*The Suns were whistled for three technical fouls in the first half against New Orleans (Amare Stoudemire, coach Terry Porter and Steve Nash). It was Porter’s second technical foul in as many games, matching Mike D’Antoni’s total for all of last season…

 *Hornets guard Peja Stojakovic had 20 points in the first three quarters, but left the game after rolling his ankle early in the fourth.

 *The Suns missed a chance to go 2-0 for just the 10^th time in franchise history and the first time since 2004-05, when they won 31 of their first 35 games. Porter missed a chance to join Scott Skiles (1999-2000) and Jerry Colangelo (1969-70) as the only Suns coaches to begin their tenures with two wins. Both were mid-season replacements.

 *Phoenix is now 30-11 all-time in home openers, and 11-6 since moving to US Airways Center in 1992 …

 A night after the Suns caught the Spurs without two starters (Manu Ginobili and Fabricio Oberto) they will catch the Hornets hurting too. Center Tyson Chandler sprained an ankle in the win over Golden State Wednesday and will sit out tonight. Hilton Armstrong will slide up into the starting center spot and Melvin Ely — who the Suns had on their radar two seasons ago — would get the backup minutes.

 After chasing Tony Parker around the Alamo Wednesday, Steve Nash won’t have the starting defensive assignment on Chris Paul tonight. That job goes to Matt Barnes, who checked Paul last year when Golden State beat Newo Orleans. Asked if he remembers the experience fondly, Barnes said “Guarding Chris Paul? There’s nothing fuin about that.”

 Nash will check Morris Peterson tonight, while Raja Bell get Peja Stojakovic. The Dallas-Houston game looks like it will run long, so don’t expect a 7:45 tip tonight. What else do you expect from TNT?

*Amare Stoudemire had 11 points in the fourth quarter and seven down the stretch when the Suns won the game. But here are two quieter stats regarding STAT that stick out.

 Stoudemire committed two fouls in the game. He was still at a loss when he had to guard Tim Duncan, but he wasn’t turning baskets into 3-point plays and he left himself plenty of fouls to be aggressive and carefree down the stretch.

 Stoudemire also had two assists. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but he did a better job of finding the open man when passing out of the post and would have had more assists if not for missed shots. “That’s a tribute to his experience,” guard Steve Nash said. “He made a couple of plays that maybe he hasn’t made in the past. It’s impressive.”

 *Terry Porter talked about resting Steve Nash more in the first half so he could “bank” some minutes if he needed to stretch him out in the second half. Nash would up playing 34 minutes against the Spurs, but he splits were pretty even (16:24 in the first half, 17:33 in the second half). But when Nash wasn’t on the floor, the Suns plus/minus was a nasty minus-14 – and it would have been a lot worse if not for a couple of hot streaks by Leandro Barbosa.

 Goran Dragic’s debut was forgetful. He had only one turnover in 14 minutes, but the offense often went through Grant Hill with Dragic floating on the wing. He didn’t score, which isn’t a big deal, but he was eaten up on defense by Tony Parker at the end of the third quarter, when Parker had nine points including a pair of 3-point plays. He has to be better there.

Count Duncan as those impressed with the new-fangled Suns.

 “I like what Terry Porter is doing,” he said. “He’s slowed them down a little bit and is using his skill players. Then down at the end there, we saw the old Phoenix Suns using the pick and roll, putting the ball in Steve and Amar’e’s hands…”

 Porter said he’d have plenty of technical fouls this season and picked up his first before halftime, arguing a blocking foul called on Nash.

 Due to a computer glitch, the official sheet credited the ‘T’ to former Suns assistant Dan D’Antoni – now an assistant with his brother Mike in New York with the Knicks – who scored 120 points in a season-opening win over Miami Wednesday.

 The Suns have now won three straight regular season games in San Antonio, just the second time a foe has managed that since it opened in 2002. Dallas also won three straight from 2005-07. No one has won four straight.

 Guards Alando Tucker (hamstring) and Sean Singletary were inactive for the Suns …

 The Suns will have R&B artist Brian McKnight singing the national anthem at tonight’s home opener with New Orleans. McKnight will also perform at halftime.

The NBA’s general managers agree with the rest of the pundits who say the Suns are no longer a serious threat in the Western Conference.

 Not a single executive picked the Suns to win the Pacific Division in the annual GM survey. The Lakers – who are picked to avenge their loss to the Celtics last season and beat Boston in the NBA Finals – were the only unanimous choice to win their division.

 When asked who would win the Western Conference, two out of three GMs picked the Lakers (66.7 percent), followed by three teams that play in the same division – New Orleans (18.5 percent), Houston (7.4 percent) and San Antonio (7.4 percent).

 LeBron James (55.6 percent) was the choice to win the MVP over Kobe Bryant (37 percent) and is also the choice of the one player the GMs would like to start their franchise with (66.7 percent).

 Steve Nash has been supplanted as the choice as best point guard by Chris Paul of New Orleans– who is now the overwhelming choice (88.9 percent). Nash is still seen as the league’s best passer. Amare Stoudemire (11.1 percent) is the No. 3 choice at power forward behind Tim Duncan (51.9 percent) and Kevin Garnett (25.9 percent).

 Philadelphia’s acquisition of Elton Brand was selected as the best offseason acquisition, ahead of Houston’s trade for Ron Artest. Miami’s Michael Beasley (48.1 percent) is the pick to win the Rookie of the Year over Portland’s Greg Oden (29.6 percent), but Oden is the pick when GMs were asked who would be the best player in five years.

 Suns center Robin Lopez was picked by 12 percent of GMs to be the “sleeper” pick of the draft, finishing second to J.J. Hickson of Cleveland.

