Comments from My Trip to the Clips Game

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

WARNING, this post contains BOTH POSITIVE and NEGATIVE comments. If you only wish to read positives comments, this thread is not for you!!! Overly negative comments still welcome!

1. amare should get a minimum of 20 shots a game. and they should come early. he needs to be engaged offensively to get his whole game going. he looked almost dominant defensively tonight as a result of getting into the flow early. cheese said it best when he commented that this suns team needs to forget the amareless year and remember they have what could still be one of the most dominant young bigs in the league and use him accordingly.

2. boris diaw is pathetic. he's useless. he's taken the "get aggressive" comments to mean "shoot!" if it means him shooting the 20 footers that he's routinely missing (and had been making last year - wth happened to that shot?) then i want to see less of diaw's version of "aggressive." he mucked things up more than helped tonight. he is officially the most hated suns player of all time in my mind. wow.

3. barbs has lost all semblance of being a pg. what are his averages for assists this year? he's a complete blackhole. whatever growth as a point he had last year is gone. shoot shoot shoot 'em up barbs.

4. barbs cannot play a lick of defense. i had thought it was really just all bigger two's that had been abusing barbs, but watching him tonight . . . he can't stay in front of anyone! not even dickau. i watched his footwork and pointed out to cheese, he stands FLAT FOOTED! he's on his heels from the moment his man has the ball. no lateral movement whatsoever.

5. i can't be said enough . . . grant hill was a stupendous pickup. i mean great. i think he'll wear down with his current pace of minutes, but he really helps in the early going when the rest of the team seems to need help getting started. he's a godsend.

6. raja, raja, raja. wow does he look like a shell of his former self. his shot is completely unreliable. i mean, he is HURTING our offense at present. and defensively his ankle must still be a bother, 'cuz his lateral movement looks awful.

7. excellent team effort on kaman (though really who else on that squad could harm us other than maggette?). but regardless, it was nice to see a strong big taken care of and made useless. i give amare a lot of credit on this one, but the whole team was swarming with help. kudos.

8. though the scrubs gave up a considerable amount of the lead, they didn't completely fold and make dantoni put nash back in. thank goodness. actually, thank goodness this team just blew out a crappy clips team.

9. sam i am looks 107 years old.

10. thank god i'm not a clippers fan.

 

[hsandhu]

I didn't read the whole post, but point 1) is the only one that matters. Feed amare damnit, feed him. It not only makes our offense dominant but he gets engaged in the whole game.

And I've been saying the same thing, '05-'06 may have been the worst thing to happen as it led guys like nash, marion, raja, barbs to think they can win it w/o amare. Ignoring of course the cushy road they had to the WCF that year, yet still needed to go 7 twice to get there and were a tt three from losing to the 7 seed.

As much I love nash, he deserves most of the blame for phasing amare out. In '04-'05 we ran the nash/amare pick 'n roll (every bit as good as boozer/deron, maybe better since amare can get all the way to the basket) 7/10 possesions. This year, maybe 2/10. Steve has to be a lot smarter than that.

 

[az1965]

Amare is being wasted in this system.

Man, Diaw blows hard. Yet, D'Antoni needs to find more minutes for him.

Both Hill and Skinner have been great pick ups last off season!

 

[cly2tw]

Amare is being wasted in this system.

So true. I think the team and DA have been telling Amare to let the guards get their shots going first or something like that. There have been so many situations when the teammates just freeze him out by not passing to him with a good paint position. He has become what JJ called a "decoy" for the "smooth" offense called "Suns ball". In essence, he was made the janitor to the likes of Bell and Barbosa. I'd be pissed off and not motivated if I were Amare, in particular these great shooters couldn't make the shots at all. In particular, as he got abused on the defensive but was not allowed to revenge on the offensive end. In the Lakers game, Raja and Nash were shooting freely after they got scored on by Kobe and Fisher!

I believe Kerr must have instructed DA to alter the style. Without giving Amare his fair chance on offense, which in fact is the better form of defense, we won't stop getting owned in the paint.

 

[ActingWild]

Great analysis Ouchie, positive or negative I think your points are all spot on, especially Amare. He needs the ball to get it going on both ends of the floor, you can just see his energy level ramp up when he's being fed.

 

[Rab]

You get Amare involved in the offense early, and you're going to see a better all-around game from him...period. Amare's defense and rebounding feed off his offensive game. Not saying that's really a good thing, but it's true. You get him touches early, a couple of easy hoops, and then he gets that mentality going where he just wants to dominate every part of the game on both ends.

I've been wondering myself what has happened to the pick and roll. The rest of the offense should be feeding off of that, instead of the other way around. That used to be our bread and butter. They need to go back to it more, especially considering how inconsistent Bell and LB have been this year. By the way, anyone else think Raja should just sit until he's completely healthy? Anyway, if the Suns get the pick & roll going early, the rest of their offense will open up. Amare will give you more, and you can work from the inside out.

I don't care who's numbers are affected, and who gets less shots. This team can only go as far as Amare can take them IMO.

 

[The Commish]

I just wish that we could see what Strawberry and Alando can do with some minutes. I'm guessing Kerr may give DA some 'advice' on that at some point especially with Raja hurting and Barbosa becoming a black hole.

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

Im going to tonights game here in phx. I shall list my comments as well!

 

[Rab]

I just wish that we could see what Strawberry and Alando can do with some minutes. I'm guessing Kerr may give DA some 'advice' on that at some point especially with Raja hurting and Barbosa becoming a black hole.

