eluded them since the Orlando acquisitions first put on a Suns jersey.

The best news of the night was that the Kings won in Portland (if it’s not too early to be thinking about such things), but other than that the Suns were made to look old and slow against a fast, exciting Philadelphia team whose athleticism the Suns just couldn’t handle.

This loss certainly leaves a bad taste in the Suns’ collective mouth, but the one that really hurt remains the Detroit loss, not this one. With this being the final game of a long road trip against a team that scored at will against them in Phoenix and had won 11 of 14 at home coming in, you knew this one wasn’t going to be easy.

But if the Suns had gotten to .500 and guaranteed themselves of a 4-1 trip, this loss wouldn’t sting so bad.

As it is a trip that seemed to be the start of turning the Suns’ season around now ends just a game better in the standings and with the same questions about whether this squad can put together a sustained run still lingering.

And 1

Robin Lopez outrebounded Steve Nash for the first time in 2011 in the Suns’ 12th game of the month.

Suns

76ers

It’s not uncommon for a team to come out with a poor effort on the last game of a long road trip when the thought of returning home postgame fills the players’ heads.

Despite the Suns finishing up what will be a 6,475-mile trip spanning over 231 hours by the time the team touches down at Sky Harbor Airport in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, there’s no way the Suns are overlooking this one.

That would be the case even if the Suns hadn’t just blown a game in demoralizing fashion Saturday in Detroit, as the last time the Suns and Sixers renewed acquaintances Phoenix’s defense got throttled for 123 points in a game that was such a low point at the time Marcin Gortat proclaimed afterward that “it can’t get worse.”

Of course, Gortat was wrong, as things got much worse. The Suns collapsed in Sacramento, showed no fight in blowout losses to the Knicks and Nuggets and then suffered that disaster in Detroit Saturday night right when they were starting to put things together with five wins in a row.

The Suns have most certainly not forgotten that Philly loss. Before leaving on this trip, players pointed to this game as one in which they have a score to settle just like they did about the New York game a Monday ago.

Even with all the low points thereafter, the Sixers loss stung particularly hard because of how terrible the Suns’ defense looked against a Philly squad missing star player Andre Iguodala, turning in its second-worst effort of the season by allowing 129.5 points per 100 possessions. Evan Turner (23 points), Andres Nocioni (22 and 12 boards) and Jrue Holiday (25) all enjoyed career nights as a Sixers team that had not won all year when yielding over 99 points and a squad that had averaged 87.3 points in its pervious six absolutely blistered the Suns offensively.

That game was a wakeup call of sorts for the Suns. They immediately went to work for almost three hours at the next day’s practice trying to shore up some of these issues by simplifying the defense.

This game can be seen as something of a measuring stick to see how much the Suns have improved defensively since that meltdown against the Sixers in US Airways Center. NBA players generally say they don’t think about topics like revenge, but you have to believe the Suns are thinking about a little payback from that last contest.

The other issue at play here is the state of this road trip. Going in I thought a 4-1 trip would be fantastic (considering a likely New York loss), but even after the Suns beat the Knicks I kind of felt they would slip up somewhere along the line. I certainly did not think the Suns would lose in the fashion they did on Saturday, when tired legs and a stingy Detroit defense caught up to them, but at the same time 4-1 any way you can get it would be a really successful trip.

However, 3-2 against the kind of opposition the Suns have faced kind of continues the “one step forward, two steps back” routine Phoenix has been perfecting all season. The Suns need to finish this trip off the right way to maintain the feeling that this team could actually be gelling rather than make it seem like the winning streak was more a function of the easy schedule.

The last time these teams met up Gortat spoke of how the Suns were the worse defensive team in the league and how coming to a losing team like the Suns was “a reality check” along with a plethora of other honest assessments that went well beyond the normally accepted cliches we’re used to after tough losses.

With almost a month to integrate the new acquisitions and become more cohesive on defense, this game will show how far the Suns have come since the last Philly matchup, a contest the team has been slow to forget.

PHOENIX — The Phoenix Suns have played some awful defensive games over the years, but Wednesday’s 123-110 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers does not have many rivals in futility.

