Cavaliers@ Suns 4-1-19

[Sunburn]

Josh the enigma Jackson

 

[SirStefan32]

Oh man, leave JJ in, Igor!

 

[Mainstreet]

Booker is putting the game away.

 

[Mainstreet]

Booker now has 20 points and 13 assists.

 

[SunnyBaller]

Even bender has a double double! That's how you know the Cavs suck

 

[Mainstreet]

Final:

Suns 122 - Cavaliers 113

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

So what do you want them to do? Throw games?

No. That’s not realistic. Just a bad time for JJ, bender and bridges to finally find their games.

 

[SirStefan32]

I am happy with the win. Young fellas deserve it.

 

[Krangodnzr]

Josh just pisses me off. Right when I fully give up on him, he has a game like this.

I'd bring Bender back as the third big.

 

[Mainstreet]

Some final stats.

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[AzStevenCal]

I enjoyed the win but unless Cleveland wins again it would be nice if it's our last one of the season.

 

[Mainstreet]

I enjoyed the win but unless Cleveland wins again it would be nice if it's our last one of the season.

This is how I see it as well. If the Sun win again they could tie with the Cavaliers if not worse. Teams are starting to shut it down. Bulls are unlikely to win again.

 

[1tinsoldier]

this is what i'm talking about:
Booker scores 49+ for 3 games, sucks the air out of the ball, teammates's vanish, Suns lose.
Booker has a big assist night, 5 teammates have nice games and Suns win easily.

sure, it was the Cavs. but the other recent games were against teams with losing records and tonight we had 3 starters out.

 

[AzStevenCal]

this is what i'm talking about:
Booker scores 49+ for 3 games, sucks the air out of the ball, teammates's vanish, Suns lose.
Booker has a big assist night, 5 teammates have nice games and Suns win easily.

sure, it was the Cavs. but the other recent games were against teams with losing records and tonight we had 3 starters out.

I find it difficult to believe you actually watched even a moment of our 3 previous games. Substitute Memphis, Washington or Utah for Cleveland tonight and we get blown out by each of them. Booker was incredible the last 3 games, turn him into primarily a passer against a real opponent and we would have been grossly overmatched. Cleveland is a shorthanded and horrible team, on the road, and we've been missing 4 or 5 players every game for awhile now. I can't believe anyone would denigrate Booker for 3 of the absolute best games of his NBA career.

 

[Hoop Head]

Yeah this is a game we get nothing out of. Anything the players do is fools gold and the w just hurts us in the long run.

I'm glad they got the win. It keeps them from having a big losing streak to end the year. They had 6 losses headed into the game and could have finished the year on an 11 game losing streak. Now they can't be on anymore than a 4 game losing streak if they lose out. We play Utah, New Orleans, Houston, and Dallas to end the year and there isn't a guaranteed win amongst those teams.

 

[1tinsoldier]

25 points is not him being "turned into primarily a passer"
it is what i called for last game
-- when he's on and the opponent fears him and focuses on him, he needs to dish off of their doubles to get his teammates going

tonight he got his teammates going early and it paid off

the best leaders in the NBA understood the value of getting their teammates off early instead of themselves

 

[AzStevenCal]

25 points is not him being "turned into primarily a passer"
it is what i called for last game
-- when he's on and the opponent fears him and focuses on him, he needs to dish off of their doubles to get his teammates going

tonight he got his teammates going early and it paid off

the best leaders in the NBA understood the value of getting their teammates off early instead of themselves

He had 11 assists in the previous game and that was despite some very poor shooting by his supporting cast. You're making way too much out of a victory over a really bad team. And Booker for the season is averaging more assists per game than Rubio, Lillard, Conley, Kemba, Collison, Bledsoe and many other point guards and that's despite the fact we are a horrible shooting team even when healthy and he only plays the position part time.

 

[1tinsoldier]

he had 4 assists in the prior 2 losses to go with his 50+ points
and, as opposed to 18 shots tonight, he was taking about 30 shots per game the other 3.
that's a lot of time with the ball in his hands
and not in his teammates hands

but don't be so sensitive

i didn't "denigrate" Booker
i complimented him tonight on 25 points, 13 assists, getting his teammates involved, and winning the game with 3 starters out

you can still bask in the glory of his 3 previous superstar performances
i'm also interested in him turning them into winning performances in the future

 

[AzStevenCal]

he had 4 assists in the prior 2 losses to go with his 50+ points
and at about 30 shots per game that's a lot of time with the ball in his hands
and not in his teammates hands

but don't be so sensitive

i didn't "denigrate" Booker tonight
i complimented him on 25 points, 13 assists, getting his teammates involved, and winning the game with 3 starters out

you can still bask in the glory of his 3 previous superstar performances
i'm also interested in him turning them into winning performances in the future

That seems to be one of your go to lines when someone disagrees with you, maybe you could just worry about your own personality issues and keep it to basketball.

We didn't beat Cleveland because Booker racked up 13 assists, we beat Cleveland because it's freaking Cleveland. And you're not the only one, we're all interested in him turning the Suns into a winning team in the future. But if you care to check you'll find that typically Booker (when he's playing the lead guard) does pass the ball a lot early in the game in an effort to get his teammates going. Most of the time they throw up bricks and we end up in a deep hole although there was some improvement when Oubre was healthy and starting. Anyway, Booker can be ball dominant at times but he's far more likely to be overly ball dominant in the last 5 minutes than he is the first 5 minutes.

