Golden State vs. Suns 12/7

[SirStefan32]

I flipped the channel because I couldn't take it anymore, and after about three minutes I turn back to check the score and the suns were on a 15-0 run.

Woo-hoo!!!!!

 

[SweetD]

I do wish Mike would have rested some of our starters with at least 3:10 left the game was in hand and it would have been nice to seen Zarko or Bo in there for some minutes.

 

[Chaz]

Pretty sweet, I guess, when your team can just not play much defense for 3 qtrs and turn it on and win by 14.


A game they should have won and did, but I was not impressed with the effort in the first half.


The key is the defense, when they play it they can run. When they run and get easy baskets it tends to feed the defense. They are related but it has to start on defense first. Box out and get a hand up on the shooters. It bugs me when I see players not even putting a hand up to challenge jump shooters.

 

[sunsfn]

In years past I remember the suns losing to teams like the Warriors because it was tough to get mentally prepared to play hard against them.

This year the suns are beating the teams they are supposed to beat.

The game last night proved that it is tough to get ready for bad teams. The difference in this team is that they are good enough to play like they did last night and then overcome the bad play.
As the year goes on I hope they get mentally tougher and they come out strong against weak teams and set them down early.

This is going to be an exciting year..............it already has!!

 

[George O'Brien]

I think the Suns were terribly surprised that the Warriors were shooting and hitting so well from the outside. Their game plan was to stop Murphy, which BTW they did. The "make them shoot jump shots" strategy doesn't work if the hit their jump shots.

We've seen the same approach used against the Suns. If the Suns are hitting open shots from the outside, they are very hard to stop. If they brick, they look really bad. On Friday, although the Wolves did defend the outside pretty well, the Suns missed a fair number of open threes. No one can completely shut down a hot outside shooting team that runs a lot of picks and screens. Fortunately, the NBA is loaded with guys who don't shoot well on a consistent basis.

 

[Chaz]

I think the Suns were terribly surprised that the Warriors were shooting and hitting so well from the outside. Their game plan was to stop Murphy, which BTW they did. The "make them shoot jump shots" strategy doesn't work if the hit their jump shots.

We've seen the same approach used against the Suns. If the Suns are hitting open shots from the outside, they are very hard to stop. If they brick, they look really bad. On Friday, although the Wolves did defend the outside pretty well, the Suns missed a fair number of open threes. No one can completely shut down a hot outside shooting team that runs a lot of picks and screens. Fortunately, the NBA is loaded with guys who don't shoot well on a consistent basis.

I don't have a problem with the 'make them shoot from the outside' mentality and game plan. However, they have to get out and at least challenge the shooters early so they don't get too confident shooting outside. If the Suns are making teams beat them from outside they will win most of those games. The Suns have to good of an offense and like you said there are not a lot of consistant shooters in the league.

While the Warriors shot 60% in the first quarter I figured it would drop off later but that still doesn't mean you just stop getting a hand up on defense and conceed the jumper.