From: oliver@athena.mit.edu (James D. Oliver III)
Subject: Re: Suns file protest in San Antonio loss
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 01:15:22 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.191311.24199@ennews.eas.asu.edu> koehnema@enuxhb.eas.asu.edu (Harry Koehnemann) wrote:
> Here's where it gets interesting.  Suns are ready to inbounds the ball.
> SA has 6 people on the court.  The refs hold up the game to allow SA to
> take people off thecourt.  Remember SA is out of timeouts.  Barkley's
> dieing.  He wants a T.  There no question one should have been called,
> but do you really give the Suns the games that way?  SA goes on to win
> by 1 in OT (even after Robinson fouled out with ~2 minutes left).  So
> the Suns filed a protest about the technical yesterday.

Ah, you beat me to it.  What can I say, they had six men on the court.  But
if Don Nelson had done it, everyone would be saying what an brillant
coaching strategem it was.

If the protest is upheld, it will be the second such in NBA history.  The
first one was about nine years ago, also at the HemisFair, in a game
against the Lakers.

> My opinion - If you can't win when up by 4 with 10 seconds left, you
> don't deserve the game.  SA never gave up and they deserved the win.
> BTW - Ellis was a hell of an aquisition for the Spurs.

I can't say that the Spurs deserved it, but they played hard.  And who
would believe that the team that for the past two years has had the worst
outside shooting team in the league has suddenly become a jump-shooting
behemoth?  Ellis has really come afire the last four games, finally hitting
shots off of picks.  And what would you guys give for Sean Elliott now?

The funny thing is that you can't really argue with anyone who wants to say
that Robinson is only the third-best or fourth-best center in the league
right now.  His defense has been inconsistent, he's too much in love with
his jump shot, and hitting only around 49% from the floor.  If he were back
to his slashing style with his present outside shot, he'd probably be
averaging 5 more points per game and hitting 55%.  I had to vote for Hakeem
to start in the West.  Still third- or fourth-best this year is pretty damn
good.

Vinnie of the Black had a great first half offensively--15 pts. and nine
assists, but Lucas didn't play him at all the second half, which didn't
make sense to me.  Sure the Spurs were down ten partly because he can't
defense anybody with more footspeed than Billy Paultz, but I would start
Avery Johnson and bring Vinnie off the bench to spell both guards.

Some thoughts on the Suns:

Where Charles goes, ugly uniforms follow.  Ye gods, the Suns unis look like
they were designed by the same dip who did the Sixers' barf-togs last year.
The TV guys were trying to make a big thing out of the Barkley-vs.-Coyote
shoving match, but come on, that couldn't have been serious.  For one thing
the Coyote's not that dumb.

Phoenix, like Portland 2-3 years ago, is unquestionable the most talented
team in the league, but they are also going to cop the Adelman Award for
most dumb shots taken.  I guess you'd expect that from a team with
Chambers, Majerle, Ainge, and KJ; and Sir Charles doesn't help things much,
but it may hurt them come playoff time if they don't go in.  Also, their
defense still seems kind of soft.  Teams are hitting around 48% on them,
which isn't very good.

Dumas is very, very frightening.  How long until he or
Ceballos start bickering over playing time?
____________________________
	Jim Oliver  
	oliver@athena.mit.edu /	joliver@hstbme.mit.edu
	oliver%mitwccf.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.pro