Good riddance, Suns

i came into the suns-spurs series with no real rooting interest. i’ve always enjoyed watching the spurs play (more than most fans) because i respect how hard they play and i love the disciplined nature in which they adhere to their style. i also liked (emphasis on the past tense) the suns and their tough run-n-gun mentality. most longtime readers will probably think that i hate steve nash, but i really don’t. he’s a really great player and he’s somewhat swayed me this year that his previous two mvp’s were deserved.

but after watching six games and listening to all of the commentary, i can officially declare that i am sick of the suns; they’re almost as bad as the mavericks as whiny jerks who can’t shut up and play hard. they don’t deserve to win the championship this year or any other.

major gripes:

1. if you think bruce bowen is dirty, then you should hate raja bell also. they are the same player. they use all the little tricks that physically overmatched defenders (and i should know, i was/am one) use on every play. it’s just bowen is better at it and the suns whine about it. and no, amare, he wasn’t trying to break your leg on that play, you whiny bitch.
   
2. steve nash flopped on the horry foul. end of story. you can’t get mad at horry for that foul or else you’re just a huge crybaby. watch the video in slow-mo; nash practically jumps out of bounds and doesn’t make a move to get up until his teammates come running in. if you want to blame someone for what happened after (besides the morons who ran off the bench), blame nash.
   
3. the nba rule is there for a reason. in fact, it’s there for the exact reason stoudemire and diaw left the bench. so stop WHINING about the suspensions. maybe some maturity on their end would have helped; there were no spurs that left the bench for the altercation.
4. mike d’antoni needs to stop bitching about every call. as i wrote before, that sets the wrong tone for your team and makes you look like a wuss. he talked in an interview about being “as mentally tough as the spurs, as we proved in game 4″. um no, because 1) you didn’t win game 4, the refs gave it to you, and 2) you whine all the time about small issues. doing so also impressed upon your team that it’s ok to whine; we even saw nash doing stuff down the stretch last night that would’ve gotten him tossed out of the game if his last name was Jackson.
   
5. game 4 was horrifically officiated and the spurs should have won. you didn’t hear any griping from them. they just came back and played their asses off.
   

what is clear from the playoffs is that mentally tough teams advance. utah has advanced by withstanding the emotional runs of the warriors and pounding them inside. detroit advanced by winning a physical battle against the bulls. cleveland advanced because vince pulled his usual disappearing act. and the spurs have advanced by playing their butts off in the situations that they were presented with and not worrying about what “should have” happened.

edit: truehoop has some similar (objective) observations

edit: and i hate columns like gene wojciechowski’s today that try to tell us we should wonder “what if” about the past. what if horry had never fouled nash?! well, what if david stern hadn’t enforced the rule and next year someone on the spurs ran on the court? what if leandro barbosa had played like he did against the lakers for this whole series? what if the spurs hadn’t shut down steve nash last night with great defense? how about any of those things?

i mean, but mr. wojciechowski, what if a giant unicorn had landed on tim duncan’s head in game 3, causing him to miss a game? who cares?! over those six games, the spurs were the better team that made less mental mistakes. no, no one deserved seven games because the suns couldn’t get it that far. get over it.