Toronto Raptors vs Phoneix Suns Dec.6/07

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monuow
December 06, 2007

Steve Nash had 10 points and 18 assists to lead the Phoenix Suns to a 136-123 win over the short-handed Toronto Raptors on Wednesday. Leandro Barbosa added 33 points for the Suns, who were coming ...

Steve Nash had 10 points and 18 assists to lead the Phoenix Suns to a 136-123 win over the short-handed Toronto Raptors on Wednesday.

Leandro Barbosa added 33 points for the Suns, who were coming off a 121-117 road win over Indiana on Monday.

T.J. Ford had 27 points in his return from injury to lead the lead the Raptors. Anthony Parker added 22 points in front of a sellout crowd of 19,800 at the Air Canada Centre.

The Raptors played again without injured forwards Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani. But the bench players who proved so valuable in Toronto's 98-79 win over Charlotte on Monday were mostly invisible against Phoenix.

Kris Humphries, who had 17 points against the Bobcats, finished with eight Wednesday, while Joey Graham started again in place of Bosh and scored eight points on 1-of-6 shooting.

The wheels came off for Toronto in the third quarter.

The Raptors went to halftime trailing 61-56 but Phoenix reeled off an 11-2 run to start the third and led by as many as 23 points in the quarter.

Toronto threatened a comeback in the fourth. Humphries was whistled for a technical foul at 9:12. After Grant Hill missed the free throw, Humphries stole the ball on the next play and ran down for a dunk that cut Phoenix's lead to 112-99.

That was as close as the Raptors would get, as Phoenix scored the next five points and held on from there.

Bosh, the team's leading scorer and rebounder, missed his fourth straight game with a strained groin, while Bargnani sat out his second in a row with a hyperextended knee.

Toronto did have Ford back after he missed five games with a ``stinger'' in his right arm. He came off the bench and looked good, providing 21 points in the second half for Toronto. Starting point guard Jose Calderon was similarly effective, finishing with 14 points and nine assists.

But the Suns' backcourt of Nash and Barbosa was simply dominant.

Nash was a force all game long, getting into the paint and dishing out to open teammates around the perimeter. Phoenix's shooters were game; they hit 13 three-pointers and shot 46.4 per cent from beyond the arc.

Barbosa, meanwhile, proved impossible to contain for the Raptors in the first half. He camped out in the corner to drill open threes and used his speed to get to the hoop. The fleet-footed guard _ nicknamed ``The Brazilian Blur'' _ finished the first half with 22 points.

The Raptors kept pace with the Suns early, with centre Rasho Nesterovic taking advantage of Amare Stoudemire's lackadaisical defence for 10 points and four rebounds in the first quarter.

In one pretty play, he caught a high lob from Calderon and laid the ball in with a fluid layup.

The Suns led by as many as 11 in the second on the strength of 11 first-half assists from Nash and four three-pointers from Barbosa, but the Raptors hung around, trailing 33-28 at the end of the first quarter.

Parker brought the crowd to its feet when he picked off a Raja Bell pass and raced down for a dunk with 1.7 seconds left in the first half.

Delfino then stole an errant Nash pass on the ensuing possession, but his three-point attempt at the buzzer rimmed out.

Notes: Technical fouls were called on Suns assistant coach Alvin Gentry at 8:25 of the second quarter and Bell at 7:01 of the third. . . . The Suns are 7-0 against Toronto since Nash signed with Phoenix in 2004.

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Toronto Raptors vs Phoneix Suns Dec.6/07

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