The Suns looked pret­ty good in the half­court game in their vic­to­ry over San An­to­nio last Wednes­day. I think it’s ap­par­ent now that you may want the Suns to run on you be­cause Shaq is not a big a fac­tor on de­fense or of­fense in a fast pace then in a slow­er half court style game. Shaq took ad­van­tage of the sin­gle team as the Spurs chose to not dou­ble and Shaq got good looks and used his size and strength to get in close for easy hooks. Tracey McGra­day missed Wednes­day game with the Son­ics due to a sore left shoul­der.You al­ways have to wor­ry about en­er­gy lev­el with the Phoenix Suns be­cause of their age and face no back to back sit­u­a­tion in this spot against Hous­ton. Phoenix is plac­ing pres­sure on the LA Lak­ers to keep win­ning to keep ahead of the Suns as home court ad­van­tage in the first round is up for grabs late in the sea­son. Hous­ton is play­ing re­al­ly good right now as they have al­lowed op­po­nents to shoot un­der 40% in three of their last 4 games and have won 4 straight. But a quick look at the Rock­ets sched­ule and you will find 5 straight non-​play­off con­tend­ing teams. The Rock­ets are just 1-​4 straight up in their last 5 games against play­off con­tend­ing teams. I ex­pect the Suns to fin­ish strong in their fi­nal 3 games and the Suns will find a way to get the ball in­to Shaq and we may have got a pre­view of the Suns strat­e­gy in the post­sea­son with Shaq in their vic­to­ry against San An­to­nio. Take Phoenix +3.