 Phoenix Suns |
vs. |
 Chicago Bulls |
| 4-1 | 2-3 | |
| 6:30 PM Mountain / 8:30 PM Eastern | ||
| TV: My45 HD | ||
| Probable starters: | ||
| Steve Nash | PG | Derrick Rose |
| Raja Bell | SG | Ben Gordon? |
| Grant Hill? | SF | Luol Deng |
| Amare Stoudemire | PF | Tyrus Thomas |
| Shaq? | C | Drew Gooden |
The Suns coming off the Amare Show against the Pacer’s face a Chicago Bulls team that seems to be in state of chaos according the senior NBA Blogger at Blog a Bull.
They are a team lead on the court and on the bench by a rookies and seem to be dealing (poorly) with two disgruntled self-imagined super stars in Deng and Gordon. The only good news is that Vinnie Del Negro’s back hair issues are less likely to create personal distress in the bitter cold of the Windy City where he can layer up in fuzzy sweaters and bullky parkas.
Like the last two teams the Suns have faced, the Bulls lack an inside scoring presense and seem to be dependant on the various individual brilliance of Rose, Gordon and Deng to put up points.
This will test the Suns perimeter defense which will likely employ the penetration denial scheme we’ve seen from Porter and force the Bulls to hit from the outside. With Shaq on the floor the zone will also be used and just like it was effective against a young Blazers team it should work well here too.
In several games now we have seen teams get hot from the outside against the Suns early but there are very few teams that can sustain a high enough level of 3 point shooting to outscore the uber effecient Suns offense that gets easy buckets in the paint and gets to the line.
There are several open questions for tonights game that will surely become clear as the day progresses:
- I assume that Matt Barnes will not return for this game after leaving the team to attend to the birth of his twin tattoed boys. This leaves the Suns thin on the wings against the team that is strongest on the wings
- I will be surprised if Shaq plays much tonight with a game against the Bogut Bucks tomorrow and with the Bulls lack of a true banger down low
- The Bulls have started Thabo Sefolosha but there are signs that Ben Gordon may get the nod after scoring 31 in their last game (a loss to the Cavs)
- AmundSun or RoFor? This is another game where Lopez may not be the best choice against the Chicago mobile bigs (Gooden, Thomas, Noah and Nocioni) but OTOH it’s way too soon to predict what Porter will do with his rotating rotations
This is another very winnable game against an Eastern Conference team that seems to be struggling with a lot of issues.
It should also be fun to see the leading candidates for ROY and MVP on the same floor.
Who’s your early season ROY? Here’s the stats.
