Despite trade rumors and contract uncertainties, Amare Stoudemire played like a man possessed tonight. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

The last time the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets met — back on Dec. 12 in the Mile High City — the Suns blew a 17-point lead and dropped their fifth game in seven tries. From that point on, blowing leads became second nature to the Suns, so much so that it was seemingly the only topic of conversation regarding the team for the better part of a month and a half.

Even as recent as a week ago, mental lapses and scoring droughts were everyday phrases on Planet Orange.

But after three gutsy wins against Western Conference foes in Dallas, Houston and New Orleans, the Suns did something tonight that wasn’t even in the realm of possibilities a few weeks ago: Dominate an opponent from the opening tip to the final buzzer. That domination resulted in a 109-97 victory.

“We played well from start to finish,” Alvin Gentry told Suns.com. “Everyone played well.”

Phoenix handed the Nuggets only their second loss in their last 12 games, and their fourth of the season in front of the home crowd at the Pepsi Center. But the fact that the Suns beat the Western Conference’s No. 2 seed isn’t cause for extreme celebration, as there was never any doubt that the Suns could compete with the cream of the crop.

The most impressive takeaway from tonight’s game was rather the fashion in which the Suns captured their fourth straight victory.

The first quarter was back and forth, but the Suns ultimately ended the period up by six. The Nuggets answered back to take a 31-30 lead with 9:48 left in the second, but Denver’s success would end there. The Suns quickly answered with a Jared Dudley three-pointer and continually built upon that lead for the final 33 minutes of play.

After the Nuggets cut an 11-point halftime deficit to eight early in the third quarter, the Suns wouldn’t budge. In fact, they built their lead to 16 at the end of three and led by as many as 22 in the fourth quarter.

Phoenix held Denver to 44.3 percent shooting from the field, 28.6 percent from three (4-of-14) and even won the rebounding battle, 47-39. The Suns defended the paint, rebounded the basketball, took care of the ball, and found good shots on offense.

“I will give Phoenix credit,” Nuggets head coach George Karl told Suns.com. “I think it was one of their better defensive games against us. I think they gave Kenyon and Chauncey good defensive reads and we could never get into a good offensive strong flow.”

Amare Stoudemire was everywhere. He pounded the glass, rotated on defense, and didn’t force anything offensively, en route to a 20-point, 17-rebound, two-block performance — 18 and 14 of which came in three quarters. STAT has now gone for at least 20-10 in his last three games, averaging 27.0 points and 13.3 rebounds during that stretch.

The trade rumors that Stoudemire admitted affected his play at first seemingly fueled the big man, not only tonight, but all throughout this road trip. As soon as the Suns hit the road, STAT went into beast mode. For every game that he goes for one rebound in 27 minutes, he has one of these nights. The inconsistency is painful, but there is no question how dominant he can be when his mind is in the right place.

But Amare wasn’t the only Sun who shined bright tonight. Jason Richardson played about as hard as I have ever seen him in a Suns uniform, resulting in 20 points and seven rebounds in a game-high 41 minutes — making the Suns 14-2 when he scores 20 or more. He was getting after it on the boards as well as defensively, and even flexed his muscles on the block with some post moves.

Steve Nash was Steve Nash (17 points and 10 assists), Channing Frye was locked in (5-of-9 in 28 minutes), but this was a team win for the Suns. They looked focused, determined and played some of the most disciplined basketball I have seen from the purple and orange all season. [Read more →]

It was reported Wednesday by NBA FanHouse here and later by The Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro here that Suns forward Amare Stoudemire is leaning toward not opting out of his contract after this season.

“That’s definitely an option,” Stoudemire told FanHouse of opting in for the final year of his contract and the $17.7 million that would come with it. “I’m leaning more toward that right now. Maybe opting in. … (That would be to) buy time. See how we do. … I think we got our game back on track.”

Stoudemire spoke to FanHouse after morning shootaround Wednesday in Denver. Stoudemire also said he believes his chances of being traded by the Feb. 18 trade deadline are “50-50,” but also said that he is “pretty sure [the Suns are] going to offer a deal here pretty soon.”

Stoudemire wouldn’t say yet if he would sign such a deal and added that he does not expect a maximum deal.

“I don’t know if the Suns are really willing to pay maximum deals period, whether it’s me or whoever,” Stoudemire told FanHouse.

Stoudemire couldn’t answer whether or not he would sign a deal that wasn’t for maximum money, nor would he say when he might make a decision about exercising his option.

It’s interesting that Stoudemire would say this now and to an out-of-town reporter. He could have said this much earlier, if it was in fact his feeling then, which would have potentially stifled some of the rumors that he was admittedly distracted by.

It could be that as the trade deadline inches closer, Stoudemire is looking to solidify his status and mindset. If he opts in for next year, he’s essentially committing to the Suns and can focus on making the postseason and beyond. If he doesn’t opt in any time soon and isn’t traded or offered an extension to his liking, he’s sort of a lame duck who might be inclined to focus his play on an offseason payday, be it from the Suns or another team.

