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Despite an unproductive bench, Suns get past the Blazers
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Amare Stoudemire has led the Suns in points and minutes in all
three of their regular season games this season. (AP Photo: Rick
Scuteri)
Terry Porter got his first home victory as the Suns coach Saturday night, beating the team he spent 10 seasons as the starting point guard.
Porter, who ranks first on the Portland Trailblazers’ all-time list in three-pointers and assists, coached the Suns to a 107-96 win, and their tenth straight over the Blazers. Those ten wins are the longest current winning streak Phoenix has against any NBA team.
All five players in the Suns’ starting lineup scored in double figures, led by Amare Stoudemire’s 23 points and 13 rebounds. The starters however, didn’t receive much help from their bench, which only produced 14 points total, and let an early 12-point lead fall to an 8-point deficit in the second quarter.
For those unfamiliar with the “plus-minus” statistic, it measures the team scoring differential when a specific player is on the court. The starting five for the Suns all had a plus-minus of +20 or greater, with the exception of Matt Barnes at +18.
The entire Phoenix bench, however, were all negative, with the worst being rookie Goran Dragic at minus 16. To put that in perspective, Dragic only played 6 minutes and 49 seconds of the game. The Blazers outscored the Suns by 16 points in that short period of time.
As part of a 22-6 run in the second quarter, Portland’s young bench was hitting shots from all over the floor. They were led by Rudy Fernandez, a 2007 first round draft choice whose rights were traded from Phoenix to Portland on draft night. Fernandez, who some might recall as the surefire guard on Spain’s Olympic team this summer, finished with 20 points on 8-13 shooting off the bench.
The starting five for Phoenix returned just in time to close the gap before halftime, and the Blazers led 50-49 at the break. They exchanged the lead for the first few minutes of the third quarter, before Stoudemire gave the lead to the Suns for good.
Stoudemire scored 16 of his 23 points in the third quarter, and the Suns regained control with an 80-72 lead going into the fourth, and never looked back.
Portland was missing Greg Oden, last year’s first overall pick, who suffered a foot injury on opening night against the Los Angeles Lakers. Joel Przybilla started in his place, and was taken advantage of by Shaquille O’Neal all night in the paint. O’Neal shot 75 percent from the field, and finished with 16 points and eight rebounds. He even made 4 of 5 from the free throw line.
After being plagued by turnovers Thursday night in their loss to the New Orleans Hornets, Phoenix regained control of their possessions, only giving the ball away 11 times to Portland. Five of those turnovers were committed by the bench, and Steve Nash, who gave it away seven times against the Hornets, only committed one.
“We are a good shooting team so we should shoot a good percentage, but we have to keep the turnovers down because that will kill us,” Nash said after the game.
With the win, the Suns improve to 2-1 and are off until Tuesday, when they start a four-game eastern road swing that begins at the New Jersey Nets (1-1). That will mark the first time the Lopez twins (Phoenix’s Robin, and New Jersey’s Brook) face each other as opponents in an NBA game.
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