Houston's cockroach didn't turn over in the fourth quarter after being crushed by the Suns' feet.

In the fourth quarter, Adelman gave up on letting Yao Ming on the court and changed to a small lineup to fight the Suns, but it didn't work well, because if you want to chase points in the fourth quarter, the first thing you need to do is to be able to contain the opponent on the defensive end, and then your goal will be meaningful. Otherwise, you score a goal, the opponent also scores, the time is decreasing a little bit, and the victory will slowly slip out of your hands.

The Rockets were obviously unable to contain the Suns defensively, and of course, Adelman was not inactive, he adjusted the defensive alignment and let Sean Battier defend Nash, who used his defensive awareness to constantly interfere with Nash's passes, following him closely and not giving him a chance to tear up the Rockets' defense. If it had been the former Suns and the former Nash, this would undoubtedly have had an effect, and the Suns' offense could have stalled as a result.

But this season's Nash is not the same Nash as before, he plays more resolutely and decisively than before, since the Rockets use big to defend small, then he unceremoniously showed the fans of the Toyota Center a variety of techniques for small and big. No matter how good Batyr defended his feet, he couldn't keep up with Nash in terms of center of gravity, and Nash used dribble shaking to get space three times in a row and ended the offense with a jumper.

Battier is a good defender, but when it comes to the offense of a skilled perimeter carrier, Battier has always been mediocre defensively. The score spread has always been stable in the double digits. Seeing that the situation was not good, Adelman called a timeout to readjust and returned to a regular defensive position, leaving Ralph Alston to play Nash. Alston spent a year off the bench with the Celtics, then wandered with several teams, and now has a solid position at the starting point guard with the Rockets.

His steady dribbling and three-point shot, which he doesn't have a move, is a good controller of the Rockets' guard line. But he is still too tender in front of Nash, and Leon knows almost all of Alston's technical characteristics, and his biggest problem in defense is that his ability to defend is too poor.

An Alstom, a Yao Ming, both outside and inside have a lot of problems in blocking and dismantling defense, Yao Ming is too tall to pull out, Alston is soft, no matter what, squeeze or bypass, often can't keep up with the opponent, not to mention his sparse almost no blocking and interference ability.

This is also an important reason why the Rockets, who were in a good situation last year, were overturned by the Utah Jazz, and the two starters could not contain each other's core tactics, even if they were leading by a large score, they could not completely kill the opponent. The Suns are a team with strong blocking and pick-and-roll capabilities, even better than the Jazz.

Before this game, Nash and Smalls didn't have many blocks, and this season Leon has deliberately weakened the team's tactical system's dependence on Nash-Smalls' blocking, but it doesn't mean that the two's blocking power has decreased.

Leon saw that Adelman changed back to Alstom's defense Nash, so naturally he would not be polite, on the offensive end, Nash and Xiao Si's blocking and dismantling cooperated, whether it was Yao Ming or Scola, the blocking and dismantling defense was very average, Yao Ming was not present, Xiao Si rushed strongly, and two consecutive dunks made Scola unable to lift his head. Although Scola quickly returned color on the offensive end and scored under the basket with his feet, the margin was neither widened nor narrowed, and it was a stalemate.

Time passed little by little, and the Rockets without Maddie could not reproduce the miracle at the Toyota Center, and they also tried to shoot outside the three-point line, but unfortunately it was too late, the Suns did not make any mistakes on the defensive end, and at the same time, the offensive end relied on the two most stable points of Xiao Si and Nash to score consecutive points, so that the game lost suspense.

In the whole Toyota Center, there were not many people, seeing that the game was going to be lost, the audience was getting smaller and smaller, and in the last two minutes, the two sides replaced the main lineup and stopped playing, and the Toyota Center except for some enthusiastic Chinese fans, people have almost gone.

In the end, the Suns defeated the Houston Rockets by 115:101 on the road, 14 points, and Amare Stoudemire made 9 of 9 shots and 6 of 6 free throws, scoring 24 points with a 100 percent shooting rate, and was the best player of the game.

In this way, the Suns continue to lead the West with an excellent record of only one loss. Many people think that the Suns have not been successful for three years, and they are already at the end of their strengths, and it is impossible to do this kind of small repairs and make up for this kind of small repairs to play well in the West, and they will be the first to fall out of the troika.

However, they forgot that O'Neal was also in Los Angeles Lakers for three years, and it was not until 2000 that Phil Jackson took off, and the Phoenix Suns got Fox Leon, and the tactical play style has been completely renewed, becoming more three-dimensional and layered, with more ferocious firepower and a steady improvement in defense. After the game against the Rockets, the Suns jumped from sixth place before the start of the season to second place in ESPN's newly released power rankings.

At the top of the list is of course the Boston Celtics, from the beginning of the season to the present, the Celtics have not tasted defeat, after getting Ray Allen to form the Big Three, Boston has regained its glory and is once again in the limelight in the league. Kevin Garnett, who was back last season and is back this season, is in great form, and he is currently at the top of the MVP rankings.

However, it is still too early for the Suns and Celtics to meet, and Leon does not have to worry about this issue for the time being. For the Suns, they will have to face a more intensive schedule. Back-to-back games against the Kings, a day off against the Clippers, then a game against the Warriors, a return home game against the Rockets, a game against the Magic, and then a road trip to the East.

After the game against the Rockets, the Suns boarded the plane back to Phoenix, and Leon mentally calculated the schedule for the next three weeks, and to sum it up, it was: not a single one can play.

……………………

Three weeks later, it's December, and the winter is getting colder and colder across the country, but the weather in Phoenix is pretty good. Leon had just returned from chilly Minnesota, the final leg of their last road trip, starting in New York and taking a lap along the American North Line before finishing with a Timberwolves game.

In the past three weeks, the Suns have lived up to expectations and continued to soar, losing only two of their 10 games, one of which was avenged by the Houston Rockets after returning to their home court - Yao Ming really showed his might after Maddie's return, and broke through the Suns on the inside. The other game was against the Timberwolves a day ago, where they suffered a cold winter in the center of the triangle and were suppressed by the Timberwolves all over the court, losing the game 114-117.

The loss of this game was also expected by Leon, this was the last and fifth game of the away trip, and the players were already very tired from the continuous journey, so after returning to Phoenix, Leon immediately gave the players a vacation to let them recuperate.

But today Leon didn't give himself a holiday, he got up early in the morning, put on his coat and went out to the team's training gym, during which time he was opening a small stove for Boris Dior and helping him train his low post defense.

For this reason, Leon also specially pulled Xiao Si over as a sparring partner, Xiao Si is energetic, and he will certainly not let go of this opportunity to receive the guidance of the best coach in the league. And he also wanted to see if he could improve his defense, although even Leon was not very hopeful.

Upon arrival at the gym, Smalls and Dio arrived, dressed in Suns training uniforms, along with another man, former Suns star and retired center Alwan Adams, who currently holds the position of vice president of operations on the team. Today, Leon specially invited him to come over to provide technical guidance for the team's two interior players.

After all, he is a famous member of the Suns, although he is not a great superstar in NBA history, but he is also a powerful interior player, and in that era when the interior line was king, the white interior line who gained a foothold in the league through a unique technical style was famous, so naturally it was not in vain.