Steve Nash summed up Wednesday night’s 103-83 loss to the
Philadelphia 76ers pretty succinctly.

“That was about as bad a game as I’ve had personally, and
team-wise it obviously was as well,” Nash said.

Unfortunately, the two-time league MVP is right.

Since returning to the Suns via free agency in 2004, Nash
has played in 543 games. Wednesday night marked the first
time he had played more than 15 minutes in a game and
finished with less than two assists.

Nash also finished with 6 turnovers in his limited playing
time, giving him the worst single game assist-to-turnover
ratio of his storied career.

But Nash isn’t alone in his struggles early on in the
2011-12 season. The starting lineup of Grant Hill,
Channing Frye, Marcin Gortat, Jared Dudley and Nash shot
20% (7-of-35) from the floor against Philadelphia.

Frye has hit just 1-of-10 field goal attempts in Phoenix’s
first two games after shooting 43% last season. Dudley is
just 3-for-13 and is shooting 16.7% from three-point
range.

So what are the reasons behind this sluggish start for the
Suns? Nash has a theory.

“I think it’s combination of a lot of things — a
shortened training camp, a lack of familiarity and also
we’re just not real efficient yet, we’re not making shots
and we’re not in sync.”

With the compacted NBA schedule, the Suns don’t have a lot
of time to dwell on their start, nor much time to get
things together on the offensive end. Phoenix will play
their first of 18 sets of back-to-back games this Friday
and Saturday in New Orleans and Oklahoma City, two teams
who have yet to lose this season.

Follow @Vincemarotta