Suns play basketball the fun way

From: www.nwherald.com/
View source article here.
Nick Hut

If you watch the NBA and have no preference among the four remaining teams, consider rooting for the Phoenix Suns.
 
The Suns are the model of pro basketball as it should be, as it once was – free-flowing, fast-paced and dynamic.

They win because they have excellent players, including a two-time MVP in point guard Steve Nash, but they also win because of their style.

The more they win – they lost to the Dallas Mavericks, 117-101, in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals Thursday night – the more other teams will think about emulating that system. And that would be good for the sport.

The Suns regularly get out on the fast break. They move well without the ball in halfcourt sets. They have terrific shooters.

Phoenix coach Mike D'Antoni aims to win games, naturally, but he also is cognizant of the need to play an appealing style.

"We are in the entertainment business, after all," he once said. "We enjoy putting on a good show."

A Suns game is the 1980s revisited. And if Archie Bunker were to sing "Those Were the Days" about the NBA, it would center on the 1980s.

"Mister, we could use a man like Magic Johnson again!"

The Suns are a reasonable facsimile of the Magic-led Showtime Lakers, except Phoenix has less idea of how to play defense. That is why it is unlikely to win the championship.

Just by reaching their second consecutive Western Conference finals, however, the Suns have proved their system works.

Even if they advance no further, they should be a paradigm for other teams.

From last year's team, Phoenix lost Amare Stoudemire to injury and Joe Johnson and Quentin Richardson to free agency. That left the Suns with Nash, Shawn Marion and spare parts such as Boris Diaw, Raja Bell and Bulls castoff Tim Thomas.

The Suns still got back to the same level they reached a year ago. They already have done better, in a way, because they lost in five games to San Antonio last season and already have gone that far against the Mavericks.

Memo to coaches and general managers: This can work for you, too.

Yes, Nash is great and his feats are hard to duplicate. But he is not a once-in-a-generation marvel like Magic was. As Nash has admitted, the system makes him as much as the other way around.

A lot of bad teams around the league have the kind of athletes who could flourish by playing the way Phoenix plays. The Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors come to mind immediately.

If their coaches are not too stubborn, perhaps they will try incorporating some of the Suns' elements.

Of course, that is a big "if."

Too many coaches have the same approach as the Cleveland Cavaliers' Mike Brown, who should be fired just for the following comment: "I love this grind-it-out, figure-it-out, bump-here, bump-there basketball."

Brown has LeBron James on his team, yet he wants to keep his players on the tightest possible leash. Ridiculous.

The more the Suns win, the more other coaches just might come to think differently.