Vendettas

Plaschke

November 13th, 2009

Lakers are able to slow and eventually smother the team that thrill-seeking fans hoped would be their biggest Western rival.

The NBA's traveling carnival came to town Thursday, tilt-a-whirl breaks and cotton candy shots everywhere.


Right.
-Carnival = The highest scoring team at 111.4 PPG and the second best passing team with 24.3 APG.
-Cotton candy shots = 50.1% on FG, 44.8% from three, leading the league in both.

The currently 13-3 Phoenix Suns. Such an embarrassment to the league.

It rolled in here after owning Boston, owning Miami, owning Philadelphia, turning the early season into its own Disneyland.

"This is a fun team," chortled the Phoenix Suns Leandro Barbosa early Thursday evening at Staples Center. "We play fun basketball."

Then the diamond-studded locals wandered in, wise to the midway and wary of the rides and unimpressed with the barking.

Three hours later, the NBA's traveling carnival had been reduced to a collection of creaky metal and cracked mirrors in a church parking lot.

Bunch of losers, beating the Celtics in Boston? Meh, says I. They have a roster full of chortling buffoons who do not know how to set a good screen or foul based on race, two ingrained fundamentals on which James Naismith built this fine game.

The Lakers won a regular season game, before the season is even 1/4 over, 121-102 over the Suns. THIS IS GROUNDBREAKING STUFF. The Suns' whole state of being has been eternally negated.

Even though the Suns started the season 6-1, they cannot win a championship with this system.

I agree with this. The tone he takes is just a bag of dead cats.

That wild and crazy Suns shooting? They missed nine of their first 11 attempts. A team that had previously made a league-best half of its shots wound up shooting just 37%.

Funny how those rainbows aren't so pretty with a hand in your face or Ron Artest in your gut.

Here we are, and they still lead the league.

Plaschke's tone is his way of saying: "This isn't real basketball. Real basketball is basketball that I appreciate. It's basketball that the unclean simply don't understand."

Most NBA fans agree the Suns aren't winning a championship in this manner, basically because they have black holes at the 1,4 and 5 on defense. Hell, it's not like Grant Hill and J-Rich are going to make any all defensive teams either. With the personnel they have, littered with professionals allergic to defense, they push the tempo and maximize the possessions. And they're 13-3, so go suck an egg.

What's Plaschke's alternative?

Interesting how, while having no visible center makes you faster on offense, it can turn you into jelly on defense.

A visible center? Like Shaq? That worked great, missing the playoffs and all. Plus:

PPG 09-10: 111.4
PPG 08-09: 109.4

Opp. PPG 09-10: 105.9
Opp. PPG 08-09: 107.5

This year they are +5.5, last year they were +1.9.

I agree a center would help, as Channing Frye couldn't guard Andrew Bynum with stilts and scimitar arms. But maybe, just maybe, the Suns wanted to put that experiment to sleep, and evaluate the need for a defensive center during the 2010 draft. Meanwhile, Channing Frye leads the team with 41 3pt. makes. That seems to fit their philosophy, a philosophy, by the way, that's resulted in a 13-3 record.

They cannot consistently beat a team with an established big man, and after his sixth game this season, Bynum is looking pretty established.

I don't disagree. HOWEVAH! He's writing this article based on one game. Hey, I can do that!

Take this game: A 101-91 win by the Rockets in the mecca of Plashcke basketball (plaschketball) Los Angeles, California. Aaron Brooks puts up a 33-6-4 with five threes in 40 minutes. Derek Fisher puts up 7-6-5 on 3-13 shooting and five personal fouls. Here's an article, in true Plachke style, that I could write:

"The Lakers point guard lacking brand of heathen sinball is a travesty to the cosmos and they will be destroyed by the visible point guards in the National Basketball Association.

'We play big down low.' CHORTLED Andrew Bynum, as he chowed down on indeterminate innards. This brand of having shit for point guards has been tried before, with disastrously satanic results that make baby jesus sob in the fetal position. HEED! HEED!"

In other words, anyone could do his job. Even most monkeys.

For now, it's enough that he can shut down the Suns, no matter how many times they score 250 points against some other rubes.

Once again, the carnival stops here.

Stop the presses. The defending champions are better than a team that missed the playoffs last year. AGHAST'D