This was a Sixers team that had not won a game all season when yielding at least 99 points (0-14), a team that averaged 87.3 points per game in its last six and a team that been held to 81 points or fewer in three of those six.

But this Philadelphia squad got six players in double figures and three in the 20-point range on a season-high scoring night and the team’s second-best shooting night from the field (54.9 percent) all year.

Oh yeah, they did this without their best player with Andre Iguodala sidelined with an Achilles’ injury as Evan Turner (career high 23, previous was 16), Andres Nocioni (season highs with 22 points and 12 rebounds) and Jrue Holiday (25 points, tied for second best of his career) all enjoyed career nights.

The Suns’ offense kept pace most of the evening in a game they trailed 66-65 at the half, but in the end their defensive ineptitude cost them the kind of contest they are supposed to win.

“I guess the most disappointing thing is that we spent so much time working on our defense and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better,” said head coach Alvin Gentry, who deemed the effort “unacceptable.” “I’m not real sure why because I think we play extremely hard in practice. We do a good job there (but) we just can’t seem to take it from there to game situations.”

On a night Vince Carter made his Suns debut, all anybody wanted to talk about afterward was defense, as no matter what the question the conversation always shifted back to that end of the floor.

But no Sun was as passionate and honest as Marcin Gortat, a man who has played the last few years for one of the elite defenses in the league and won’t accept the product the Suns are putting out defensively.

Gortat gave his honest assessment of the situation with some sound bytes brimming with truth that should get some attention in the locker room.

Here’s the best of his interview:

• “It’s just a little bit frustrating when you come in here to the locker room and people are talking about the offense, you guys are talking about the offense. That’s not the way you’re going to win NBA games. I don’t know if it’s just me or maybe I’m just different, but I came from a team where everybody’s competing, trying, do the stuff that Coach is saying. We just totally changing our rotations, changing the stuff we set before the game. We’re not playing hard enough, and there’s a lot of, lot of work in front of us. The positive thing is it can’t get worse.”
• “There are so many things that we’re doing bad, and I just can’t find an explanation. A lot of people are trying to get some rebounds and such, but unfortunately there aren’t too many opportunities for me to rebound because if the team is scoring 100 something points there’s not much to rebound. It’s just frustrating as hell. I’m not going to lie. Now it’s kind of like a reality check for me being from a team that’s winning to a team that’s losing, I mean we are the worst defensive team in the league. We’ve just got to come tomorrow as early as possible and work three hours at least.”
• “I think we’ve just got to be more serious about everything that we do. We’ve got to be more serious, we’ve got a lot of young guys on the team, a lot of potential, but a lot of young guys who don’t know what it’s like to be on top and at a high level. It’s not just the focus of the game, it’s the focus at the practice. You can’t have people coming in and doing different things. You’ve got to read the scouting report, you’ve got to read which guys likes to do what, and we’ve just got to learn. There’s a lot of work, a lot of work. If Philly’s scoring 120 points I don’t want to see teams like Boston, Orlando, San Antonio, Miami or the other teams. It’s going to be bad.”
• “Today we didn’t even try to defend. We were not able to defend anybody.”
• “It’s just different mentality. You’ve got a lot of veterans in Orlando and you’ve got different mentalities, coaching mentality, everything’s different.”

I could not agree more with Gortat and I applaud his courage to tell it like it is without veiling anything behind clichés. You could see how much he cares through those assessments.

What Gortat doesn’t realize is that this team actually went just as far as his Orlando Magic last season because it played a little defense back then. Last year the Suns ranked 19th in defensive efficiency and 11th in defensive field goal percentage whereas this year Phoenix is dead last in both departments. No matter how good their offense is — and it remains very good — nobody can win with that bad of a defense.

“I’m not worried about what’s going to happen with our team offensively,” Gentry said. “We’re going to be fine in that area right there, we’ve always been fine in that area. To me the biggest reason we were able to make a jump and get to the Western Conference Finals last year had nothing to do with what we did offensively. What we have to do is improve on defense, and we have to make a huge jump there.”

Added Grant Hill: “We’ve taken a big step back. We’ve got to show some improvement.”

