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Suns go for redemption in rematch with Warriors

Feb 6, 2009 - 11:21 AM Golden State (16-34) at Phoenix (26-21) 10:30 p.m. EST

PHOENIX (Ticker) -- The bad news for the Phoenix Suns is they're coming off their worst defensive performance in six weeks. The good news is that they get a chance to make up for it within 48 hours.

After getting manhandled by the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday, the Suns complete a home-and-home with their Pacific Division rivals on Friday as they host the Warriors looking for a bit of retribution.

The Suns, whose newfound allegiance to a defensive-minded approach has produced decidedly mixed results thus far, got torched by the Warriors' run-and-gun attack to the tune of 72 first-half points en route to a 124-112 victory. The 124 points were the most Phoenix has allowed since a 124-119 setback against the Portland Trail Blazers on December 18 - the night Brandon Roy exploded for 52 points.

Oddly enough, the Suns went into Wednesday's game on a bit of a high, stemming from one of their most impressive performances of the campaign, a 129-81 rout of the lowly Sacramento Kings on Monday. They couldn't sustain that momentum two days later, and that's an understatement. The final damage included Stephen Jackson's first career triple-double, a 43-point, first-quarter output for the Warriors and 13 3-pointers allowed by the Suns.

It didn't help, of course, that the Suns couldn't match Golden State's offensive firepower as previous versions could. In a way, the team's two games this week could be seen as an encapsulation of its season - full of polar opposites from one night to the next.

The Warriors, meanwhile, have endured a difficult season following two successful campaigns in a row, and their critically flawed defense has shown few, if any, signs of improvement. On the plus side, the team recently got back rising star Monta Ellis, who missed the first three months of the season with an ankle injury stemming from an offseason moped accident and team-imposed suspension.

He hasn't yet reached his 2007-08 form just yet and, after tweaking his left ankle on Monday, went 0-of-7 from the field on Wednesday.