--The Suns have tied the best record in franchise history after six games and have done it while collecting road wins in Miami and Boston in the last three days. It is the first time they have been 5-1 since the 2000-01 season. --Suns coach Alvin Gentry collected the 200th win of his head coaching career. He is under .500 in his nine seasons (200-240), but he's now 23-14 since taking over the Suns from Terry Porter. --Back at his college stamping grounds (Boston College) Jared Dudley had another strong game off the bench with 10 points, three assists and two steals. The Suns were a plus-14 in his 30 minutes on the floor, a team-best. Dudley will never be confused with Michael Jordan, but he gets the job done.
"Our guys laugh at him all the time, cause when he gets a dunk in practice everybody is like 'Ooooh!'" Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry said. "He is not the world's greatest athlete, let's put it that way. But he's probably our smartest player really, I don't know if I've ever had a player that was as intelligent as he is. He just knows angles and he plays every play like it's the last play of the game."
--The Celtics hadn't allowed more than 90 points in any of their six wins to open the season and had held opponents to under 41 percent shooting. But even without G Leandro Barbosa, the Suns matched their season average with 110 points and had 85 at the end of the third quarter, shooting 50 percent from the field and 52 percent from behind the three-point line.
"We're pretty good offensively, and as long as we can just limit our turnovers we feel pretty good about our chances offensively," Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry said. "I like the fact that the first things our guys said when we went into the locker room was that we won it with our defense again, and we really did win it with our defense."
--While they were outscored 60-36 in the paint, the Suns won the game from long range. They hit 13-of-24 three-point attempts, including six of seven by Jason Richardson, while the Celtics were 4-for-18, including an 0-for-6 night by Rasheed Wallace.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "They could see after the first that I had the stroke going. In this offense, every night it's going to be someone different. It was a feel (Friday night), like everything you throw up is going to go in. I wanted to come out, be aggressive and take it from there." -- G Jason Richardson, who bounced back from a scoreless game in Orlando with a season-high 34 points and 10 rebounds.
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