The Suns Have Made Tim Duncan Into A Bully

In the press conferences following the Spurs/Suns game yesterday, the same reporter asked both Tim Duncan and Mike D'Antoni if they thought the series was physical.

Duncan looked around in bewildered laughter. "Did you watch last series? (laughs) No, it's not the most physical I've been in. Those guys last series were a lot more physical than these guys."

And then D'Antoni let out a sarcastic, "Oh, really?" and followed it with, "Yeah! Well, half of it. Their half. Now we gotta make it our half. So, yeah, it's very physical."

And there you have it. Mike D'Antoni sees the series as a brutal carnival of pain, while Tim Duncan laughs at the notion that that it's even remotely physical. And I love Tim Duncan, don't get me wrong, but this is not Charles Oakley we're talking about. To that same question, Oak would have rolled his eyes and made a jack-off gesture.

Add this to Amare Stoudamire's bitching about Bruce Bowen being dirty (he kneed Steve Nash in the balls last night, too, and it looked soft of intentional) and anyone's total refusal to do anything about Bruce Bowen being dirty, and you've got your difference here. The Suns are soft. S-O-F-capital T ... sofT. And it's not a particularly hard team that's making them look that way.

Meanwhile, back in the Eastern Conference, the best player in either game yesterday was Jason Kidd, who racked up his 11th career playoff triple-double (23, 13, and 14 ... damn), leaving him behind only Magic Johnson on that list (with an incredible 30).

New Jersey 96, Cleveland 85 [ESPN] Phoenix 101, San Antonio 108 [ESPN]