Bad news

How Spurs cruised to victory is disturbing sign for Suns

Here’s the bad news for the Suns, which lost to the Spurs in Game 3 Friday night: Tony Parker is back.

The second-year point guard for San Antonio, laid flat by a case of SARS (Stephon Always Roasts Spurs) in the first two games, got healthy with a mighty 29-point effort against Stephon Marbury to lead the Spurs to an easy 99-86 victory and a 2-1 series lead.

Here’s the really bad news for the Suns: Tim Duncan had just six field-goal attempts in the game.

Yep.

Six shots.

That’s one more than Jake Voskuhl.

1 Second-half points by Portland's Ruben Patterson. Patterson broke his previous playoff career-high of 15 by halftime, single-handedly keeping the Blazers in the game with 18 points ... but finished with 19. "We had to beat 15 people last night." -- Rod Strickland of the Timberwolves, on the officiating in Minnesota's overtime win over the Lakers on Thursday. Was Maurice Cheeks' impromptu assist on the national anthem Friday night also his swan song?

And still the Spurs won the game. Rather easily, too.

How San Antonio managed to dominate a pivotal game with their MVP candidate barely looking to shoot says a lot about the Spurs -- and a little about the Suns, as well.

For San Antonio, it shows that Duncan is a smart, unselfish player who, even when faced with the kind of constant double teams Phoenix threw at him in Game 3, will stay patient and find open teammates. After all, this wasn’t the first time he’s received the blanket treatment from the Suns. Duncan had just 12 field-goal attempts in Game 1 and 15 in Game 2.

It also shows that the Spurs have some other guys who can put the ball in the basket -- at least against the Suns. Stephen Jackson (20 points), Malik Rose (15 points) and Manu Ginobili (12 points) all chipped in Friday to complement Parker’s scoring. As a result, Duncan was able to focus on cleaning up the boards, which he did to the tune of 23 rebounds.

As for the Suns, it points out again how much they lack a dominant big man. While Amare Stoudamire might have raised the Rookie of the Year trophy over his head in a pregame ceremony, he’s still too young to handle Duncan alone in the post. As a result, the Suns have to send help all the time, leading to open shots on the perimeter for the likes of Parker, Jackson and Ginobili.

Phoenix still has a chance in this series. The Suns missed a lot of open shots in Game 3. It’s unlikely Penny Hardaway, Joe Johnson and Casey Jacobsen will shoot a combined 4-of-24 again.

But after a shocking Game 1 defeat, the Spurs look to have matters again under control. Over a seven-game series, it’s a lot to ask for the Suns to have to contend with stopping Duncan inside and Parker outside. And did we mention that David Robinson played fairly well (eight points, eight rebounds) Friday night in his return from a knee injury?

Like we said, bad news for the Suns.

	(Lisa Blumenthal/Getty Images) Stud: Dirk Nowitzki, F, Mavs Dirk scored 42 points Friday, and missed all of five shots in doing it. He's averaging 37.7 points, 9.7 boards and shooting a ri-Dirk-ulous 71 percent on 3-pointers in single-handedly dismantling Portland.		(Gregory Shamus/NBAE/Getty Images) Dud: Chauncey Billups, G, Pistons The Pistons' second-leading scorer had as many turnovers (five) as points and was frazzled by Darrell Armstrong's full-court defense all night. A sore leg isn't helping his cause any.

Jazz fans couldn’t have been thrilled to hear Karl Malone admit in an ESPN interview Thursday that "it would be tough" for Utah to win this year’s NBA title. He’s correct, of course, but it’s not exactly a Knute Rockne speech heading into Saturday’s crucial Game 3. The Bucks led the NBA in 3-point accuracy during the season (38.5 percent) but they’ve made just 9-of-34 (26.4 percent) over the past two games. The Nets have done a good job locating Milwaukee’s shooters and getting a hand in their face. Despite hosting the city’s first NBA playoff game, as of Friday, the Hornets had not sold out New Orleans Arena (capacity 18,500) for Saturday’s Game 3. What happened to all that fan support they told us about when the team moved from Charlotte?

 

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