The implications of Stoudemire opting in could be significant. The Suns would certainly be much less inclined to trade him, but might drag their feet even more on an extension. If that were the case, we could see the same Stoudemire trade/contract saga next season. An opt-in also makes Stoudemire tougher to trade, as some teams looking for cap relief would be looking to take on his contract and let it expire at the end of the season.

Hollinger on potential Amare trades

ESPN’s John Hollinger breaks down a handful of Amare trade scenarios.

Suns 109, Nuggets 97

Suns

Nuggets

Tonight’s contest against the Denver Nuggets is a throwaway game for the Phoenix Suns.

Mind you, I’m not saying the Suns should play as if they don’t care about pulling out a victory. What I mean is that after three tense games that the Suns really needed to turn around their 12-18 stretch, Phoenix should go into this one all loosey goosey.

After all, what do they have to lose?

No matter what, this will already go down as a solid road trip, with the Suns picking up gritty wins against playoff contenders in Houston and New Orleans after losing 12 of 13 away from home. Suffice it to say, they’ve done what they needed to do, and a win on Friday in Sacramento is all that stands from making this a great trip.

But tonight the Suns face a Denver squad that’s 22-3 at home this season, making the Nuggets the second-best home team in the NBA next to the Lakers. After dominating their home floor last year as well, the Nuggets are now 55-11 in the Mile High City the past year and a half.

That’s in start contrast to Denver’s 11-12 road record in games in which the Nuggets score 101.0 ppg and give up 100.7. At home they score 112.5 and yield 102.4.

Furthermore, the home team has won 10 straight in this series, with Phoenix last winning in the Pepsi Center back on Dec. 5, 2007. Shawn Marion and Mike D were still around it was such a long time ago.

However, their last two meetings in Denver were decided by — ahem! — questionable officiating, a 105-99 Suns loss on Dec. 12 of this season when Steve Nash may or may not have been bumped on a potential game-tying foray to the hoop and a 119-113 overtime loss last January when Grant Hill was tripped on his way to a potential game-winning bucket in regulation that never was.

In that previous game this season, the Suns built up a 17-point lead in what was their first blown lead loss of many to come, following up on a 19-point lead they blew to Orlando the night before in a victory. In that contest hometown hero Lou Amundson sparked the Suns to a 19-2 second-quarter run in a career quarter that saw Lou go for eight points and nine boards.

This game should be a shootout with the Suns leading the league in offensive efficiency at 111.3 points per 100 and Denver third at 108.7.

That would be OK with the Suns, who have a major opportunity to win a game nobody expects them to win (there’s that theme again) in a brutal road environment. Taking this game to cap off a four-game winning streak would make quite a statement after the Suns were nearly left for dead this time last week.

This is the kind of situation in which the Suns thrive: when nobody expects anything of them and they can just go out and play ball.

Plus, even with all of the stats thrown out earlier about why the Suns have no business winning this game, keep this in mind:

Minnesota and Philadelphia, teams boasting a combined 27-69 mark, have snuck out of the Pepsi Center with wins this season.

And 1

ESPN’s John Hollinger rates the Suns’ schedule behind that of only Houston and Oklahoma City in difficulty. It’s too bad that those teams are also battling for bottom-tier West playoff spots, but that fact must be comforting to Suns fans nonetheless.

Along with starting in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game, Suns point guard Steve Nash will compete in the Skills Challenge. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

The Phoenix Suns are the only NBA team with two starters in the 2010 All-Star Game, but their involvement doesn’t stop there.

It was reported last week that Channing Frye would participate in the Three-Point Shootout, and it was announced Tuesday that point guard Steve Nash would compete in the Taco Bell Skills Challenge in Dallas on Feb. 13 as part of the All-Star Saturday Night festivities.

Nash, the league’s second-leading passer this season with 11.1 assists per game, won the competition in 2005. Although Nash’s game has seemed to decline very little in the past five years, he does face much younger competition in this year’s challenge.

Chicago Bulls second-year point guard Derrick Rose — who bested Nash recently in a 32-point, five assist win in Phoenix – will attempt to defend the skills title he won here in the Valley last season. Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams, the skills champ in 2008 and owner of the best-ever time in the competition, will also participate.

The only participant in this year’s challenge without a previous skills title is Milwaukee Bucks rookie point guard Brandon Jennings, who currently averages a rookie-high 6.3 assists per game.

The skills competition features a two-round timed “obstacle course” that consists of dribbling, passing and shooting stations. The two fastest players advance to the second round.

With four of the NBA’s most prolific passers taking center stage, this could be a very close competition. As a 36-year-old at the time of the competition, Nash will play the role of seasoned veteran in the event against Williams (25), Rose (21), and Jennings (20), who skipped college for a year of ball in Europe before coming to the NBA.

Frye and Hill both stepped up to help the Suns win their third straight game. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

It’s been such a long time since the Phoenix Suns won three games in a row that it feels like it last happened in a completely different season.

