I posted below how the Warriors are playing some good basketball right now. The opponent that they beat last night, the Phoenix Suns, are in a freefall right now, losing 8 of their last 12. The Suns are loaded with talented names, like Shaq, Steve Nash, Amare Stoudamire, Grant Hill, Jason Richardson, etc. However, they are still trying to find an identity and consistency on defense:
"I don't feel like we're competing as hard as we need to," Suns guard Steve Nash said. "I don't feel like we're hustling all the time. If you're not playing a hot team and not playing at their level, you can hustle and outwork them and we didn't do that. Same old. We missed (defensive) coverages. We didn't hustle as much as we need to. It's a lack of competition. It sucks."
"Gotta guard somebody," Shaquille O'Neal said. "I've been saying the same thing the whole year. It doesn't matter if we run or slow it down. We've got to guard somebody. We have principles on defense. You get broken down and you help. You better help the helper. You can't really get broken down all the time. We've got to guard a little bit better. Until then, who knows?"
Said Grant Hill:
"The effort wasn't there tonight. Quite honestly, you can't coach effort. They came out hard and we didn't. We've got to get this thing right. We've been saying that forever. I've thought about it a lot. I can't put my finger on it. We're not playing with passion. I'll accept responsibility. I wasn't good tonight. We just don't play hard all the time. When we do, we usually give ourselves a chance to win. When we don't, we don't have any energy or enthusiasm."
