The Suns are the Real Defending Champions of the NBA

The internet is dominated by short and very short articles, but my full game reports are extremely long, averaging about 4500 words these days. I know some people will never have the time to read articles that long. Short articles on extremely important topics are great for fans without a lot of time to check out and to give their opinion on. So from now on, as time permits, I will extract very important parts of game reports and post them as separate reports. The Phoenix Suns would be the defending Champions of the NBA were it not for what was apparently a taunting ploy done by ace actor Robert Horry of the Spurs in last spring's Suns-Spurs series. Horry flagrantly fouled Suns all-star PG Steve Nash in such a way that the Suns thought he might be injured and removed from the series. Then the resulting potential fight situation induced Boris Diaw and Amare Stoudemire to leave their seats on the Phoenix bench and to come on to the court a few feet. Then these two players were not allowed to play in the next game of the evenly matched and fiercely competitive series, which was up until then the best playoff series of the year. Horry, of course, was also suspended, but Horry was maybe 15% of the combined value of Diaw and Stoudemire. So San Antonio then had a major artificial edge in the next game, which was in Phoenix and which was game 5 of a best of 7 series that was tied 2 games a piece. As sports fanatics will tell you, game 5 of a best of 7 series that is tied 2 games a piece is usually the most important game of the series, because the team that loses that game would have to win two straight after that in order to win the series, which is extremely difficult when you have two evenly matched teams. Sure enough, the Spurs won game 5, with a huge 4th quarter comeback against the Suns, who had been reduced by that quarter from being the best offensive squad in basketball to being offensively challenged. The Spurs prefer to grind out their wins and, once Diaw and Stoudemire were removed from the scene, that is exactly what they were able to do without too much trouble in that decisive game 5. Then in game 6 back in San Antonio, the Spurs used the "6th man," their crowd, and the home court advantage in general, to get their shooting mojo on, and they eliminated the cheated Suns 114-105. There was to be no glorious game 7 due to what could be called the "Horry and Stern incident." For anyone who doesn't know, David Stern is the Commissioner of the NBA, who threw the book at the Suns and was very sarcastic toward the Suns and their fans to boot. Stern had to cancel his planned trip to Phoenix to watch game five, for fear that his mere presence might ruin the whole atmosphere and possibly be a security risk. Horry and the Spurs won yet another Championship, which was almost meaningless since he and they already had several, and because of the virtual or actual cheating. And Horry's flagrant foul led to the partial ruination of the 2008 playoffs. Many, many folks in Phoenix will always believe that the foul on Nash was staged to generate suspensions of Suns players and, even if it wasn't, the rule should not have been enforced because Diaw and Stoudemire never went more than about 10 feet on to the court, and because they never came close to other players who were considering whether to fight, and there wasn't actually a fight anyway. Still others think that the rule is completely asinine and should be thrown out completely. They think of it as a free speech type issue: what is the harm of a player coming on to the court as long as he doesn't fight? How do you know that a player coming on to the court might reduce the chance of a fight amongst the players who were out there during the incident, rather than increase the chance? There was speculation after Phoenix was cheated that the rule would be modified but inertia and other bureaucratic and public relations factors made that a long shot and, sure enough, the same relatively stupid rule is still in effect. Once the Suns were eliminated by the Spurs back in San Antonio in game 6, most close NBA observers, including yours truly, concluded that the Spurs could not possibly lose in the West finals or in the NBA Championship. And we also concluded that the Spurs did not really deserve to be the 2008 Champions, because they did not at all defeat the Suns in a fair fight. Whether they actually cheated their way to victory or not, the end result was as if they did cheat. Ratings were down a little, but only a little, because most fans of the NBA are too casual to know in advance, for example, that LeBron James and his Cavaliers had no chance against the Spurs in the best of 7 games Championship. So in my view, the Suns are the real defending Champions of the NBA this year, because I am convinced the Suns would have won the series 4 games to 3, and possibly even 4 games to 2, had the critical 5th game been played in Phoenix without any Suns suspensions. Therefore, I am reporting that the real defending Champion Phoenix Suns buried the Nuggets in Phoenix 137-115.