 As for coaches, San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich (53.8 percent) is the runaway pick as best coach over Phil Jackson of the Lakers (23.1 percent), but Jacksonis seen as the best motivator (44 percent). New Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni (53.8 percent) runs the best offense and Popovich (65.4 percent) draws up the best defense.

 Here’s a look at the whole survey: NBA.com_2008-09_GM_Survey_Results.doc  

  Steve Nash will sit out tonight and will likely miss Tuesday’s game in Los Angeles against the Clippers. But coach Terry Porter said he expects Nash to play in Thursday’s preseason game against New Orleans and be close to 100 percent for the Oct. 29 season opener in San Antonio.

 Nash said if it was a regular season game, he would have been able to play. But the Suns aren’t interested in taking any chances, in a preview of how things might be if he’s sore or gimpy down the road.

 Alando Tucker will miss his third straight game with hamstring problems, but is also close to playing and Thursday seems to be his target date as well. Porter said Shaquille O’Neal will also miss the Clippers game on Tuesday as the Suns monitor his workload before the season begins.

 Porter said Amare Stoudemire will make his debut off the bench tonight and he’d like him to play extended minutes in his stints to further his conditioning.

 Steve Nash’s status for tonight’s preseason game against Charlotte was still up in the air – until he landed on his gimpy right ankle on the last play of Sunday’s scrimmage.

 Now the attention turns to getting him ready for the regular season, which is 10 days away.

 Nash rolled the same ankle that he hurt last Wednesday in Atlanta and kept him on the bench for Friday’s loss to Denver in Syracuse. He looked like he was moving well in the scrimmage before he landed wrong just seconds before coach Terry Porter called an end to more than three hours of film and court work.

 An obviously frustrated Nash limped around the court for a few minutes before gingerly heading up the steps to the locker room. Now, the final week of the preseason will be about getting ready himself instead of getting in sync with players like Amare Stoudemire and Leandro Barbosa – who have missed most of the preseason for various reasons.

 You never know when Shaquille O’Neal it going to lay down the gauntlet. Did anyone have the second week of preseason in the pool?

 Tuesday, with only three reporters still chatting with him, O’Neal was asked if it bothered him that the NBA — after looking at the issue in the off-season — decided against the idea of outlawing intentional fouls away from the ball without penalty. The Spurs used the tactic liberally on the career 52.4 percent free throw shooter during last year’s playoffs and San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich continued the scheme even when his team was enjoying double-digit lead.

 O’Neal said the rules don’t bother him, but his logic route took a dirt road from there.

 ”It doesn’t work,” O’Neal said. “It may work in a series, but it’s not going to get you to the championship. San Antonio tried it, but they went home a couple weeks after we went home. I just have to go to the line and make them pay. And I will.”

 Yes, the Spurs didn’t win the title last year. But they reached the Western Conference finals and sent the Suns home in five games, so it’s hard for anyone other than O’Neal to argue with the results.

 But it did seem curious that the Spurs continued to foul O’Neal and put the Suns into the bonus when they had comfortable leads in the first half or at the end of the third quarter. Shaq said it made the game less exciting for the fans, and called out the Spurs on that score.

 ”I call cowardly is when you’re up by 10 and do it,” he said. “That’s a cowardly move. I didn’t say nothing last year, but that’s a coward move. They should really do something about that.

 ”When you’re down, I can see using it as a strategy, but when you’re up 10 to 15 points, there’s really no need for that.”

 But you can expect to see more Hack-A-Shaq until O’Neal finds a way to make a respectable number of free throws. And since he’s missed eight of 12 attempts in the preseason (33 percent) … you do the math.

 Suns coach Terry Porter said Amare Stoudemire was able to take part in all facets of the shootaround on Wednesday and reported no problems with his new goggles. The Suns have three games on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday and won’t practice on Friday or Sunday, so he won’t get his first full-contract practice until next Monday. The Suns want him to get one or two weeks of conditioning under his belt, meaning his first preseason appearance likely won’t come until at least Oct. 20, when Charlotte visits U.S. Airways Center.

 Meanwhile, Leandro Barbosa remains in Brazil at the side of his mother, who remains gravely ill. The Suns have communicated with him only through text messages (because of poor phone connections) and his return remains opened-ended. Porter said he was going to send Barbosa a video version of the playbook so he could do some studying during his vigil.

 As expected, Boris Diaw will start for Stoudemire at the power forward spot. He and the other Suns starters (Raja Bell, Grant Hill, Steve Nash and Shaquille O’Neal) are expected to play 20-25 minutes tonight against the Hawks

 While the Suns take Monday off after along week of two-a-day practices, but Amare Stoudemire will have his five-day checkup on the torn iris in his right eye, to check the progress and see how quickly he can return to practice.

 Stoudemire said there was more improvement in the eye Sunday but there was still some blurriness. And a few minutes after he was introduced with his teammates at the public scrimmage at U.S. Airways Center, the bright lights started bothering his eyes, forcing him to put his sunglasses back on.

 It’s hard to imagine Stoudemire being back at practice on Tuesday, and the Suns begin preseason with a home game Wednesday against Atlanta and a road game at Utah Thursday. They don’t practice on Friday and then play the outdoor game against Denver Saturday in Palm Springs before taking next Sunday off.

 That means it could be a full week before Stoudemire gets into a full practice, and GM Steve Kerr said it would be 1-2 weeks before Stoudemire would be able to get back in basketball shape — not to mention all the time he’s missed learning Terry Porter’s offensive and defensive schemes. That means it could be the final week of the preseason before Stoudemire is on the floor getting steady minutes.