Gentry chided his team’s defense against dribble penetration while Jared Dudley discussed issues with rotations and rebounding as well (the Suns got out-rebounded 46-31).

Steve Nash, meanwhile, was brilliant once against with 14 points and 11 assists by halftime and 23 and 15 for the game in 38 minutes, giving him at least 15 assists in three straight games for just the third time in his career.

His frustration boiled over with the Suns trailing by seven with three minutes left when Nash was called for an out of bounds violation after Holiday appeared to foul him, as Nash earned a technical and yelled some choice words with the game slipping away.

“It’s frustrating,” Nash said. “We’re losing, we’re not playing well defensively, we’re practicing our defense and it’s not carrying over to the game, and it’s frustrating, so we got to fight through it. We’ve got to test ourselves, our mental strength and our emotional commitment every day and try to bring it and get better and not let it get to us.

“We have to be positive and optimistic to turn it around.”

After a performance like this, that’s all the Suns can do.

And 1

Carter’s first Suns game certainly got overshadowed by the team’s defensive struggles, but Vince contributed 18 points on 8-for-20 shooting. He hit just 1-of-6 threes but looked comfortable posting up smaller guards, something he said he hopes to do more of.

“Vince is a terrific player, he’s skilled and experienced,” Nash said. “He’s going to do a lot of things for us.”

Mickael Pietrus also had a fantastic game by scoring 15 points and drilling three treys for Phoenix before fouling out. Gortat chipped in with 13 and six.

The Suns often played with Nash and four former Magic players (including Hill) as the Carter-Gortat-Pietrus triumvirate played more than everyone but Nash and Hill.  Channing Frye played just 19 minutes, Goran Dragic and Hakim Warrick 10 and Josh Childress got the dreaded DNP-CD. …

Carter and Childress shared some laughs, while Pietrus sang along to his upbeat music after the game. Perhaps it’s good that the Suns can still have some fun despite the struggles, but I expected a more somber atmosphere.

The Suns gave thought to getting him acclimated off the bench but ultimately decided against it.

“He’s going to be a starter, so there’s no reason not to start him tonight,” Gentry said. “I just didn’t see what it would benefit playing him off the bench for one game. We’ll see what happens.”

Gentry plans on using the next few games to evaluate his rotations and eventually whittle it down to no more than 10.

The injury news was not so good on the Philly side as Andre Iguodala was made inactive with tendinitis in his right Achilles.

Iguodala averages 14.2 points, 6.1 boards and 5.5 assists per game, second on the Sixers in all categories.

“He’s an unbelievable athlete,” Gentry said of the player his team will miss. “He’s a tough matchup because he’s so long, so if you put a small guy on him he’s a pretty good post-up player. Plus he gives them another guy in the open floor who can handle the ball and create plays. He’s just a real solid player and has been since he walked into the league.”

76ers

Suns

PHOENIX — Suns coach Alvin Gentry and 76ers coach Doug Collins go way back.

Most notably, Gentry took over for Collins in Detroit as the Pistons’ coach late into the 1997-98 season.

But the relationship goes back further than that.

“I knew his son Chris when he was in college and he had an accident and broke his leg, so I sent him a couple of Miami Heat shirts and I had known Doug anyway and we just got really close,” Gentry said. “So when I was let go in Miami I ended up working for him in Detroit when he got the job there.”

From that point, the two became much more than head and assistant coach.

“I’m as close to Doug as anybody in my life, other than my family and my wife,” Gentry said. “He’s been like a brother to me, we talk all the time, and not just about basketball things.”

But when the game does come up, the Suns’ coach said there’s no one better to talk to.

“I think he’s the best basketball mind that I know,” Gentry said. “He knows the game like no one else does. He’s also the most passionate person I know, too. He’s an extremely bright guy and I’ve learned a lot from him.”

Collins took a leave of absence from the coaching game after the 2002-03 season with the Washington Wizards and went on to became one of the most respected basketball commentators in the business.

Now he’s returned to the bench in his first season as the head man in Philadelphia.

“I think he wanted to try it again and he wanted to be able to leave the coaching part on his own terms,” Gentry said. “I still think he’s the best analyst I’ve ever watched.”

