3 votes – Jared Dudley and Channing Frye. Very difficult picking the stand-out player for the Suns on this day, which saw a supremely balanced team effort topple the Spurs. If you had told me Duncan would go for 29-10, Jefferson 18-10, Parker 20-7 and the Spurs would shoot 50%, I would have predicted a comfortable Spurs victory. Especially when Nash would only record 6 assists and Amare and J-Rich would combine to shoot just 12-31. But the box score for this game was deceiving, and a couple of unlikely Suns heroes were the reason they got the W. Those two being Jared Dudley and, one of NBAMate’s favorite Suns (see what I did there?) Channing Frye. Maybe we’ll just let Coach Pop put forward their case for the 3 votes. On Dudley:  “I thought in the first half that Jared Dudley changed the whole game. He came in and he was committed to the boards and it became infectious.” On Frye: “He might have had one that was open, but the rest were contested. When he does that, they’re very, very difficult to guard”. Make sure you check out the rest of his very amusing press conference after this game.

2 votes – Tim Duncan. The shining light for the Spurs, as he so often his, lead his team with 29 points (on 12-20 shooting) and 10 rebounds. For the historically curious readers, just a couple of games ago Timmy passed Karl Malone on the all-time playoff rebounding leaders, and now sits in 5th place behind Kareem, Shaq, Wilt and Russell. It looks like that’s where he’ll end up – I don’t think he’s got another 400 post-season rebounds in him. And in Game 3 of this series, Duncan will be sure to pass Larry Bird on the playoff scoring leaders list, which will put him in 7th place all-time. Again, catching Jerry West in 6th is probably out of the question for Timmy (over 500 points behind), so it looks like he’ll settle for 5th and 7th all-time on those lists respectively. Not bad.

1 vote – Grant Hill. Talking about history, I still have to pinch myself sometimes when I watch this guy play. He was one of the top-5 players in the league 13 YEARS GO and he’s still going strong. Alvin Gentry called him his “favorite player ever” after this game, and it’s not hard to see why. He is given the tough defensive assignments, fits into whatever role is needed for his team, and remains the perfect teammate and veteran presence. All this after suffering countless major injuries, dealing with the criticism all those years of crippling Orlando and their salary cap, and now finding a way to remain effective when you’ve lost all the athleticism and explosiveness that was your trademark. There are so many reasons Grant Hill could have self-destructed and spiraled out of the league; the fact he hasn’t, and is now a critical part of a championship contender, is one of the better feel-good series of this season.

Tags: Channing Frye, Grant Hill, Jared Dudley, Tim Duncan

Similar posts:

1. Sunday Six Pack: Sheed, Lebron and Videotape
2. RoBloG Playoff Diary
3. Game 1 Fizzer
4. Sheed “our number 1 option”
5. Game 3 Pain

• 

« « Previous Post: Day 18 – Mighty Dwighty
» » Next Post: Day 20 – Vince Carter, Playoff Warrior