BOSTON – If Boston rookie big man Greg Stiemsma had not experienced his welcome-to-the-NBA moment, he probably did not expect it to come against Suns center Marcin Gortat.

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There often is that regrettable yet memorable play for each young player when he discovers what an elite skill level he has entered in the NBA.

On Friday night, Gortat already had scored 12 consecutive Suns first-quarter points when he received the ball on the extended post with Stiemsma on his back. Gortat’s spin move to the baseline froze Stiemsma for a score.

“Polish shake,” Suns forward Grant Hill said in deference to the “Dream Shake” of Hakeem Olajuwon, who taught moves to Gortat for a week in June.

The Suns have lacked a go-to scorer who creates his own shot since last season, but Gortat at least has proven to be a reliable, efficient scorer. Steve Nash is creating more scores than any NBA player, averaging 10.0 assists per game, and leads the Suns in scoring with 14.8 points per game, but his pick-and-roll partner, Gortat, is up to 14.7.

“I know where to put myself in the position to score,” Gortat said. “Having Steve going to the bucket every time hard, then I’m going to be open or the other way around, and I’m going to draw attention on my roll. That’s a pretty good combination. I like that.”

Since a splint was removed from his right thumb, which had sustained a hairline fracture, Gortat has averaged 17.0 points and 11.2 rebounds in nine games. His 59.9 percent shooting leads the NBA.

If the Suns’ record improves, Gortat could be an All-Star candidate in a shallow pool of West centers. It would be a fitting return to Orlando, where he spent 3½ seasons as Dwight Howard’s understudy.

“I don’t really care about that,” Gortat said. “My thoughts are not on All-Star. I’d rather take a rest. I don’t think I’m going to make it. I care if my team is going to win.”

Gortat does not lack for motivation. An acquaintance criticized his play in New York, stirring him into a 24-point, 12-rebound performance Friday night at Boston, his seventh consecutive double-double and third 20-10 game in an eight-day span.

Gortat, 27, is far from a perfect center, but he has come so far in his first season as an NBA starter. He is hesitant to dunk for fear of reinjuring the thumb and missing the season. He knows it would help the team if he drew more fouls (2.2 free-throw attempts per game) and made more free throws (63.6 percent shooting from the line). He is a key to improving the defense, which he boosts with 1.6 blocks per game. He is needed to turn around the team’s rebounding issues.

“I still believe I can do better,” Gortat said of his 9.3 rebound average. “Every time I see Dwight Howard and his numbers, those numbers are out the roof. I want to reach 20. Because Coach told me if I have 20, then I’ll be able to shoot 3s. Trust me, I’m aiming for that. If I get 20, the next possession is a 3.”

Offensively, Gortat has shown more offensive variety than being set up for layups. He has a mid-range jumper and made four of four left-handed shots, layups and hooks, in Friday’s first quarter. A strong left hand, engrained in him by European coaches, is what carried him through the frustrating first six games with the splint.

Gortat still is not a player that teams focus on eliminating defensively.

“Some of them know I can play, but they still defend me the way they always defended me,” Gortat said. “They still treat me like an Orlando backup. That’s fine. At the end of the day, I’m going to smile.”

Steve Nash had 26 points and 11 assists, Shannon Brown hit a
crucial 3-pointer that was as ugly as this game, and the Phoenix
Suns snapped a five-game losing streak with a 91-88 victory over
the New York Knicks on Wednesday night.

Brown and Grant Hill each scored 14 points for the Suns, who
bounced back from an embarrassing 118-97 loss to a Chicago team
without Derrick Rose a night earlier.

They got help with a lucky bounce on Brown’s 3-pointer from the
corner that nearly hit the top of the backboard before falling in
that gave them a five-point lead with 35 seconds left, and Nash
closed it out with six free throws in the last 16 seconds.

Former Suns forward Amare Stoudemire scored 23 points for the
Knicks, who have lost four straight.

