Rockets Can't Handle Suns (Or Anyone Else) Without T-Mac

The Phoenix guards were simply overwhelming in the team's 115-105 win over the Rockets. The win marked five straight for the Sun while Houston dropped their third consecutive game since losing Tracy McGrady to an elbow injury. Amare Stoude and Leandro Barbosa scored 21 a piece with Steve Nash adding 19 points and 15 assits. I've seen just about every guard in the league up close and personal and nobody's full-court speed has impressed me like Barbosa's (only Monta Ellis comes close). Yao was pretty much awful but Luis Scola finally looks like the player everybody said he was. The Argentinian rookie led the Rockets with a solid 20/11 performance.

• Gil Sits, NY1 Shines Agent Zero was a late scratch because of some lingering post-operative soreness in his knee, but Antawn Jamison and the Wizards bench picked up the slack to win their fourth straight. Jamison led all scorers with 30 to go along with 11 rebounds, but the story of the game was rookie Nick Young. If you happened to watch the game you might have heard a fan pleading with Eddie Jordan to put Young in the game. Well that fan was me and after a Young-less first half I finally got my wish. The rookie ended up dropping 17 points in just 15 minutes of play on 6-9 shooting. Brendan Haywood did everything asked of him, contributing 17 points and 10 rebounds. Still, I could swear that he managed to get fouled by the rim at one point.

• Stupid Woodson. Milwaukee beat Atlanta because Mike Woodson refused to play Salim Stoudamire for more than one minute. Josh Smith was fairly spectacular with 38 points but the Bucks trio of Andrew Bogut, Michael Redd, and Charlie "Hypo-allergenic" Villanueva proved to be too much.

• Defending the home-front. Dallas remained undefeated at home with a narrow 108-105 victory over the plucky, yet shitty, Memphis Grizzles. I'm really not sure what they're trying to do down there. Juan Carlos Navarro and Kyle Lowry are starting to look like dependable 30 minute a night contributors while the highly regarded Mike Conley is splitting time with Damon Stoudamire. I know there are plenty of teams that could use a sharpshooting veteran point guard coming off of the bench (Washington), so I'm not sure why Memphis hasn't moved Stoudamire.