By Stephen Lars

The only two NBA teams that were still to be defeated this season –Denver Nuggets and the Boston Celtics- had their perfect records spoiled this Friday. The Phoenix Suns, guided by a strong and confident Jason Richardson, came to Boston with a super aggressive offensive plan. Richardson opened the scoreboard with a clean three-point shot, and from that point on, he and the team were basically unstoppable.

The numbers alone speak for the 28-year-old Shooting Guard for the Suns. He scored 14 points in the first quarter alone. The man was on fire. He even came back in the fourth quarter with a couple more surprises from his bag of tricks, scoring the first 8 points for the Suns, while, almost helplessly, the Boston Celtics watched in disbelief as 4 minutes passed by in the clock without them making a single shot.

The first quarter came to an end with a 29-27 lead for the Phoenix Suns. In the second quarter the Suns began to put even more pressure over the Phoenix defense, with fast, consistent passing and a steady presence over the paint. At one point the Celtics were behind by 11 points. That’s when Rondo and Garnett began to adopt a more aggressive and coordinated offensive style to close down the margin to 57-51 by the end of the first half.

Kevin Garnett had a season high 26 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists on the game. And although Rondo ended up with good numbers as well, 14 points with 11 trays, it just wasn’t enough to fulfill their goal of having a 7-0 record for the second time in three years.

It certainly was not the best night for Rasheed Wallace who could not hit any of his six attempts from the 3 point perimeter, 5 of which were shot in the fourth quarter.

By the last quarter, it was quite evident that there was very little the Celtics could to do in order to rescue the game. Richardson came in again to end the game with a solid 110-103 win for the Phoenix Suns. He had spectacular numbers, 34 points, 10 rebounds and 2 assists, even more so if one considers that he had gone scoreless in his previous game.

The Denver Nuggets suffered a similar fate when they took their first defeat of the season by the Miami Heat, a team to which they had not lost since December 17th, 2004. Denver’s numbers were not even close to the ones they had been bringing out during the season.

Carmello Anthony had a good game, scoring 30 pts and getting 8 rebounds for the Nuggets. But very little came from the rest of the team. Shooting guard Arron Afflalo came as a reserve to add 11 points for Denver, but the rest of the players’ numbers were well under average.

Despite the fact that the first quarter ended with a small advantage for Miami 23-21, by the second quarter things got even uglier for Denver. Kenyon Martin had to leave the game with an injury that might put him out of the courts for a week or two. And it seemed as if the guys from the Mile High City could not get their game back together after that.

We also must consider that Miami Heat star, Dwyane Wade, had a fairly slow start. He missed the first five shots he attempted, and finally got one in with 1:34 until the end of the first half time. And that didn’t seem to change much. Miami just appeared unstoppable that night, scoring 17 of the first half’s last 22 points. By Halftime, Denver was down 50-38, a 12-point gap it was unable to bridge in the second half.

In the fourth quarter, Denver made its most explosive offensive attack of the game, closing the breach down to 93-82, with 3:47 to play. But not much was left to do. Miami kept the ball and played a bright and conservative last two minutes to seal the win.

The first defeat of the season has yet to change the overall game of the Celtics which as of Monday night, still hold a solid 7-1 record. On the other hand, George Karl is seeking new game tactics to bring back the team’s A-game, after it lost two games in a row for a 5-2 record.