Suns coach Terry Porter made a pragmatic decision on Tuesday. He will start Shaquille O’Neal against the Bucks tonight — figuring he will have a big impact on the game and shutting down Andrew Bogut — and take a wait-and-see attitude toward Wednesday’s back-to-back matchup in Los Angeles with the Lakers.

 O’Neal had 29 points and 11 rebounds in Milwaukee and dominated the game. Why not make the Bucks figure out how to stop him instead of doing it for them?

 Makes sense. Even with Shaq rested and ready on Nov. 20, the Lakers rolled over the Suns in Phoenix. So why make a game against Milwaukee harder when having Shaq against the 17-2 Lakers may not go a long way toward tipping the scales.

 The Suns have beaten the Bucks 20 straight times here, but this is a new era where nothing is taken for granted. The Nets hadn’t won here since 1993 before waxing the Suns on Nov. 30. So you beat the Bucks, get a modest two-game winning streak going and then see what’s what for the Lakers.

 Dallas — Steve Nash is seven pounds lighter and Shaquille O’Neal’s right knee is still not 100 percent, but both will be in the starting lineup tonight as the Suns try to fight off a four-game losing streak and a rare winless road trip against the red-hot Mavericks.

 Matt Barnes is still having a lot of trouble with a sore back but he’ll also be back in the starting lineup in place of Grant Hill tonight. Barnes is trying all different kinds of treatment and sleeping positions to relieve the spasms that had him bending and twisting all through Wednesday’s game in New Orleans but he has no intention of missing any time after losing five games to suspensions and fatherhood.

 Josh Howard is out tonight for Dallas and Jose Juan Berea will make the start alongside Jason Kidd.

By Jerry Brown
Tribune
NEW ORLEANS — The Suns will have three new starters for tonight’s game with the Hornets — one by design and two by necessity.
Steve Nash will sit out tonight because of a bout with a 24-hour virus that kept him in bed all day. Coach Terry Porter said he hopes Nash will be able to go Thursday night in Dallas. Leandro Barbosa will make his first start of the season and see extended minutes at the point
Shaquille O’Neal will also sit out for the third time this season for a perscribed rest day in the first of a back-to-back situation. The Suns are 1-1 when O’Neal sits — losing big in Chicago on Nov. 7 and rallying to beat Oklahoma City on Nov. 25. Robin Lopez will start at center.
Porter has also opted to go with Grant Hill — who has been much more effective in his five starts this season — as the starter over Matt Barnes at the small forward. Hill has had trouble getting going after sitting down after warmups, and Barnes has come off the bench his entire careers.
Hill has averaged 12 points and seven rebounds in his five starts this season, and 16.5 points and 8.5 rebounds in the last two.

 Suns guard Steve Nash missed Wednesday’s shootaround at New Orleans Arena and stayed in bed at the team’s hotel with flu-like symptoms.

 Sean Singletary, who has received the bulk of the playing time behind Nash, would likely get his second NBA start if Nash can’t go. The Suns also have rookie Goran Dragic, but he has only played six minutes over the last five games.

 Nash’s availability could affect coach Terry Porter’s decision whether or not to play Shaquille O’Neal tonight. Porter appeared to be leaning toward resting O’Neal against the Hornets, but might not want to go without two starters. Either way, the Suns are through announcing whether O’Neal will play before he sits out games. It doesn’t allow (1) Teams to gameplan for the Shaq-less Suns and (2) allow opposing coaches to use the fact the Suns are sitting a healthy player as motivation for their pregame speeches (”They don’t respect you, there aren’t even playing Shaq!”)

 It’s a beautiful day in New Orleans, with temperatures expected to reach 75 degrees in the first week of December. Good thing, because the gusty winds that are whipping around the city would be a lot tougher to deal with in 40-50 degree weather.

Both Steve Nash (thigh contusion) and Amare Stoudemire (sore calf) will play tonight against the Nets. Stoudemire knew when he arrived at the arena that he was a go, while Nash gave the thumb’s up after test-driving the injury in pregame warmups.

 Nash will have a tough assignment with Devin Harris tonight. Harris had an awful game in the Nov. 4 loss to the Suns in New Jersey, but he and Vince Carter have blossomed into the top scoring backcourt in the league and the key for the Nets. But the Suns have a big advantage insdie with Shaquille O’Neal going against Brook Lopez and Stoudemire getting the defensive-impaired Yi Jianlian.

The Suns will play without Steve Nash tonight against the Heat. Nash suffered a contusion in his right thigh when he took a knee coming off a pick in the first half of Wednesday’s game at Minnesota.

 This is the second game Nash will miss this season. He sat out the win over Sacramento on Nov. 14 after he was suspended for his role in the shoving match with Houston.

