Newcomer Hill stunned by crowd at scrimmage

TUCSON - After playing the past seven years in Orlando with a Magic team that struggled on the court and at the box office, Grant Hill wasn’t prepared to see the lines of fans winding around McKale Center waiting to get into his first intrasquad scrimmage as a Sun.

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It’s wasn’t quite the Cameron Crazies back during his days at Duke, but Hill was impressed with the 7,365 who passed on watching a Diamondbacks playoff game for a glorified pickup basketball game.

“When we pulled up, I thought people were waiting for the Beatles or something, it was amazing,” Hill said. “I was thinking there might be a couple of hundred people here, I don’t know. But it was crowded, packed and refreshing for me. But this team has given people lots of reasons to be passionate.”

Hill’s Orange team, coached by assistant Phil Weber, was on the short end of a 97-91 track meet Saturday night.

But Hill had 21 points and six assists in his debut, showed he could easily play at Phoenix’s pace and looked very comfortable with fellow starter Shawn Marion – who scored a game-high 30 points and didn’t hear a single boo for the fans a little more than a week after requesting to be traded from the team.

“I had a great time,” said Marion, who made 14 of 18 shots from the field, many coming on the back end of alley-oops from Hill, Leandro Barbosa and rookie D.J. Strawberry. “I’m still always from getting the chemistry right, and we’re missing one big piece in Amaré Stoudemire, but I think we had a good week overall.”

The White team pulled out a close game thanks to 21 points and 10 rebounds from Boris Diaw, who wrapped up an impressive training camp by showing off his added athleticism and stamina (five assists, three steals and a block). Steve Nash had 15 points and nine assists despite a spotty shooting night and center Sean Marks took advantage of the extra playing time afforded by Stoudemire’s absence to add 11 points and 11 rebounds.

Marks had the stand-out sequence of the night as well, flying across the lane to block camp invitee Rawle Marshall at the basket, and then racing down the floor to finish a fast-break dunk on the other end.

The teams played only 40 minutes, but were still threatening triple digits.

“It was a real slugfest,” Phoenix coach Mike D’Antoni said. “That’s the problem with watching an intrasquad game. You get excited about the offense but then you remember we’re also playing defense.

“If someone had stopped the other team twice in a row, they would have given them the game ball.”

Nash was happy to see newcomers Hill and Brian Skinner (six points and 11 rebounds) mesh with the team so quickly and was impressed with the play off rookies Alando Tucker (11 points on 5-of-7 shooting) and Strawberry (eight points, six assists).

“Grant is such an easy player to play, he’s so skilled, smart and unselfish,” Nash said. “And Brian may not be as big a name, but he knows his role defensively. He rebounds and he moves the ball. They are both going to be great additions.

“I thought we played a pretty good game. It validated all the work we’ve put in so far.”