Suns' Zone Defense Shuts Down Nuggets

PHOENIX -- If the Nuggets came into Monday night's game against the Suns without a lot of energy, you could hardly have blamed them. Coming off of what was essentially a playoff game with the Lakers the day before in Los Angeles, and playing its fourth game in five nights, the team easily could have folded early to a Phoenix squad that has been hot lately, and plays extremely well on its home floor.

But that wasn't the case early on. Denver was the aggressor at the start, and with just over a minute and a half gone in the second quarter, had jumped out to a 13-point lead behind 13 points from Chauncey Billups, and 10 from Carmelo Anthony.

And then, the zone happened. And that, as they say, was that.

Anthony was subbed out of the game, the Suns went to the admittedly-gimmicky zone defense, and immediately went on a 16-0 run, part of a 33-7 stretch that ended the second quarter, and effectively put the game in the win column for Phoenix by halftime.

"We almost kind of roll our eyes when Coach calls the zone," Suns forward Grant Hill said afterward. "We don't want to go to the zone because we don't feel we are good at it. It hasn't always worked but it worked tonight."

George Karl, as you might imagine, admitted the defense was somewhat problematic.

"I can't deny that the zone bothered us," Karl said.

But he also doesn't think that it's a larger problem that his team will have to deal with going forward.

"I'm not going to over-react to a zone game," Karl said. "Most of the night zone is a weaker defense, and we show it. Tonight, we didn't. They used their zone defense to create frustration, and they had a great quarter because of it and probably because of it, they won the game."

Chauncey Billups was frustrated that his team couldn't solve the Suns' defense, but refused to use fatigue in this stretch of games as a possible excuse for not making a run in the second half.

"No, that's an excuse, man," Billups said, when asked if the team playing its fourth game in five nights had anything to do with the performance. "That's an excuse. Everybody was good, everybody was pretty much was healthy. They played yesterday too. I don't make excuses."

Carmelo Anthony wasn't sure exactly what happened in that fateful second quarter.

"Once they made the comeback, once they took the lead and bumped it up to 10 or 11, it was kind of hard for them to look back," Anthony said. "They had the momentum going, and we had to figure out a way to dig ourselves out of huge holes.

"It happened so fast, that's just something that we'll have to revisit, see what happened."

Anthony struggled shooting the ball, and went 7-for-21 from the field. If you combine this outing with Sunday's in Los Angeles, he's just 14-40 (35 percent) over his last two games. Karl mentioned that Anthony's in a shooting "slump" right now, missing shots that he normally makes, and that his recent ankle injury may have something to do with his shot not being where it was earlier in the season.

Whatever the reason for his poor shooting (and the team's lackluster effort in this one), Anthony isn't shying away from taking responsibility. Even though the Suns' big run came with him on the bench, Anthony still puts the game's ultimate result on his shoulders.

"A game like this, I kind of take it personal," Anthony said. "Maybe that's not the case, but that's just how I take it."