Grading Game: Magic 122, Suns 100

Offense:

The Suns night offensively can be summed up by this, two of the Suns five starters didn’t score (Grant Hill and Jason Richardson) and Channing Frye chipped in a total of 5 points. The three combined to shoot 2-for-15 (Although Hill’s performance didn’t surprise Magic fans, it’s about what they got from him as a player). Even Steve Nash struggled, based on Steve Nash standards, he only scored 12 points and shot 5-for-11.

The lone bright spots were Amare Stoudemire who finished with 25 points, although he had only 6 in the second half, Jared Dudley who scored 17 and Goran Dragic who chipped in 15.

Although the bench showed some life it was too little too late as it came after the game got out of hand.

Overall the offense was abysmal, even though they scored a hundred points.

Grade:

D-

Defense:

Ryan Anderson looked like his superstar self for most of the game versus the Suns…wait, Ryan Anderson isn’t a superstar? He’s some young guy who was a throw in in the trade that sent Vince Carter to Orlando? Well I guess that changes everything.

The Suns let Ryan Anderson light them up for a majority of the game and let an upset Dwight Howard finish them off. Although the they were able to keep things close in the first half, the second half looked like the Magic were running drills rather than playing against an NBA caliber defense.

For the first time in the young season the Suns defense was exposed and were talking the “full monty”. Everything Suns fans and NBA experts thought would go wrong did. They didn’t have the size to compete with Dwight Howard, a fact even coach Gentry conceded after the game, and they didn’t have an answer to Magic point guard Jameer Nelson either.

If the offense was abysmal you’d have to describe it as whatever is worse then abysmal. There isn’t anything? Well then we’ll just refer to it as “the tail end of a back to back” because we’ll probably see it happen again this season.

Grade:

F

Rebounding:

Surprisingly this may have been the best thing the Suns did all evening. Even with rebounding beast Dwight Howard in the middle for Orlando the Suns managed to only get outrebounded by three (they held Howard to a paltry 6 boards). Amare Stoudemire, especially in the first half, showed a dedication to rebounding that makes everyone believe he can be among the leagues elite. He had eleven in the first half and finished with fourteen in thrity-four minutes of play. Lou Amundson chipped in five and backup point guard Goran Dragic even have four of his own.

Their performance may not have been great but on a night like last night it looks pretty good.

Grade:

C+

Ball handling:

If the Suns handled the ball a little better the second half of the game may have been a little different (like only a ten point loss). They had eighteen turnovers on the night and only twenty-one assists. You know it’s a bad night when Steve Nash only has four assists and three turnovers.

Grade:

D

Overall Game GPA: 1.00 GPA

Subscribe to your favorite Phoenix team or sport or Follow us on Twitter.