Suns gaining ground but still have work to do

PHOENIX -- Sunday's smiting of the recently mighty Los Angeles Lakers did nothing to alter the long-term predicament confronting the Phoenix Suns. "We're behind the 8-ball as far as making up games and trying to get back in the playoff race," Suns coach Alvin Gentry reminded reporters before Monday's furious waltz past the Washington Wizards. OK, let's pretend we're dealing with a magic 8-ball that features a watery window for supplying harmless observations. And the magic 8-ball placed in front of the Suns offers the following gem: "Playing to the level of your competition can be risky ... especially if that level is close to subterranean." Well, playing to (and above) L.A.'s level worked out fine; the Lakers have the ways and means for a big revival. But the Wizards -- now slouching through the league at 7-24 -- have yet to qualify as dreaded opposition. They do have some talented whippersnappers, including point guard John Wall, but the Wiz frequently play as if the NBA is little more than an audition for a call-up to the And1 Tour. There was some of that solo-oriented play in the Suns' 104-88 triumph at US Airways Center. But instead of a magic 8-ball, the Suns are stuck behind an object more closely resembling an enormous sphere that chased Indiana Jones out of a cave full of precious relics. One explanation for this plight is their struggle to handle some of the league's lesser squads at home. Their 14-20 record includes US Airways flops against the Cleveland Cavaliers (true, they're not all that bad), New Jersey Nets, Toronto Raptors and New Orleans Hornets. The victory side was boosted by a nail-biter against the lottery-leaning and injury-riddled Charlotte Bobcats. So, prevention of a Wizards' uprising wasn't taken for granted. "It's important to be tough and be strong mentally because we expended a lot of energy last night," Suns leader Steve Nash said in reference to backing the win over the Lakers with a victory the following night. "It demanded of us to come out and be professional tonight and we did the job." It should be noted that Monday's win wasn't a wire-to-wire picnic. The Suns did carry a 53-48 lead into intermission, but a 3-point play by Washington's Trevor Booker had the Wizards in front, 55-54, at the 8:33 mark of the third quarter. As if the proverbial switch had been flipped, a 16-0 Phoenix run provided a home-team cushion and seemed to kill the Wizards' collective morale. "Selfish is what happened," Wizards coach Randy Wittman said. "We became selfish. We didn't share the ball and tried to do everything one-on-one, and a good team like Phoenix is going to take that away from you." Phoenix also went to a 2-3 zone after Wittman's time out midway through the run. The Wizards, who checked into the proceedings ranked 29th in 3-point-shooting accuracy, apparently decided the sweet spot in the zone was about 25 feet away from the rim on the left side of the floor. "In the NBA, a successful zone just means the other team took perimeter shots and missed them," Gentry, pretty much harking back to a good-zone, bad-zone philosophy he explained during the 2010 playoff series with the Lakers, said, "and when they make them you get asked why you were in a zone." Well, the Wizards' marksmanship turned the Suns' alignment into an impromptu twilight zone. In their first eight possessions against it, they missed six jump shots and committed two turnovers. For the record, despite the overall efficiency woes, Washington does have a couple of dangerous wing players in Nick Young and Jordan Crawford. Crawford is the guy who -- as a college player -- once sort of dunked on LeBron James during a pick-up game at a Nike-sponsored camp. He made 7 of 10 less-ballyhooed shots against the Suns and finished with a team-high 20 points. Young averages 17.5 points per game, but was 3 of 13 for 6 points, mostly against the stalking of Suns stopper Grant Hill. In that critical stretch, team-wide Wizards agendas seemed to prevail. "We stopped playing as a team," Wall said. "We stopped moving the ball. We took tough shots. With a team that gets out and goes, it gets the crowd into it, they spark a big lead and they did." Right, just like the good, old days. Now, good and old mostly serves to describe Nash and Hill. But star turns also were taken by Channing Frye (19 points, 11 rebounds), Marcin Gortat (20 and 7) and sub Michael Redd (14 and 4). "I just try to be aggressive really," Frye, who had 10 points in the opening quarter, said. "I think I kind of know my rotation now. I know, this is going to sound kind of bad, but I try and be as aggressive as I can for those first six minutes and see what happens." It's not secret that when Frye makes shots, a Suns victory has a reasonable chance of happening. Now, after four consecutive defeats, Phoenix can skip into the All-Star break with a three-game winning streak if it can hold off the Golden State Warriors at home Wednesday. "It's important to be optimistic, regardless," Nash said when asked about having a three-game run leading into some needed time off. That's not the kind of talk trade-promoting watchdogs want to hear or read. But "It's important to be optimistic, really" certainly reads like a proverb that should be found inside the magic 8-ball.