Iman Shumpert added 20 points and Landry Fields had 17, but
Carmelo Anthony shot just 5 of 22 while finishing with 12 points
and 11 rebounds. Neither team led by more than six in the first
three quarters. Hill hit jumpers for the Suns’ last three baskets
of the third quarter, giving them a 64-61 edge. Anthony was just 2
of 13 through three but New York stayed in it behind Fields, who
played aggressively and scored 10 in the period.

The Knicks then managed just two field goals in the first six
minutes of the fourth, and Phoenix finally got some room when a
10-4 run, ending with consecutive baskets by Brown, made it
78-71.

Shumpert’s 3-pointer cut it to 82-80 before Brown answered with
his 3 from the corner that had to be reviewed. Shumpert made
another 3, but Nash kept hitting from the line, and it ended when
Shumpert’s rushed 3 from near midcourt was nowhere near the
basket.

Tyson Chandler grabbed 17 rebounds for the Knicks on a night
there were plenty of missed shots as both teams showed why they
have been struggling so much early in the season.

The surprising culprits have been the team’s offenses, with both
struggling just to reach 90 points during their skids. That’s
particularly hard to imagine in Phoenix, where the Suns remained
potent long after Mike D’Antoni brought his high-powered system to
New York, and comes just a year after the teams combined for 250
points here in the Suns’ 129-121 victory.

“That’s pretty ironic you know, because obviously most of the
things we do is what Mike did when he was there,” Suns coach Alvin
Gentry said. “There’s a few things that we’ve changed, but it’s
kind of a mystery to me. I can’t put my finger on the fact that
we’re struggling to get to 100 every game. I thought that would be
one of the areas where we’d have the least worries and it’s become
just the opposite.”

Gentry shook up his rotation in an effort to balance things
after noticing the Suns were 27th in the NBA in second-quarter
scoring. Rookie Markieff Morris made his first start at forward and
Ronnie Price got the nod at shooting guard.

Turns out he didn’t the extra scoring, because the Knicks
remained in a seemingly season-long shooting slump.

It was the sixth straight game the Knicks failed to reach 100
points, their second-longest streak under D’Antoni, according to
STATS, LLC. They went seven games in a row early in the 2009-10
season, when they had little talent while clearing cap space for
free agency.

Now they have All-Star talent in Stoudemire and Anthony, but the
offense just isn’t running smoothly without a veteran point guard.
They are hoping that when Baron Davis finally is ready from a
herniated disc in his back sometime around the end of the month
that he can change that.

The Knicks wrap up their string of four homes in six nights with
a back-to-back against Milwaukee and Denver on Friday and
Saturday.

Notes: D’Antoni said C Jerome Jordan and G Jeremy Lin, assigned
Tuesday to Erie of the NBA Development League, would probably
return near the end of the month when Davis is back and the team
will want to play 5-on-5 in practice. … The Knicks played without
reserve guard Bill Walker, who has a sore right knee.

Suns (4-9) at Knicks (6-7)

C: Marcin Gortat … Tyson Chandler
PF: Channing Frye … Amar’e Stoudemire
SF: Grant Hill … Carmelo Anthony
SG: Jared Dudley … Landry Fields
PG: Steve Nash … Iman Shumpert

Key Knicks subs: Toney Douglas, Mike Bibby, Jared Jeffries, Bill Walker, Josh Harrellson.
Key Knicks injury: Baron Davis (herniated disk) is out.

Today’s Orange Slices, a little travel-tardy:

* Somebody is going to get their team right tonight. One team might even rediscover its offense too.

The parting of Mike D’Antoni and Amar’e Stoudemire from Phoenix to New York in recent years has proven good for nobody this season. The Knicks have lost three games in a row. D’Antoni is on the hot seat. Stoudemire is shooting 42 percent and the glory time of it being his team did not even last a season before Carmelo Anthony took over. The Suns are worse off than the Knicks, having lost five in a row and going into year two of having no player to get baskets or free throws when all else fails.

Both teams have lost their offensive swag, experiencing double-digit scoring drop-offs from last season.

