Setting Suns, A Sight to Behold By Michael Wilbon Sunday, June 4, 2006 Washington Post http://0rz.net/941rk It's almost a sin that a team as delightful to watch as the Phoenix Suns and a series as entertaining as the Western Conference finals were undone by something as ordinary as foul trouble. The early 18-point lead Phoenix built Saturday night was nothing more than a desert mirage because four of the six Suns of consequence were in disastrous foul trouble, the kind a team with a thin bench and small bodies can't overcome, no matter how potent it is offensively. Nothing is as invigorating to a good team trying to find itself than the sight of one opposing player after another going to the bench with three fouls, then four. The Suns' flaws -- lack of depth and size -- were never more apparent than in the second half when the Dallas Mavericks took over Game 6 and bolted into the NBA Finals for the first time. There won't be a seventh game, sadly. There won't be any more Steve Nash vs. Dirk Nowitzki, and there probably won't be any more end-to-end pedal-to-the- metal basketball this postseason now that the Western Conference finals are over. Pat Riley will see to that. The Suns and their incredible season were put to bed Saturday, which is too bad for the NBA, too bad for so many new fans who had just discovered the joy of wide-open basketball and old fans who were enjoying its revival through these Suns. How can you not enjoy a team whose idea of optimum offense is to get a shot up within the first seven seconds of a possession? Mike D'Antoni, the coach of the Suns, actually told his high-scoring team recently to get the lead out and get the ball up quicker. Tell me you wouldn't love to see the Suns try and create their unique brand of basketball mismatches in the NBA Finals against the powerful but plodding Miami Heat? Don't get me wrong, the Mavericks have the best team in the Western Conference and they demonstrated it by closing out San Antonio and Phoenix on the road that they're the best candidate to challenge Miami. The Mavericks can play it anyway you want, inside and out, to Hip-Hop or slow dance. They have a fascinating coach in Avery Johnson, a compelling superstar in Nowitzki, the ultimate meddlesome owner in Mark Cuban and just enough of a sad-sack history to be something of a sentimental favorite against blue bloods Shaq and Riley. But for sheer unadulterated basketball fun, tell me you weren't dying inside, if only a little bit, to see Suns vs. Heat? Okay, the Suns probably wouldn't have had very much of a chance given that no two Phoenix players morphed together would be as big as Shaq. But how cool would it have been to see Shaq, all 7-feet-1, 325 pounds of him, matched with dashing Boris Diaw, the slight 6-8 Frenchman who is a cross between pretty boy Tyson Beckford and Grant Hill. The Suns would simply hand the basketball to the Heat and say, "Here Mr. Shaq, you're going to throw it down on us anyway, so please get right to it so that we can fly down to the other end and shoot a three." The Mavericks are the best team, no question, but the there was something so appealing about the Suns all season. For people who care less about Xs and Os than MPH it's a disappointment the Suns were eliminated here in Game 6, that they couldn't hold on to their 18-point lead so that we could have been treated to the drama of Game 7 in Dallas Monday night. Still, this is so much further than anybody would have guessed last October the Suns could have advanced. That's when Amare Stoudemire, their 6-11 center with a boxer's body and gymnasts' flexibility, found he would miss essentially the entire season after complex knee surgery. Yet, the Suns won the Pacific Division, took out Kobe Bryant (literally) and Phil Jackson in seven games, got rid of the other L.A. team in seven games, and gave the Mavericks nearly as tough a battle as the defending champion Spurs did in the second round. And Phoenix has done all this in a way that nobody given to traditional basketball would endorse. Run and Gun, baby. Basketball logic says you can't win a championship the way the Suns play. But after Dallas's 102-93 victory Saturday, Nash said, "We proved, to me, we can win a championship playing this way. We led every game in this series at halftime. If anything this year went further to convince me of that." And they did so playing only seven men, with only one (Tim Thomas) as tall as 6-10. The Suns, after the hugs and handshakes were exchanged, were left to face the most encouraging offseason a team could imagine. Stoudemire is already practicing. He's back to throwing down windmill dunks. They all know the possibilities, not of this season, but of next year when Stoudemire and Kurt Thomas are joined by two first-round draft picks. Anybody with an appreciation of beautifully played basketball should be just as anxious as the Suns to find out what in the world awaits. --

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