I was getting pissed that DA wasn't putting in Alando earlier in the fourth. He only got about 2 1/2 minutes of PT when the game was out of reach for much longer. He still had LB, Marion, and Diaw in there.

 

[scXfreakX]

Yeah, Alando definitely should have gotten in earlier. But thats Mike. Anyways, good points. Amare should be getting the most attempts, not Leandro. And I don't think that Leandro's a bad defender, rather I don't think its his main focus. He just seems overly offensive-minded.

 

[Treesquid PhD]

There is no doubt in my mind if Mike Dantoni had a choice between a Shawn Marion 3 and Amare for a dunk which one he would prefer. Any other coach would make Amare the focal point of the offense, he is being wasted by the Dantoni family.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Yeah, Alando definitely should have gotten in earlier. But thats Mike. Anyways, good points. Amare should be getting the most attempts, not Leandro. And I don't think that Leandro's a bad defender, rather I don't think its his main focus. He just seems overly offensive-minded.

focus on barbs on the defensive end tonight. you'll see how bad he is. not only does he routinely get overpowered by bigger guards, but he can't stay in front of anyone (fast or slow). it's rather shocking. his poor defense puts everyone else in a bad spot as they have to react to his man's penetration.

 

[Sovereignz]

I agree with everything you said, particularly about Barb's D. I always find it comical that Nash gets such a heap of criticism for not playing good defense when he looks like Gary Payton compared to Leandro. With Barb's length and quickness he should be a NIGHTMARE defensively, but much like Amare he doesn't understand the game of positioning and until he does he (like Amare) won't ever be a great defender. Watch him when he guards a small PG, he's normally right up close to them but NOT playing pressure D. It leads to them driving by him easily. Better to back off and force them to take a semi-contested jumper than put even more pressure on Amare and Skinner by making them contest everything at the basket.

You want to know why we lead the league in blocks? Because every game our bigs have about 40 shots in the paint to contest, and half of them are by guards because we are the worst in the league at giving up penetration. I think a lot of it is effort. Watch Shawn, he really rarely takes plays off, he's always low in his defensive stance and playing hard. If this team could take a cue from him we'd actually be a good defensive team. Still weak on the glass, but opponents wouldn't shoot such a blistering % against us (last time I saw we were 4th to last in opponents FG%).

Also, I don't think you can completely eschew the blame on Amare when he's not getting involved. He is just too passive and disinterested this year sometimes. Hell, I'm sure some other people will remember last year when Bynum was posting up against us with good position, he yells out to Smush Parker "GIVE ME THE ^%*$ING BALL." I want to see Amare do that with Leandro and Raja. Team camaraderie or whatever be damned, you're First Team All-NBA and they're roleplayers. Don't let them just pass the ball around the perimeter for the entire possession like they ALWAYS do when Steve isn't in the game. HE needs to be assertive, and working for position and demanding the ball as much as his teammates need to be getting it to him.

One of the biggest reasons I miss Joe is that he had a nice rapport with Amare. We have a lot of very good passers on this team, but outside of Grant none of them really look for Amare in the half court at all. I really hope that changes. I also hope it changes that Amare's effort on D is linked with his production on O, because you're not going to have it going every night. And if you're not scoring and you're just being lazy on D then you're not doing anything for the team but hurting it.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

I agree with everything you said, particularly about Barb's D. I always find it comical that Nash gets such a heap of criticism for not playing good defense when he looks like Gary Payton compared to Leandro. With Barb's length and quickness he should be a NIGHTMARE defensively, but much like Amare he doesn't understand the game of positioning and until he does he (like Amare) won't ever be a great defender. Watch him when he guards a small PG, he's normally right up close to them but NOT playing pressure D. It leads to them driving by him easily. Better to back off and force them to take a semi-contested jumper than put even more pressure on Amare and Skinner by making them contest everything at the basket.

You want to know why we lead the league in blocks? Because every game our bigs have about 40 shots in the paint to contest, and half of them are by guards because we are the worst in the league at giving up penetration. I think a lot of it is effort. Watch Shawn, he really rarely takes plays off, he's always low in his defensive stance and playing hard. If this team could take a cue from him we'd actually be a good defensive team. Still weak on the glass, but opponents wouldn't shoot such a blistering % against us (last time I saw we were 4th to last in opponents FG%).

Also, I don't think you can completely eschew the blame on Amare when he's not getting involved. He is just too passive and disinterested this year sometimes. Hell, I'm sure some other people will remember last year when Bynum was posting up against us with good position, he yells out to Smush Parker "GIVE ME THE ^%*$ING BALL." I want to see Amare do that with Leandro and Raja. Team camaraderie or whatever be damned, you're First Team All-NBA and they're roleplayers. Don't let them just pass the ball around the perimeter for the entire possession like they ALWAYS do when Steve isn't in the game. HE needs to be assertive, and working for position and demanding the ball as much as his teammates need to be getting it to him.

One of the biggest reasons I miss Joe is that he had a nice rapport with Amare. We have a lot of very good passers on this team, but outside of Grant none of them really look for Amare in the half court at all. I really hope that changes. I also hope it changes that Amare's effort on D is linked with his production on O, because you're not going to have it going every night. And if you're not scoring and you're just being lazy on D then you're not doing anything for the team but hurting it.

good points. i'm not absolving amare of all responsibility here, just stating that if the team wants to jumpstart him, go to him. it seems to work. would i like amare to be a self-starter? of course. but in the absence of that try something that DOES work to light a fire under him.

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

Feeed Amare!

 

[zett]

Feeed Amare!

This is your break down of the game you went too? thanks keep up the good work.