But just as everybody started to write off the Suns following a stretch of seven losses in nine games capped by back-to-back crushing losses against Utah and Charlotte, Phoenix has presented its fans with a sliver of hope by finally winning that elusive third straight game after downing New Orleans on Monday night, 109-100.

The Suns last won three in a row while finishing off a four-game winning streak Nov. 22-29, wins that culminated in Phoenix’s 14-3 start.

At the time it was the Suns’ third four-game winning streak of the season, so who could have thought the Suns would fail to win even three in a row again before the calendar turned to February? Hell, since then they have only won multiple games twice, and those came in a four out of five stretch around New Year’s.

All is still not perfect on Planet Orange. The Suns blew a 20-point lead like it was nothing once again, but that’s not what I’m focusing on tonight because Phoenix showed the resolve to pull through with a victory, grinding out a pair of tough road wins after losing 12 of 13 away from home.

Following Tuesday’s loss to Charlotte, you could kind of see things coming apart at the seams. Besides losing seven of nine, Amare Stoudemire looked disinterested amid rampant trade speculation, and with a brutal schedule staring them in the face, you had to wonder if this team would be out of it by the All-Star break.

Maybe that’s what this squad needed. Fans and the media wrote them off. While all of the other teams at the bottom of the West were on their way up, the Suns were seemingly on their way down.

It was just like preseason, when the Suns heard everybody talking about how they’d be lucky to be the eighth seed in the loaded West. Nobody believed in them, and that’s when they came out and ran off to their 14-3 start.

A 12-18 stretch later, and that’s what this had become again. The doubters chirped louder than ever, and all the Suns have done is run off three straight gutty victories against Western Conference playoff contenders, including two road wins.

I understand that even now the Suns’ 21 losses equals the number of defeats owned by the West’s ninth-place team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. I get that three games does not undo the previous 30.

But what’s most heartening is that the Suns have played with the resolve of November, gutting out all three wins down the stretch against teams they will be battling against for playoff positioning down the road.

In particular in the last two road games, they knocked off teams they were tied with in the loss column entering the game. They now own the tiebreaker against Houston and are a win in Phoenix away from owning it against New Orleans as well. With as close as the West is, that’s huge. [Read more →]

Suns 109, Hornets 100

Suns

Hornets

After outlasting the Dallas Mavericks on TNT and fending off the Houston Rockets in overtime on the road, the Phoenix Suns appear to be climbing the rollercoaster that has embodied the 2009-2010 season.

Steve Nash and company will attempt to keep that upswing going against the Chris Paul-less New Orleans Hornets tonight.  Yesterday it was confirmed that Paul will undergo arthroscopic knee surgery today to repair cartilage that was torn in the Hornets’ loss to the Chicago Bulls last Friday.

CP3 is expected to miss one to two months. This news obviously changes things a little bit for the Suns, but Darren Collison is no slouch and shined in Paul’s absence when he missed eight games with a sprained ankle earlier this season. Phoenix has split the season series with the Hornets thus far (1-1), but the loss came with Collison manning the controls.

The rookie out of UCLA is coming off a 17-point, 18-assist performance in a win against the Memphis Grizzlies last night. Collison, a terrific on-ball defender, should give Steve Nash some troubles offensively and defensively.

The Suns are only one game ahead of the Hornets for the No. 7 spot in the Western Conference standings, and a win against New Orleans would give them a little bit of breathing room.

But which team, and maybe more importantly which Amare Stoudemire, will show up?

The Hornets are a stingy squad, and if the Suns give them a glimmer of hope, they are the type of team that would claw back from a lead. The Suns can’t ease off the gas if they hope to win on the road in a back-to-back situation.

Then the question becomes: Which Amare will Suns fans see? The Amare that acts like he wants to be on the court and goes for 36 and 11 on the road in Houston, or the Amare that averaged only 4.0 rebounds per contest in his last four games before the Houston win amidst swirling trade rumors?

STAT is averaging 22.0 points and 5.5 rebounds in two games against the Hornets this season and should have a tough matchup against the defensive-minded center Emeka Okafor.

The Hornets’ offensive-minded big man, David West, hasn’t had that same success in this series, as he is averaging only 8.0 points and 4.0 rebounds against the Suns this season. If the Suns can take West out of the game, the Hornets will struggle to find offense.

But stopping West and the Hornets is all mental for the Suns. They need to come out and play with the same fire and intensity that they do against the NBA’s elite. When their mentality is right, the Suns are a completely different ball club. But when they have mental lapses, don’t rebound or defend, and shut off when the game is on the line, things get ugly.

The Suns don’t have to deal with CP3 tonight, but they do have to remained focused and execute if they hope to win their third straight game for the first time since late November.

And 1

• Robin Lopez is really rounding into a formidable starting center for the Suns. He is averaging 12.7 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per contest over his last 10 games, and has been a nice contrast to Channing Frye’s perimeter-oriented game.
• Earl Clark is finally finding his niche in the rotation — averaging 8.6 minutes per game over the past five contests. Clark’s length and versatility bring a different element to the floor, even if his offensive game is not quite refined just yet.