Collins is 344-306 as an NBA coach.

“I check on him all the time and want his team to do great,” Gentry said. “I pull hard for him for about 80 games of the season.”

Well, when the Suns and 76ers meet Wednesday it will be one of those nights when Gentry doesn’t root for his old friend.

Phoenix has lost three straight games but will have Vince Carter in uniform for the first time as a Sun.

The Suns are no longer the NBA’s highest scoring team, but they still average 107 points per game.

And that’s bad news for Philadelphia.

The 76ers are 0-14 when allowing at least 99 points.

More bad news for Philadelphia is that according to The Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro, the 76ers will likely be without their leading scorer, Andre Iguodala, who is nursing a right Achilles injury.

Phoenix is coming off a loss in Los Angeles  in which it held the Clippers to 18 points in the third quarter, but allowed 90 in the other three.

“It’s more mindset than anything,” Gentry said. “I don’t think we can play the way we did in the third quarter against the Clippers and get back in the game if you don’t have the ability to [play good defense]. It was more about us than it was about them. We have to find a way to [play well] for 48 minutes, not 18 or 20.”

Phoenix is currently in 11th place in the West but is only one and a half games out of eighth place.

“For us to be any threat at all in the playoff race, we’ve got to get better defensively,” Gentry said. “We have to be able to have seven, eight or nine people to play with a high intensity level the whole [game].”

And 1

The Suns swept Philadelphia last season and have won 20 of the last 23 meetings in Phoenix.

For help with that I’ve joined up with 75 bloggers (it only seems like half of them are Celtics bloggers) in the fifth annual NBA Blog Previews organized by Jeff Clark from CelticsBlog. Thursday the SB Nation boys and I will be publishing our previews on the Suns, but for now I give you the Atlantic Division:

Celtics: CelticsBlog | Celtics 24/7 | Celtics Central | Celtics Hub | CelticsLife | Gino’s Jungle | RedsArmy.com | SBNation Boston | SBN Recap

Knicks: Posting and Toasting | Bandwagon Knick | KnickerBlogger.Net | SBN Recap

Nets: NetsDaily | NetsAreScorching | Fanway | SBN Recap

Raptors: Raptors HQ | Hoops Addict | Hip Hoop Junkies | SBN Recap

Sixers: Liberty Ballers

Grant Hill plans to opt-in next season and hopes to retire with the Phoenix Suns. (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

There will be plenty of time to talk about next year’s roster in July. Now should be reserved for discussing the Phoenix Suns’ domination through three games of the San Antonio Spurs.

But before we get back to talking about the Suns and the Spurs, AOL FanHouse’s Chris Tomasson reported on Friday that Grant Hill plans to opt in to the $3.24 million option he has in his contract for next season.

“I don’t plan on opting out,” Hill told FanHouse. “Even after this [contract], if I can still play and still play at this level, I still want to be here. I want to retire as a Sun. … I don’t have any interest in moving.

“I’d like to prove that I can play until I’m 40. That would be nice. But I’m not going to play if I can’t play at a level that I expect. Obviously, I’m not what I was 10 years ago. But I can still contribute and not be a liability. If I’m a liability, it’s time to move away, and I’ll move away. But, if I’ve still got it physically and I still have it up here, mentally and emotionally, and I have that desire, yeah, I’ll play another two or three years.”

This is obviously good news for the Suns, and exactly what I expected. I was asked about Hill’s future on Friday’s Daily Dime Live chat, and I said that he loves this team and his teammates so much that I couldn’t imagine him ever leaving. He’s made his $100 million and then some, so to be somewhere that he’s immensely happy and winning is all he could ask for at this point in his career.

That $3-plus million salary is certainly under market value when you consider he’s the Suns’ shutdown wing defender as well as a reliable scorer who brings all the intangibles and is the only three-time Sportsmanship Award winner in league history, but I’m sure Hill has no issues with that salary if it means the Suns have the flexibility to make other moves to stay good (I’m looking at you, Amare).

If Hill ever were going to leave it would have been after last season, and who could have blamed him if he wanted to chase a ring elsewhere back then?

