Suns vs. Blazers on my B-day

On Wednesday night I watched the Celtics play the Hawks on ESPN. Both teams are talented and have a lot of weapons. On Thursday night I watched the Suns and the Blazers. It was also a good game because both teams have a lot of talent and weapons. The Celtics beat the Hawks because they were able to take Joe Johnson out of the game for the entire first half and much of the second half. He is a skilled scorer and ended up getting 20 points but he was so molested all night that he missed a critical free throw down the stretch and lost the game. The Celtics defense is so disrupting that it can effect performance on the free throw line.

The Suns defense on the other hand gave up 98 points in three quarters. At the end of the game the best scorer on the Blazers had a career high 52 points. I have Brandon Roy on my fantasy basketball team so I didn't mind so much but it did strike me that you can not claim to be a great team and give up 52 to one player. I thought we traded to for Jason Richardson and Shaq to change our style of play and our defense.

Watching Matt Barnes, Leandro Barbosa and Jason Richardson getting worked by Roy last night I realized that we still play like the run and gun/no defense suns but we don't do it as well. In addition there are more teams that can score in the way the Suns used to. The Blazers have tons of guys who can put the ball in the hoop. When the Suns were cultivating their offense-centric style there were not many teams in the West that could keep up with their scoring. Now every team in the West seems to be able to.

Perhaps it is this re-dedication to offense in the Western Conference plus the poor defense of the Suns that is making us all so frustrated.

The Suns still have a talented team and Jason Richardson is a good player but they play like a turnover prone version of their former selves.

I don't know what the solution is. Maybe Jeremy is write about the Amare trade but I think it may need to be a Nash trade. We need strong defensive leadership and Nash can't guard me. The Hornets, Lakers, Celtics are the strongest teams in the league and each has a point guard that sets a defensive tone.

What do you think of the latest solution?