Shaquille O’Neil was ejected for committing a flagrant two foul against Rodney Stuckey with 12 points and 5:18 left in the second quarter, but that wasn’t enough to slow down the Suns inside game. Amare Stoudemire took over where Shaq left off, celebrating his 26th birthday by dropping 29 on Detroit. STAT once again filled his line with 11 rebounds, one block, and two steals.
The short-handed Suns played an inspiring game that improved their record to 8-3, maintaining their second place rank amongst western conference teams. The Suns embarrassed Detroit who defeated the first place western conference team, the Los Angeles Lakers, Friday night to give them their first loss of the season.
The Suns were already without Leandro Barbosa who returned home to Brazil to be with his family after his mother passed away and Matt Barnes who was serving the second game of his two game suspension for his involvement in the scuffle between the Suns and Rockets last week.
Remove a dominant Shaquille O’Neil from the already crippled Phoenix lineup and you have a pretty impressive win over the 7-3 Pistons.
Steve Nash helped calm a riled Phoenix team and crowd after Shaq was ejected by hitting two three pointers and drawing a charge in the final minute of the first half. Perhaps more important was the outstanding defense he played on Allen Iverson who was never able to get into rhythm, scoring just 9 points on 4 of 17 shooting. A frustrated Answer picked up a technical in the third quarter.
Boris Diaw, Louis Amundson and Robin Lopez all saw more playing time due to the ejection of The Big Cactus, and all were impressive. Robin Lopez scored 9 points and collected 4 rebounds and a steal in his 14 minutes. Diaw scored 13 and had 7 boards while Amundson had 5 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 blocks.
Grant Hill, starting in place of Matt Barnes energized the Suns with his hustle and rebounding. Hill scored 11 points and grabbed 8 rebounds in 36 minutes of action.
Richard Hamilton scored 19 points but had little help from his teammates who shot a collective 39% from the field.
The Suns will play the Jazz in Utah tomorrow night. Shaq is not expected to be suspended for his flagrant foul.
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