On Monday, we wondered aloud about the consequences of losing Ricky Rubio for the season. We suggested that Rubio’s defensive skills–his “ability to create turnovers, disrupt the pick-and-roll game and conjure frenzied defensive energy”–might be even more keenly missed than his mystic passing. And, gracious, did that ever prove to be the case against the Suns.
Since the great Garnett-Stoudemire clashes of the mid-aughts, the Suns have had a knack for drawing the Wolves’ defense into a state of shambolic chaos. In those days, the looming nightmare was the choice between stopping Stoudemire’s rim assaults and staying home on Phoenix’s shooters. On Monday night, Suns’ big men Robin Lopez, Marcin Gortat and Markieff Morris attempted only 19 shots between the three of them. But this had less to do with any concerted effort on the Wolves’ part and more to do with the fact that their perimeter defense was so unmercifully rotten that the Suns’ guards had little reason to ever dump the ball inside.
Because he has set the gold standard for point guards over the past decade and because people are enthralled, to an embarrassing degree, with appearances, nearly every white, assist-happy point guard to emerge into the league in recent years has been compared with Steve Nash. (Every time Luke Ridnour did anything last night, Suns’ announcer Eddie Johnson would remind us that coming out of college Ridnour was considered “by everybody,” to be “the next Steve Nash,” which can’t possibly true. Is that true?) But this has been particularly true in the case of Ricky Rubio, who not only seems like Nash’s heir as The League’s Most Visionary Passer but also shares with Nash a certain flouncy-haired, European, soccer-playing panache and a preternatural feel (probably also soccer-related) for the games’ overarching organizing principles.
