Suns Continue Home Dominance With Beating of the Spurs

PHOENIX -- The last team to hold the Suns under 100 points at home was the Spurs, who did so back on Christmas Day of 2008. San Antonio couldn't repeat the feat on Tuesday, so Phoenix extended their home hundred-plus streak to 35 games, on the way to a comfortable 116-104 drubbing of the Spurs.

Phoenix remains the league's only unbeaten team at home -- a perfect 9-0 at US Airways Center on the season.

The scoring streak wasn't in jeopardy for very long, as the Suns put up 28 points after one and 67 by halftime, taking a commanding 15-point lead in the process.

With San Antonio having to travel to Golden State to play the second game of a back-to-back on Wednesday, the consensus was that their head coach, Gregg Popovich, wouldn't give the team very long to make a game of it in the second half, before pulling the plug and resting his guys for the next one if things got out of hand.

Just two and a half minutes into the third, the Suns had extended their lead to 20, and Popovich called a timeout. He sent all of his starters not named Tim Duncan to the bench in favor of his reserves, but he got a bit of an unexpected result: the subs brought the team back from the dead.

Led by Duncan and some sharp-shooting from Roger Mason, the Spurs closed the third on a 28-13 run to make things very interesting to begin the fourth. And after Duncan scored the first four points of the final period, we had ourselves a one-point game, and the Suns were no doubt feeling like they've been here before -- mainly because they have, as recently as the last two games.

In Denver, Phoenix gave back all of a 17-point lead before losing to the Nuggets, and the game before, they allowed the Orlando Magic to take the lead in the third quarter after holding an advantage of as many as 19 points in the first half. Steve Nash said afterwards that the way the team plays, this might be something that occurs throughout the season.

"I think that's just the type of team we are," Nash said. "We're going to go on big runs and we're going to let teams back in the game sometimes because of the way we play but I think that's how we're going to win games.

"The alternative is going to be a 35, 40-win team, but if we play this way we have to live with the ebb and flow and we've got a chance to win 50 -- or more."

Against the Spurs, the Suns recovered just in time. They managed to put together a 14-5 run over the next five and a half minutes, bookended by scoring plays from Goran Dragic, who was absolutely huge off the bench for the Suns. Dragic finished with a career-high 18 points, on 7-for-9 shooting (including 4-of-5 from three-point range) in just 25 minutes of action.

Phoenix needed the production from Dragic, because they got very little from their starting two-guard, Jason Richardson. J-Rich had a bruise to his shooting hand, and while he did try to play through it, he was mostly ineffective, and managed just three points on 1-of-7 shooting in his 22 minutes.

Dragic was a fine fill-in though, and attributed the fact that he got to play alongside Steve Nash in the shooting guard position to his stellar night of shooting.

"Maybe this game was different because I was playing with Steve Nash on the floor," Dragic said. "Steve was handling the ball and I was just waiting in the corner to make some [threes]."

Whatever the reason, Dragic's play was a key to this win. And his steal and coast-to-coast lay-in with just under three minutes to go put the Suns' lead back up to 13, and caused the Spurs to effectively surrender.

The Suns got All-Star type performances out of both Steve Nash and Amar'e Stoudemire, who finished with 25 points and 13 assists, and 28 points and 14 rebounds respectively.

Tim Duncan of the Spurs put up 34 points himself, his highest output since that double-overtime game against the Suns in Game 1 of their playoff series back in 2008. He also grabbed 14 rebounds, but he was the only one of the starters whom his coach was pleased with after the game.

"The only good part for us was that we put a group out there that showed some character and got us back in the game," Popovich said. "But we had too many pathetic games from too many people, and you can't do that against a good team."

When Popovich was asked about specific players who might have put up those pathetic performances, he refused to answer, and ignored the question by staring straight ahead for several uncomfortable seconds. But it was clear that Tony Parker, Richard Jefferson, and Antonio McDyess, -- whether on offense, defense, or both -- disappointed their coach on this night.

The bright spot for the Spurs certainly was Duncan's brilliance, and his battle with Stoudemire was something to behold. But there's an odd stat involving San Antonio this season: in the now six games where Duncan has played 36 minutes or more, the team's record is just 1-5.

This obviously isn't Timmy's fault, but it does show that if the Spurs are forced to play Duncan longer minutes, it means that the game is in jeopardy late into the fourth -- and so far this season, that's meant that it usually ends up as a loss for the Spurs.