I wonder if Dido still thinks that Kurt is the bane of last year's Knicks team.

With Kurt hurt, Suns' D suffers

By John Hollinger
ESPN Insider

Here's a great way for a struggling team to get better: Find an opponent who is struggling even more. That was Phoenix's formula on Thursday night, and it worked to perfection. After consecutive blowout losses had the Suns reeling, they rebounded with a 114-104 over the sliding Pacers to right the ship. In doing so, they sent the injury-wracked Pacers -- playing sans Jermaine O'Neal and losing both Scot Pollard and Stephen Jackson in the first half -- to their fifth straight loss, and dropped Indiana below .500.

Yet even in victory, there are still some ominous signs for the Suns. Their defense once again provided little resistance, giving up 104 points to the NBA's 23rd-best offense. A great shooting night saved Phoenix in this case, but the long-term trend is clear: Phoenix isn't defending nearly as well as it used to.

Three weeks ago, I wrote a story noting Phoenix's defensive improvement as a major reason behind their surprising success this season. As luck would have it, they've done almost nothing since then to live up to my praise. Phoenix ranked sixth in Defensive Efficiency at the time, but heading into the Indiana game they had slumped to 12th.

Even that sixth-place ranking they held at the start of the month was a major drop-off from their early-season success. In mid-January, Phoenix ranked second only to San Antonio in Defensive Efficiency -- a pretty impressive accomplishment for a gang that supposedly was only interested in offense. But the defense that already wasn't as sharp as it had been early in the season, and it softened like a stick of butter in Death Valley once Kurt Thomas went out with a stress fracture in his right foot.

Minus their only "real" center, the Suns' already undersized lineup has become positively Lilliputian, with 6-8 Boris Diaw manning the middle and 6-7 stringbean Shawn Marion alongside him as the "power" forward. When I wrote my article praising Phoenix's defense, one of the main points I made was that they didn't have the statistical profile of a small team -- they rebounded OK, didn't foul a lot and shut off the 3-point line fairly well.

Without Thomas, however, they've looked very small indeed. In 17 games without Thomas heading into Thursday, the Suns had allowed 40 percent 3-point shooting and 49 percent shooting overall. Indy kept up the trend on Thursday, shooting 10-of-17 from downtown to help keep itself from being blown out.

You might wonder how losing a center can affect a team's 3-point defense, but there are two reasons. First, the Suns have to keep double-teaming post players in order to help out Diaw and Marion against bigger opponents. That wasn't much of an issue against Indiana's low-scoring frontcourt on Thursday, but picture Diaw having to defend Jermaine O'Neal and you'll quickly see the problem.

With Thomas, Phoenix could choose to double-team or not as they saw fit. But without him, there's no longer a choice -- they have to double, and the opponent knows it. It's reflected in the numbers, too. According to 82games.com, the Suns allow 6.5 points per 48 minutes more when Thomas is off the court, the biggest differential on the team.

Unfortunately, this defensive weakness isn't likely to go away soon. Amare Stoudemire's comeback has been aborted and he may be shut down for the season, while Phoenix's other big men, Pat Burke and Nikoloz Tskitishvili, clearly aren't ready for prime time.

As for Thomas, he's still wearing a cast and will need to wear a boot for nearly a month once the cast is removed. He's not expected back until the conference finals, if the Suns make it that far. Until recently that was thought be a sure thing, but given Phoenix's recent defensive shortcomings, one can no longer be certain.

The Suns' offensive brilliance saved them on Thursday, and it probably will against most of the NBA's middle-of-the-pack teams between now and the end of the season. But come May, requiring them to do it four times in seven games against playoff-caliber defense is asking an awful lot -- even for this offense.