“Back to the drawing board,” Suns coach Alvin Gentry said after the Suns’ Tuesday loss at Chicago.

* Steve Nash continually points out the Suns lack of talent as a reminder that we all need to readjust our bar of expectations. The realists knew that a fringe playoff race would be a best-case scenario for this team, one that needed to have everything go right with healthy and performances to even get to that point. Health problems hit them early and several players have not shot well to squelch any early optimism.

The most dangerous problem now is they are reverting to their porous defensive ways. Sometimes, they have just been bit by their own game plan. You want Kyrie Irving to shoot jumpers because he gets to the rim so well. But the Cavaliers’ key second-quarter run in that game was full of Irving jumpers. Deron Williams was a 35 percent shooter who torched Phoenix and then went 3 for 15 the next night. The Suns wanted Carlos Boozer to take outside shots and he got hot.

“You can blame the defense but there were some stretches where everything was going in,” Nash said of the Chicago loss. “That put them in a position to have a lot of confidence to make plays the rest of the game. They made a lot of shots in the first quarter outside 15 feet that were abnormal.”

But at some point, the Suns should want to shed their soft label in those moments. Boozer made 11 shots in the first half Tuesday night. How many would it take before a defender knocked a screener to the ground, put a hand in Boozer’s face, fingers in his eyes, a body to his chest?

“We’ve got to be more physical,” Gentry said. “That’s slipped a bit. Our rotations have slipped. We haven’t done a good job of communicating. We’re dying for practice time and we don’t have any time until we get to Dallas.”

But as Gentry acknowledged, the lack of practice time is every team’s problem is this compressed schedule. Part of the Suns’ defensive problem recently is they adhere to a plan but do not adjusted individually during the game.

“Ultimately, defense is pride,” Grant Hill said. “I’m going to do all I can to prevent my man from scoring. There is a team concept. Elston (Turner) is doing a good job of trying to teach it. You have to take pride in doing the assignment the right way. We’ve shown when we do it, we can be pretty good. When we don’t, we can be pretty bad.”

How about Shannon Brown? He goes from the Lakers to this.

“We’ve got to trust each other out there,” Brown said. “We’ve got to know our defensive assignments and go out there and do it. We’ve got to see each other and be on a string. It has to be a constant rotation of us playing together.

“We’ve got to stick together and have confidence. The only we’re going to come out of this slump is if we stick together rand stay positive with each other.”

* With no top-50 scorers for a second consecutive season, Nash could win the assist title again (he is tied at 10.0 with Rajon Rondo). That has New York salivating at the thought of the city’s offseason resident joining them in free agency next summer. The New York Post headline today read, “Hello Sunshine … Knicks taking close look at Nash.” The New York Times’ headline read, “The Power of a Single Player … Knicks lack point guard to elevate their offense.”

As much as Phoenix is struggling offensively, New York might even be worse off. The Knicks sorely need a playmaking point guard to execute D’Antoni’s offense but instead rank in the NBA’s bottom five for field goal shooting and assists. Stoudemire, who had back issues, is shooting a career-low 42 percent and seeing Tyson Chandler get the pick-and-roll calls and the Olympic finalist nod. Carmelo Anthony is not shooting or feeling much better with a 42.7 percent clip and a sore left wrist and right ankle.

The Knicks are waiting on Baron Davis, 32, to get well from a herniated disk but he is still weeks away from playing.

* Nash lost more ground on the career free throw percentage record he has held a few times before relinquishing it. Nash missed another free throw Wednesday, making it so that he needs a streak of 12 made free throws to retake the league record from Mark Price. Nash is at 90.35 percent and Price’s record is 90.39.

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Photos from the game

On Tuesday, Jan. 17, the Chicago Bulls let the Phoenix Suns quickly see the sun set in a 118-97 win.

The team again played without Derrick Rose but unlike Monday, they survived without him.

Carlos Boozer set the tone early as he came charging out of the gates and got the Bulls on the board. Phoenix also came out strong but the Bulls took away the visiting team’s 11-10 lead at 7:26. They maintained it through the remainder of the game.