But like Nash, Hill felt he made a commitment to this organization and talked about having unfinished business to take care of when he re-signed this summer. Hill and the Suns are certainly taking care of that right now, as he’s now in a perfect situation that combines winning with playing with teammates that he truly enjoys competing with. So much for Hill not caring about winning, right?

Stein: Majerle to interview with Sixers

You never like distractions this time of year, but success breeds these kinds of distractions.

ESPN’s Marc Stein reported that Suns assistant Dan Majerle will interview for the Philadelphia 76ers’ head coaching job on Monday. The Sixers are expected to send a delegation to meet Majerle in Phoenix.

This will almost be a non-issue if the Suns close out the Spurs in Game 4 and have a week to wait on the West Finals. The Suns as a team would likely have this day off anyway in that situation.

Still, you never like to see anybody in the organization not 100 percent concentrating on the task at hand.

At the same time, you obviously can’t blame Majerle, who can still shoot well enough to win a post-practice three-point shooting contest against Suns players recently. It’s not his fault he’s doing a great job as an assistant and is attracting attention to be a head man. He’s always possessed natural leadership skills, and his grittiness and defensive toughness as a player is really rubbing off on the Suns.

Grant Hill was talking about the Suns’ turnaround the other day after practice, and he said that after the Suns lost for the seventh time in nine games in January, Majerle — who doesn’t talk a whole lot in such settings — stood up and spoke to the squad about playing desperate, which really resonated with Hill.

“If you’re supposed to do this you’ve just got to do it,” Hill said of Majerle’s lesson. “You can’t let the guy beat you, just playing with more of a sense of urgency and just sharing that with us.

“Maybe that triggered something for us collectively, but we just started to figure out, we started to get these leads and hold onto them and realize, ‘OK, we’ve got to get stops.’ Everything just kind of came together, and it’s hard to figure out why that’s the case or how it happened, but it just did.”

That’s not to say Majerle is the sole reason the Suns turned things around after the Charlotte loss in late January of course, but he certainly didn’t hurt, and he does seem to have the makeup of a future head coach.

Good for him that he’s getting this interview, I just hope it doesn’t become a distraction for the Suns.

PHOENIX — We all know there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.

But that old axiom doesn’t ring true anymore when a statistic becomes a trend, and that’s exactly what you can call the fact that the Suns almost always win when Jason Richardson scores 20-plus points.

J-Rich did it again tonight with a game-high 24 points on 8-for-12 shooting, including 4-for-5 shooting from distance, as the Suns cruised to an easy 106-95 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers for their fourth straight win and 10th in 12 games.

The Suns improved to 18-2 when Richardson hits the 20-point plateau, which has now happened in three straight games for the first time since late November.

“I just know that we try to get him off early and get him 20,” said Suns head coach Alvin Gentry. “I don’t know why it works out that way, but it just seems like when he plays well for us, the record speaks for itself. It’s just a record that is pretty doggone impressive, so when we look up we try to figure out a way to get him 20 points, it seems to make our team go better and play better.”

Added Steve Nash, “Jason Richardson has really played well lately, and it makes us a different team. Our record when he scores is phenomenal.”

The Suns tried to get J-Rich going to start both halves with plays that ended in three-point hits from Richardson. J-Rich hit a pair of threes in the first two minutes to get going right away and what a difference that makes.

The Suns have not lost this calendar year when J-Rich goes for 20, having won nine straight such contests.

“Coach knows when I’m going,” Richardson said. “When he sees me going he definitely tries to give me the ball more and let me go out there and just play basketball. He is looking for me a lot more, so it’s like a third option. You definitely know what Steve is going to do, you definitely know what Amare is going to do, and you throw me in there, it’s pretty deadly.”

J-Rich hit the nail on the head. You pretty much know you’re going to get All-Star performances from Nash and Amare night in and night out, but the rest of the team has been so darn inconsistent.

The bench with Dragic and Dudley could star one night, Frye could hit six three-pointers the next and Grant Hill could play like the old Grant Hill instead of just an old Grant Hill. J-Rich has been as inconsistent of the rest of them with way too many single-digit games for a guy making $14.4 million next year, but when he’s scoring big this is a very difficult offense to stop.

