Lets talk about Christmas and the Phoenix Suns.
No not Dionte Christmas, but the Suns playing basketball on Christmas day.
Finally after a 12 years, the Suns finally have a Christmas day game again.
After making the Finals for the 1st time in 28 years and proving to be one of the best teams in the league, at wasn't a surprise that we finally got one this season.
The NBA must have predicted how good the Suns & Warriors would be this season, as they go in to this game with the 1st & 2nd best records in the NBA.
The Suns have played 18 Christmas day games over the years and boast 12-6 record in them. 16 of these games have been played at home in Phoenix, with Saturday's game being the 17th.
Today we are going to talk about the last Christmas day game that the Suns participated in. To do that we need to go back quite a way. Back to a different decade, back to when Steve Nash was still finding Stoudemire for rim rocking dunks, back to when Chris Paul was still playing for New Orleans, back before Lebron James was an NBA Champion and back before our decade long Playoff drought (until last season's Finals run, this actually was the last season we made it to the Playoffs - 2010).
It's the 200910 season and we faced the LA Clippers. This was Blake Griffin's rookie season, though he was out with an injury for this game. LA had Baron Davis running the point guard position for them (remember that?!), facing off against 2 time MVP Steve Nash.
So what happened? Well it started as a pretty even affair, with the Clippers out rebounding the Suns by 13 part way through the 1st quarter, battling hard for offensive boards. The Suns rallied back though and led by 4 points after the 1st quarter 30-26. At the half we led 67-55 and by the end of the 3rd quarter the game had become a blowout, as we led 101-77. The Suns won the game 124-93.
The shooting numbers were biggest reason for this blowout. The Suns shot 53% overall and 50% from 3, whereas the Clippers only managed 40% overall and 21% from 3.
There was even this beauty from Grant Hill, to end the 1st half:
Player Stats from the Game:
Amar'e Stoudemire - 26 Points, 9 Rebounds, 10/15 FGs
Steve Nash - 14 Points, 8 Assists, 6/10 FGs
Jason Richardson - 18 Points & 8 Rebounds
Grant Hill - 12 Points, 5 Rebounds, 4/5 FG's, 1/1 3PT FGs (as seen above)
Off the Bench:
Jared Dudley - 18 Points, 4/5 3PT FGs
Goran Dragic - 13 Points 3/5 3PT FGs
Leandro Barbosa - 12 Points
Here's ESPN's preview piece from the night before the game:
I hope you have enjoyed this little trip down memory lane. Hopefully we can get our Christmas wish of seeing a Suns game on Christmas next year.
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Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas!
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