Suns whip Wizards for 14th-straight win

WASHINGTON - “The Phoenix Suns of the East” are headed back to the drawing board. As for the real McCoy? Well, with those streak-busting Washington Wizards now safely put in their place to the tune of a 127-105 pounding Tuesday, who knows where this latest Phoenix winning binge will end?

It took the Suns 38 years to win 15 games in a row, but that franchise record may have the shelf life of a bottle of Boone’s Farm – thanks to a first quarter of vintage Phoenix basketball produced 41 points, six 3-pointers and a 21-point lead that left the home team staggered and bleary-eyed.

The Suns have now won 14 straight and 30 of their last 32 games. One of only five NBA teams in league history with two streaks of at least 14 games in the same season, they can tie their 32-day-old franchise mark tonight in New York.

So the Suns reach the midway point of the season at 33-8, tying the 1994-95 team for the best 41-game start in franchise history. Amazingly, that’s still not good enough to catch Dallas (35-8), which won its eighth straight Tuesday in Orlando and remains atop the NBA.

“We wanted to win. They were talking about how they wanted to be like us or something,” said Suns guard Leandro Barbosa, who was one of seven Suns in double figures and added 11 of Phoenix’s 35 assists. “They beat us, so now we beat them.”

Steve Nash led the way with 27 points and 14 assists, hitting 11 of 13 shots and leaving the Verizon Center crowd gasping time and again with passes and off-balance shots. Shawn Marion and Raja Bell had 21 each and James Jones added 16 off the bench.

The Suns shot 67 percent in the first half, led 76-51 at intermission and jogged home from there.

“They beat us, plain and simple. There are no excuses and we had no distractions,” Wizards guard Antonio Daniels said. “We had adequate time to concentrate and prepare, and they beat us at their own game.”

The Wizards love breaking streaks. They snapped Dallas’ 12-game winning streak before coming to Phoenix on Dec. 22 to end the Suns’ franchise-record 15-game steak in overtime behind 54 points from Gilbert Arenas – who vowed revenge against Mike D’Antoni and the rest of the Team USA coaching staff for bumping him off the national team roster last summer.

But this time, the Suns weren’t coming off three snowbound days in Denver. They didn’t arrive two hours before the opening tip. And they saw a Wizards team that was 17-3 at home and had won a record 10 straight here coming from a mile away.

Arenas, who has labeled his team “the Suns of the East” in his dressing room, finished with 31 points but needed 25 shots to get them. By the time he made his second basket of the night with five minutes left in the half, the Suns had a 27-point lead.

“It’s hard to beat a team that is shooting that well,” Arenas said.

Amaré Stoudemire (15 points, seven rebounds) played only 19 minutes due to foul trouble. The Suns had 15 turnovers and gave up 12 offensive rebounds. Three Wizards scored at least 20 points.

It didn’t matter a bit. The Suns passed the ball crisply, shot the lights out (61 percent for the game), knocked down 13 3-pointers and moved to 17-1 against the Eastern Conference with a flourish.

“That first quarter is about as good as it gets,” Nash said. “It wasn’t revenge. We respected them and we didn’t want to start the game with a lack of energy. We wanted to give them a better game this time.”