Tonight was largely about that trio on the offensive end, with Amare going for a typical 22 points and then Steve Nash putting up a stellar 20 points and 13 assists on 8-for-9 shooting despite resting the entire fourth quarter.

Nash, of course, stayed home and missed Tuesday’s win in Oklahoma City thanks to a sore back and abdomen, but you wouldn’t have known it when he went out and torched the Sixers for 14 points and five assists in the first quarter alone. Yes, that’s a 56 and 20 pace.

“More than anything I feel like I had some energy and some legs, and that overcomes a lot of the stuff that’s been bothering me,” Nash said. “I still have some work physically to get right.”

Nash didn’t feel great going into the game, but he thinks his fresh legs had a lot to do with his superb performance after being on the go the entire All-Star break and then during the Suns’ busy week after the break.

In Phoenix’s first four games after the break, Nash had averaged 7.5 points on 31.5 percent shooting and 16.7 percent shooting from three. This time around he didn’t miss a shot until clanking his final attempt with 1:10 left in the third after nailing his first eight.

“To have that rest tonight I didn’t feel great physically, but my legs were there, so some of the ailments I was able to overcome because I had a little juice in my step,” Nash said. “That as much as anything helped me. I think it was good for me mentally after a lot of games and a really difficult All-Star break in terms of my time.

“I think it took a lot of foresight and confidence and wisdom for Alvin and Steve Kerr and [head trainer] Aaron [Nelson] to say, ‘Look, let’s sit out a game,’ because the West is not an easy place to start sitting starters down, so it was good.”

The strategy worked perfectly for the Suns this time around. They gutted out a tough win in Oklahoma City in a game that had to grow Dragon’s confidence, and they got back a rested Steve Nash, who obviously needed the day. Whether he gets more days in the future will depend entirely on if he feels he needs one.

“There’s two ways to look at it,” Nash said. “In an ideal world I feel great and play every game the rest of the way, but if that’s not the case it would be great to get another game or two if we can afford it. If we can afford to miss a game or two to help me physically, I’m sure we’ll do it. If I don’t need it, if I feel good, then I’d love to play.”

Even after the Sixers cut a 20-point lead to 13 early in the fourth and then 11 with four minutes left, Gentry bit his tongue and kept Nash on the bench although he physically could have returned. Would he have done that if he had not just seen Dragic pilot the Suns to a late victory Tuesday night?

In all it was a solid home win for the Suns, who moved 1 1/2 games ahead of Oklahoma City for fifth in the West with J-Rich putting up his requisite numbers and Nash looking rested.

“Tonight we did our job and held home court against a team we should beat,” Nash said.

And 1

• The Suns had the Lakers-Dallas game on in the locker room after their game, and they very much so were scoreboard watching. When a key late play went against the Lakers, Amare was none too pleased with Dallas directly above Phoenix in the standings. March has yet to begin yet the Suns are fully immersed in the West race.
• It has also been encouraging to me to see Amare’s demeanor since the trade talks. Some could have expected him to sulk, but he’s every bit as engaged in this race as any other Sun. He was celebrating as much as anyone after J-Rich’s shot on Tuesday, and he locked into the scoreboard watching after this one. STAT is 100 percent committed to the 2009-10 Phoenix Suns even if we do not yet know if he’s committed to this organization long term.
• Andre Iguodala looked great in going for 20 points, six assists and five boards in this one. He swished a number of long jumpers on his 7-for-12 night and reinforced the fact that he’d be a perfect fit with the Suns.
• With two February games remaining, the Suns have already won more games this month than in either of the previous two. … The Suns are a season-high 13 games over .500 after this four-game win streak, which is the best they’ve been since 2007-08. … Phoenix has won four or more games in a row five times this year after doing it just once all of last year. … The Suns are 3-1 on home second games of a back to back, compared to a 2-8 mark in such road games. … The Suns led from start to finish in this one for the second time all season. … Since Robin Lopez entered the starting lineup, the Suns are 8-1 when Amare scores at least 20 and Fropez 10. … Phoenix is 5-1 since the break, tied for the best mark in the NBA in that time.