C.J. Watson and John Lucas III, subbing for Rose, also helped the Bulls surge ahead in the game’s first 12 minutes to end the quarter, 39-31.

In the second quarter, Luol Deng found some success at the free throw line and the Bulls extended their lead to 47-33 at the 9:18 mark. Both teams went cold for a few minutes but Boozer woke Chicago up with eight points beginning at 5:24 and helped the team enter halftime leading 67-47.

After the break, the starters returned to the game and extended the Bulls’ lead to 26 points by the seven-minute mark. The game was getting pretty boring as Phoenix couldn’t get anything done offensively; Steve Nash could carry his team just so far.

Rip Hamilton and Watson had some great shots. By the end of the quarter, the Bulls had a 96-68 lead.

For the final quarter, the Bench Mob took over but they were cold, along with Phoenix, for the first few minutes. It became a stagnant game. Watson hit a three-pointer to take the Bulls to the century mark. The Suns went on a free throw surge around the five-minute mark to add some much-needed points.

The Bulls brought in Jimmy Butler and Brian Scalabrine, who helped the team saunter to the finish line.

Scoring…Boozer led in scoring for the night with 31 points (12 for 15 in the first half). Watson stepped up and recorded a season-high night with 23 points. Luol Deng contributed 15 points and Joakim Noah added 13 points with 12 rebounds.

Next up? The Bulls will play the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday, Jan. 20.

As a lifelong Bulls fan and Chicago resident, the Derrick Rose era has been a good one.

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The New York Knicks host the Phoenix Suns Wednesday night (Jan. 18) in the only game that the two teams will play against each other this season. It’s the one time that the Madison Square Garden fans get to see Suns point guard Steve Nash and hopefully it shows how an opponent can work to shut him down.

The Suns have a 4-9 record this season, placing the team fourth in the Pacific division. Not much has gone right for a team that wasn’t expected to make the postseason anyways, but no franchise wants to see a season wasted like this one. Phoenix is heading straight for a lottery pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t weapons on the roster.

The starting lineup against the Knicks is likely Marcin Gortat at center, Channing Frye at power forward, Grant Hill at small forward, Jared Dudley at shooting guard and Nash at the point. Only three players average in double-figures scoring, led by Gortat at just 14.3 points per game. Nash comes in at 14.2 points with his 10 assists a night and Dudley averages 11.1 points. Those aren’t very impressive statistics, but it could just show how deep the rotation is that the team goes with. 10 players are getting 16 or more minutes per night and it means they can run the floor well.

A potential problem for the Knicks is that the Suns like to shoot a lot of three-pointers. The team averages 19.7 attempts per night and though they only make 33.2 percent of those, this is a team that can hit the wide-open shots. If the Knicks can just make sure to rotate well on defense and rush the three-point line, then this game is going to turn into a very easy win.

Carmelo Anthony is back on the court after missing just one game and actually put in 33 points against the Orlando Magic on Monday (Jan. 16). He brings his 26.1 points per game average into this one and will definitely get called upon to put up big numbers. Amare Stoudemire is the one to watch closely though, as he goes up against his former team and a franchise that didn’t believe he was worth the long-term investment. He might have something to prove and there certainly isn’t anyone on the Suns roster that can stop him.

Even though the Knicks are on a streak of terribly played games, this seems like one that should end up in the win column very easily. As long as everyone is covering their defensive assignments then it could actually turn into a blowout in favor of the home team. Game time is 7:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday night (Jan. 18).

More From YCN :

Knicks Beat Washington (Barely)

Knicks Lose to Raptors

Knicks Beat Kings Without Stoudemire

Stoudemire Injures Ankle

No_Garnett_Suspension

Sources:

NBA Standings

Full Knicks Schedule

New York Knicks Website

*Ryan Christopher DeVault is a fan of the New York Knicks that has followed the team since the days John Starks, Charles Oakley, and Anthony Mason instilled their defensive will on the rest of the league.

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