 Rookie Sean Singletary will make his first NBA start against the Heat. Goran Dragic, who hasn’t played in any of the last three games, should also get some time.

 As expected, Shaquille O’Neal will sit out tonight’s game with the Thunder in Oklahoma City. Robin Lopez, who has played only four minutes in the last four games and more than 14 minutes only once since Nov. 7, will start at center against Suns-killer Nick Collison and likely play 25-plus minutes

 The Suns don’t want O’Neal playing in back-to-back games and he’s been bothered by minor knee and hip soreness over the last week after diving into the crowd for a loose ball against Portland Sunday. The Suns want to have a fresh O’Neal Wednesday in Minnesota, where the T-Wolves have won three of the last four games with Phoenix and swept them last year with Al Jefferson averaging 35 points a game.

 *The record says 1-13, but Suns coach Terry Porter knows that the slate often wipes clean – at least for a week or two – during a coaching change. The Thunder fired turned-out coach P.J. Carlesimo over the weekend (check the track record of coaches in any sport surviving a franchise move) and installed assistant Scott Brooks as a replacement.

 “I don’t like playing teams that have new coaches. Everybody is out to prove they deserve more minutes or they should get more minutes or they are worthy of their minutes.”

 The Suns are 5-2 on the road so far – with a short-handed loss in Chicago and a poor effort in Utah – but they seem to calm down and player a tighter game. Phoenix’s wins in San Antonio, New Jersey, Milwaukee and Sacramento rank among the best in the early going.

 “From a consistency standpoint, we play better on the road than we have as far as energy and the way we approach it and the results we’ve been getting,” Porter said.

 *Look for Leandro Barbosa to step right back in and play plenty tonight – especially since Matt Barnes is gimpy with a sore toe and Alando Tucker remains on the sidelines as he recovers from knee surgery.

 Porter liked what he saw in Monday’s practice, even though Barbosa admitted he lost his conditioning and lost weight during his nine-day, five-game absence in Brazil. “He went through everything and he was good. He’s fresh, moving quick and his shot looked good. Playing basketball is a good thing for him right now.”

*Shaquille O’Neal isn’t going to ask out of the lineup, but he sees the results of extra rest as clearly as everyone else. And the more time off between games, the better. Not only are back-to-backs tough but “the first day off is not really like a day off. The second day is when you can just start all over.”

 Back-to-backs have been a disaster. In games against New Orleans, Indiana, Shaq has found himself in almost constant foul trouble and averaged 6.7 points and 5.0 rebounds.

 But O’Neal with one day off as been a mixed bag. He put two good games together against the Lakers (Thursday) and Blazers (Saturday) with one day in between.

 So it’s likely he sits out tonight, plays Wednesday against Minnesota (where the middle won’t be so open for Suns-killer Al Jefferson), and looks to dial it up again when his old friends from the Miami come to town Friday. Sunday’s game against the perimeter-oriented Nets offers another possible rest day.

 *Kudos to Amare Stoudemire, whose efforts to rehabilitate fresh water wells in Sierra Leone ($50,000 donation) as earned him the NBA Community Assist Award for October.

  The Suns continue to be very visible in the community, be it their annual celebrity waiter event at Majerle’s in Chandler over the weekend, or Shaquille O’Neal feeding hundreds of families for Thanksgiving

Steve Nash was working as hard after the game to spin the Suns struggles as he did to try to smooth things on the during the game Thursday night. Neither attempt was successful.

 Trotting out the “work in progress” line yet again and trying to turn the conversation toward the baby steps of improvement for the defense was rough sledding. The toughest challenge came when national writers were asking the two-time MVP and heartbeat of the team if he felt “marginalized” by an offense that so far as turned him into little more than a dribble-and-dump point guard.

After years of being handed the keys by Don Nelson and Mike D’Antoni, he admitted “I’m just trying to fill my role now.”

 Hmm. Is Kobe Bryant trying to fill a role? How about Tim Duncan or Dirk Nowitzki?

 Raja Bell tried a different tact, refusing to address questions pertaining to the offense. Whether this was a response to a recently public plea from general manager Steve Kerr to stop talking to the media and address all concerns internally or if the point was made clearer in private is unclear. But in either case, the message has been delivered.

 But we’ve heard from those precincts before. Their general discomfort for Terry Porter’s system and frustration about leaving what worked so well for four seasons behind has been reiterated since training camp.

