Phoenix Suns End Great Run to Championship?

Sad.  It is sad because it feels like we've been kicked in the nuts again. It is sad because Grant Hill is very important. It is sad because without Hill and without Amare playing like a champion, we won't get out of the first round.

Consecutively, Amare fumbled a Steve Nash behind-the-back pass on the pick and rolled five feet from the basket.  That is not championship basketball.

Coming out and scoring zero in a period after scoring 25 in the first half is not how a champion responds to switches and changing defenses. I can't say more about Amare now.  Maybe later.

Maybe it is time for Mike to take the team to the finals or it's his job. Probably not though, because he’ll coach next year maybe all the way through.

It is sad because it was beautiful while it lasted.  It illustrates losses in my own life, dreams that should have been but never were, goals proclaimed and never realized.

This is not the Suns team that wins championships.  We have risen to no occasion.  We have built leads and called them the day.

We have been sleeping the afternoon to wake stripped of everything we owned, naked upon a seemingly barren earth, and cursed not by god but by our own sense of self-satisfaction.

Somewhere the warrior was lost, and after tonight I am not prepared to say we have a warrior in any player on the team.  Last year we had Steve Nash.  We had Steve the year before and the year before that. But now is the time for Amare. Steve is too old.

Alas, our triumphant dreams were crushed when Amare laid the warrior crown down on the wooden grounds he plays upon after halftime tonight.  The team was down Grant Hill's knowledge on the floor and wilted with mistakes by Boris Diaw, playing in Grant's place.

Boris isn't replacing Grant, and he's having trouble reproducing the play he had a week ago. His nine points, two rebounds, and one assist do not show a team that is tight and communicating well.

Am I correct in saying that Steve Nash had no assists in the second half? And how many jumpers did Amare miss, how many slam dunk passes from Steve for and ones did he blow?

Amare isn't ready for the championship, and without Grant it's too much. There are better teams out there who are younger, hungrier, not worn out, and who are led by champions like Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett.

Even the older, slower San Antonio Spurs look to be one of them. Tim Duncan is a champion, and he's playing like it.

Who is our champion this year? It isn't Steve, Shaq, or Amare. Who else could it be? Nobody.

Seven rebounds for Amare is pitiful. He should have 10 or 12. He could do that, and Shaq could still get a dozen. But no. He is not our champion.

I am sad to say it because a guy like me roots for the dude with "black Jesus" tattooed upon his neck. But Amare has not produced something as bold as that tattoo on the playing floor.

If he cannot do it now, even with Grant Hill down, we expound our story with dances upon the definition of futility in NBA folklore. We actually claim the worst story of all. Never once. Never once in longer than anybody can remember.

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