 

[sunsfan88]

Josh just pisses me off. Right when I fully give up on him, he has a game like this.

I'd bring Bender back as the third big.

It shouldn’t piss you off, it’s against the Cavs and he has a rare good game every once in a while.

I hope James Jones is keeping his highlight reel from this game and forwarding that to other GMs in the league when trying to trade him the hell out of Phoenix.

 

[Hoop Head]

Booker actually ended up with a negative plus/minus tonight, which I thought was odd. He posted positive +/-'s in the last 2 losses where he went off and he also shot 66% from the field in those 2 previous games against Washington and Memphis but he shot 44% against Cleveland and had a -6. Thankfully he learned he needs take 10 few attempts from the field while missing more also, about 20% more, and also put up a negative plus/minus so he can lead us to wins.

I'm glad he got some help, finally. Both Crawford and Jackson had good games. Those 2 are so up and down with their contributions that you can't depend on them having good games but when either one of them, or both, do then it should lead to a win. They each had 19 off the bench.

Bridges had 15, which is nice, and got me thinking about how some of us talked about Ayton's season high and I got curious about Mikal's. I know he's a 3 & D player right now but even as a 3 & D player you'd think he would have a few more big outings where his shot is falling but his season high is 20 and he got that against Atlanta in February. He has only scored 16 or more in 7 games this year and that's a bit disappointing. He's had some poor shooting performances as well because he's had the opportunity to match that or beat it a few times but hasn't. He's taken 10 or more shots in 11 games but the Atlanta game was the only time he shot better than 50% while attempting that many shots. I hope he works on getting his shot back this summer because if he continues to shoot poorly he might be better coming off the bench.

I think this recent stretch without Oubre and Johnson has shown how bad we need another scorer. Booker is a great scorer, there shouldn't be any questions there, and Ayton is good for 15-20 a game right now but he can't create for himself. We need a 3rd scorer and Oubre was capable of doing that when he was healthy but having a bench scorer that can come in and provide 10-15 a game consistently would help things along. Maybe, just maybe, Jackson can focus on that being his role going forward and provide that spark. He can sub in for any position but Center. I know we don't want him playing PG but if our starting PG needs to sit a little early then Booker can slide over and handle that for a little bit while Jackson comes in and gets going.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

Booker actually ended up with a negative plus/minus tonight, which I thought was odd. He posted positive +/-'s in the last 2 losses where he went off and he also shot 66% from the field in those 2 previous games against Washington and Memphis but he shot 44% against Cleveland and had a -6. Thankfully he learned he needs take 10 few attempts from the field while missing more also, about 20% more, and also put up a negative plus/minus so he can lead us to wins.

It worked for Lillard last week. Scored half the points of Booker on about half as good of efficiency and that "carried" his team to wins and a player of the week...

 

[slinslin]

this is what i'm talking about:
Booker scores 49+ for 3 games, sucks the air out of the ball, teammates's vanish, Suns lose.
Booker has a big assist night, 5 teammates have nice games and Suns win easily.

sure, it was the Cavs. but the other recent games were against teams with losing records and tonight we had 3 starters out.

that is just total nonsense

he had 11 assists along with 49 points and didn't play selfish the other 2 games either. He didn't even take that many shots.

We did not lose those games because he sucked the ball out of the air. We lost those games because we had 4-5 of our top 8 rotation guys out injured and most of our roster plain sucks right now.
We lost to Memphis because Dragan Bender was absolutely atrocious, several times lost posesions because he could not hold onto the ball and got manhandled, Josh Jackson made costly mistakes that turned our posessions into potential 6 point turn-arounds.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

that is just total nonsense

he had 11 assists along with 49 points and didn't play selfish the other 2 games either. He didn't even take that many shots.

We did not lose those games because he sucked the ball out of the air. We lost those games because we had 4-5 of our top 8 rotation guys out injured and most of our roster plain sucks right now.
We lost to Memphis because Dragan Bender was absolutely atrocious, several times lost posesions because he could not hold onto the ball and got manhandled, Josh Jackson made costly mistakes that turned our posessions into potential 6 point turn-arounds.

This. Also we won this game largely because Cleveland is a terrible team. The last 3 games were not against terrible teams.

 

[Hoop Head]

Here is Booker's statline for the last 4 games, in case anyone wants to take a look. The level of efficiency he displayed the 3 games prior to the Cleveland matchup was insane. I know there hasn't been a Suns player that comes close to matching his statistical output in those 3 games but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a Sun who scored in the 30's in 3 consecutive games with similar efficiency, yet Booker did that scoring in the high 40's and 50's. Booker demonstrated he is max player in that 3 game stretch, IMO.

Anyone who watched them should have been able to see that was a coming out party of sorts in that he showed he is a star right now and we need to get him some help because he's ready to do more but he can't do it with a bunch of end of the bench scrubs. He sure as hell will try to do it with those scrubs but he may just kill himself in the process.

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