(Barry Gossage/NBAE/Getty Images)
Now was that SO hard? To hit the accelerator instead of the break when you to plus 15, I mean?
The Suns haven’t blown many games this year, but of late they had fallen into the potentially dangerous habit of blowing most or all of double-digit leads – 19 of 20 before rallying to beat the Spurs here and all of a 15-point lead and then some at Portland being the last two cases in point.
But tonight the offense didn’t let up until it hit plus 33 and coasted home with reserves playing out the string in a 121-95 victory that pushed their home court record to a perfect 10 this year and stretched their home winning streak over a two-season span to 18 games.
In the interest of full disclosure, it didn’t hurt that the “car” they zoomed away from had two flat tires and was dangerously low on gas after playing at Golden State last night and arriving in the Valley at 4 a.m.
Still, whereas the Suns have had difficulty burying teams with under similar circumstances this year, this had to be encouraging to Coach Alvin and his lads. The fact is for all its weapons, this is not a team that can afford to take the pedal off the metal very long, however far ahead against whomever.
As you might expect, the Suns posted all kinds of gaudy numbers in this one. The gaudiest, again not unexpectedly, belong to Steve Nash, who had a typical Nash double double — 15 points and 15 assists. Amare had a pretty decent double of his own, 23 points and 14 rebounds, and Jason Richardson had 22 points in 25 minutes.
All in all, it was a great tune-up for Monday’s visit by LeBron and his supporting cast (aka the Cleveland Cavaliers). However, there was one sad stat note to pass along — Hall of Fame broadcaster Al McCoy’s streak of consecutive seconds of Suns broadcasts was snapped at fourteen gazillion due to a bizarre turn of events.
What happened was that after the teams had headed for the lockeroom at halftime, the officials put another 2.5 seconds back on the clock and brought the teams back out to play it, and it was played without Al, who had already headed for his coffee break.
The bottom line: The seasoned pro he is, Al shrugged it off and simply came out for the third period and started another streak.