 The new wrinkle after the 105-92 drubbing at the hands of the Lakers Thursday came from Amare Stoudemire, by far the most vocal critic of D’Antoni’s system and proponent of Porter’s way on both ends of the floor. After needing 21 shots to collect 21 points and reaching the free throw line, Stoudemire sounded almost melancholy about the old days, taking about how effective the Suns fastbreak was with him as a center and the team exploiting mismatches with their speed and precision.

 Now, it’s on Stoudemire and Shaquille O’Neal to deliver inside. And when Stoudemire misses a half dozen bunnies inside and the rest of the Suns are cold from the outside, the Suns look like a pretender in any sense of the word.

 Gone are the days when the double-digit deficit could be wiped out before an opposing coach could get a timeout called. When the Suns fall behind by eight points, it feels like 18. When back-to-back 3-pointers by Vladamir Radmanovic (who used the Suns as his own personal slumpbuster Thursday) and Derek Fisher pushed an eight-point lead to 14 last in the third quarter, the Suns were done.

 The Suns used to trade baskets until opponents could no longer keep up. Now they are trading stops until their defense – which is better but by no means a strong point – falters for a sequence of possessions.

 Don’t expect any major changes. Management isn’t blinking. Kerr and Porter fully expected the Suns to struggle through the first month or two of the season, and were pleasantly surprised that the turnovers and other hiccups didn’t cost more wins during a 7-2 start. But when the level of competition stiffened while the offense was still groping through the fog, the turnovers wound up in their basket and the shots weren’t as easy to find.

 The big losers in all of this are the two rookies who were supposed to be nightly fixtures in the rotation. The Suns can’t deal with the growing pains of Goran Dragic and Robin Lopez when the veteran regulars are making enough mistakes for. It’s pretty hard for Nash and O’Neal and others act as mentors when their most-often response to questions is: “Your guess is as good as mine.”

The Suns looked the most cohesive all season in the opener at San Antonio. They executed in the half court. They ran with a smaller lineup, with Nash dancing through the lane and creating shots off the fly. And at the end of the game, they rammed the pick and roll down the Spurs’ throats. With each passing game, they have looked less and less comfortable.

 Look for some subtle changes. The first came with Sean Singletary bumping Dragic to the end of the bench. That may allow Porter to go back to Grant Hill as a starter – where he is much more effective and happy – and put Barnes with the second unit since the need for a third ball handler on the floor with Singletary and Boris Diaw on the floor is lessened.

 With Barnes slowed by back spasms Thursday, the change could come under the guise of an injury move Saturday against the Blazers. But the Suns are 4-1 with Hill as a starter (the only loss game when Barnes and O’Neal sat out a loss at Chicago) and Hill is averaging 12.5 points and seven rebounds in those games.

 Barnes is a good player and brings a lot to the team. But Hill just works better with the first unit. The Suns are quicker and get out on the break faster. The ball swings better around the perimeter and the passing opens up early shots for Raja Bell.

 But tweaks will only do so much. The Suns have to run when O’Neal is sitting, and they have to spend time in practice playing at that tempo to get used to it again. After playing 12 games in 20 days to start the season, the schedule eases back a bit in December and will give the team more time to iron out the problems. Getting Leandro Barbosa back will help too.

 The Suns have Leandro Barbosa booked on a flight from Sao Paulo to Phoenix on Friday and are hopeful to have the speedy guard back in the lineup soon.

 Even if Barbosa returns Friday, his status for Saturday’s home game with Portland would be up in the air. But the Suns don’t play again until they open a two-game road trip in Oklahoma City on Tuesday, which would give Barbosa enough time to recover from the long trip and get a few practices in.

 *Forward Matt Barnes was moving very gingerly after the game Friday. He said his back locked up on him in the second quarter when he got hit trying to box out on a rebound. He played the entire third quarter (five points, four rebounds) through some nasty pain.

 ”This is the first time I’ve ever had back spasms. It was tough,” Barnes said. “But I wanted to keep playing. I’ve already missed enough games already (two due to suspension, three to be with his wife for the birth of their twins) and I don’t want to miss any more. I’m going to play Saturday if I can. I hope this isn’t anything that’s going to affect that.”

 *Raja Bell was asked about the offensive struggles, but politely declined to address the issue. But he did offer this assessment of the loss: “You get beat like that, you failed your test. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

 *Sean Singletary was told after practice Wednesday that he’d moved ahead of Goran Dragic on the point guard depth chart for now. The rookie from Virginia had a 3-pointer and two assist in his 13 minutes but also had two turnovers, three fouls and had trouble keeping up on defense.

 ”I tried to get out there and make a couple of things happen,” he said. “I wanted to bring some energy, but we didn’t match their intensity. I was excited to be out there, it’s been awhile. Now I have to prove I belong but bringing some offense, getting the guys involved and defending. Now it’s on me.”