San Antonio KO's Phoenix

Last night, San Antonio beat Phoenix 92-87 in game 5 of their first round playoff series. With the win, San Antonio -- the reigning NBA World Champions -- knocked Phoenix out of the playoffs.

San Antonio will face Chris Paul and New Orleans in the playoffs' second round.

Phoenix is headed home from the playoffs early ... again.

At the most recent meeting of Drive and Dish's editorial panel, we came to the position that it was unfortunate that Phoenix and San Antonio had to face each other in the first round of the playoffs. Those were two of the best teams in the league. And if they hadn't had to face each other in the first round, both teams could possibly have made it to the Western Conference Finals.

Although it's been said so often that it's almost cliche, the balance of power in the NBA is clearly in the West. The Western Conference has several outstanding teams: most of whom would likely be difficult to beat in the NBA Finals.

But only one team gets to emerge from the West. And, once again, Phoenix won't be that team.

But Phoenix isn't a young, up and coming team. They're a veteran squad who were assembled entirely for the purpose of making it to the NBA Finals this year. Phoenix General Manager Steve Kerr traded Shawn Marion away and acquired Shaquille O'Neal with one thing in mind -- to move Phoenix away from the perimeter oriented, wide open, run and gun style that had defined Phoenix Suns basketball, in favor of the more traditional, big man centered, half court basketball that dominates the NBA playoffs/Finals.

Phoenix traded for Shaq in order to beef up their inside game, so that they could contend for the NBA Finals.

But it didn't work.

So after putting everything on the line to make a run at the NBA Finals and falling short, Phoenix will be forced to make some changes in the off season.

An ESPN round table discusses Phoenix's situation and ponders Phoenix's options:

"Ric Bucher, ESPN The Mag: The Suns mortgaged their future to knock off the Spurs and failed. Shaq improved their camaraderie, hurt their D and reduced Steve Nash's ability to improvise. Take Phoenix off the contenders' list for the foreseeable future.

Tim Legler, ESPN: The trade ultimately must be viewed as a failed experiment to give the Suns the interior presence they lacked on both ends of the court. Although I agreed with Steve Kerr's rationale, in the end the Suns became a team that was porous defensively, and its inability to keep the ball out of the paint negated the improvement on the boards that Shaq brought to the table.

Chris Sheridan, ESPN.com: I didn't like it when they made it, and even though Shaq looked better than I thought he would down the stretch and in the playoffs, he is a massive liability cap-wise and could drag the Suns to the lower half of the West before he leaves.

Marc Stein, ESPN.com: It looks especially bad if the Suns can't rise off the mat to beat the team they specifically were trying to match up with when they brought in Shaq. Doubly so when you factor in the financial component. But I understand why Kerr made the gamble, and I felt that the Suns, like the Mavs, had to try something bold to keep up. The West was already slipping away from them. They weren't going to win the way they were."

Also:

Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express News points out that the San Antonio vs. Phoenix series featured a matchup between the two dominant big men of the NBA's modern era -- Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal:

"Duncan and Shaq have been the standard of excellence in the league, and a common statistic says how much. Since Michael Jordan retired, one or the other has been in every NBA Finals."

Shaq and Tim Duncan each have four NBA titles. And although they aren't held in the pantheon with Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Willis Reed and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Duncan and O'Neal are among the greatest big men who ever played the game. But for whatever reason, neither gets the respect that he deserves.