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**Dissonance19** · 06-04-2006, 10:37 AM

Pretty interesting. Talks about hoping to find a guy who plays better than Nash does tired...which probably sends a message to Eddie House, he's not better than a tired Nash lol.

Quote:

Suns: 'We're Going To Win A Championship'

Mike D'Antoni was calmly and proudly answering questions about his beaten Suns when it hit him suddenly their plucky season was over.

Sensing that tears would soon be streaming down his cheeks, D'Antoni bolted off the interview stage.

But before that he announced to the Suns' skeptics that this group -- which won 54 games and two seven-game playoff marathons without Amare Stoudemire -- isn't going away.

"We're getting closer," D'Antoni said. "We played to June 3rd this year and last year was June 1st. We're inching closer.

"We went through a lot of stuff. We went through a lot of injuries and the margin of error wasn't great. . . . [But] the character issue is the thing that's going to get us over the top.

"That's why we're going to be a winner next year. That's why we're going to win a championship here pretty soon, because we've got some guys with hearts as big as Phoenix."

D'Antoni acknowledged several times throughout these playoffs that Suns' up-tempo style and preference for smaller lineups won't be accepted "until we win a championship."

But he has good reason to be optimistic, given what Phoenix was able to achieve without Stoudemire and, later, Kurt Thomas.

Although he'd love to sign a guard trusty enough for Steve Nash to cut his regular-season workload, D'Antoni believes that Stoudemire's expected return from two knee surgeries and the forecasted growth of Boris Diaw and Leandro Barbosa will lighten Nash's load significantly next season.

The Suns' coach/VP also knows that Phoenix likely won't have the financial flexibility to sign a quality backup for Nash, with Diaw and Barbosa eligible for contract extensions and late-season savior Tim Thomas desperately wanting to re-sign with the Suns.

Fact is, deciding whether there's room to invite Tim Thomas back -- with a frontcourt rotation that, when fully healthy, features Stoudemire, Shawn Marion, Diaw and Kurt Thomas -- is a call that has to be made before adding to the backcourt.

"With someone like Amare coming back, that takes the pressure off [Nash]," D'Antoni said. "Now you don't have to do something every [possession] to create something.

"I'd like to find somebody [play] better than him [playing] tired," D'Antoni continued, noting that Nash shot better than 50 percent from the floor and 90 percent from the line in the playoffs even though he was forced to be a 40-minute man. "You can't find it."

Said Nash: "If anything [this playoff run] proved to me that we can win a championship playing this way.

"For us to be as close as we are, to be winning at halftime in every game with a six- or eight-man rotation . . . we were right there. And we also had a lot of injuries.

"You add those two things up, you can't tell me that we couldn't have won one or two of these close games in the series. So our feeling is we can really win a championship playing this way, definitely. If anything, this year went farther to convince me of that."

-- Marc Stein at US Airways Center in Phoenix

Jammin · 06-04-2006, 10:48 AM

I was watching it and he said that he pretty much garenteed a championship within the next 3 or so years. If Amare comes back, we keep Marion, and Nash is still a 10 apg player... It's very possible. We just need to draft a good backgup PG (Jordan Farmar from UCLA anyone?), and a baackup center (Saer Saen or w/e from Senegal)