Impressive Win Over the Blazers

Great win tonight (107-96). Here are the top 5 reasons why we pulled off the victory.

5. They cut their turnovers in half
Against New Orleans, they had 24 and tonight they had 12. More importantly, only 4 of those occurred in the 2nd half.

4. Amare
He was a beast tonight. Sure, he put up good numbers on the offensive end but he had a much improved defensive game and even had a couple steals. Rebounding was more of a focal point as well.

3. The Starters
While the game against the Spurs was largely a win for our bench, tonight was a win for our starters. Each starter scored in double figures and made clutch shots when it counted, especially Barnes (I'll get to more of his play in a minute). The starters +/- were all close to +20.

2. Rebounding
We had 32 defensive rebounds to the Blazers 19. What does this mean? It means we were active on both the defensive and offensive boards, and our shooting percentage was pretty good(55%). This has been the Achilles heal for the Suns, especially having opposing teams destroy them on the offensive glass.

1. Matt Barnes
Yes, it's true, I have a man-crush on Barnes as evidenced by my many posts in the off-season and pre-season so I'm probably biased. I'm even looking at getting a similar tattoo of his. Anyway, he set the tone for us early hitting a couple three's and running the floor. He also hit a big shot to start the 4th quarter and start a nice run. In the end, he finished with 21 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists. He really gave the entire team a shot of energy.