Pacers @ Suns 11-27-18

[CardsSunsDbacks]

Not when the coach would just keep them benched for the likes of Ariza and Canaan. We had better options to play, including those who had outplayed both, and yet Kokoskov chose to gift Ariza and Canaan more minutes at critical times. Yes, effort (from those other than Ariza) has improved, but he was the one who had them playing with zero effort to begin with, and he us the one costing them games now (including three out of the last four losses).

The problem is that the team only has about 7 players that can be considered "NBA players" at this point. Ariza while playing poorly is one of those 7. They also don't have a point guard and I find it ironic that you were going on and on about how that would destroy the team, but now won't consider it a valid excuse for the coach. The teams depth sucks and if we had at least a couple more legitimate NBA players not only would the coach play them, but we would be winning a lot of these recent games. Okay I'm done now so you can feel free to get back to bashing our rookie head coach...

 

[SirStefan32]

The problem is that the team only has about 7 players that can be considered "NBA players" at this point. Ariza while playing poorly is one of those 7. They also don't have a point guard and I find it ironic that you were going on and on about how that would destroy the team, but now won't consider it a valid excuse for the coach. The teams depth sucks and if we had at least a couple more legitimate NBA players not only would the coach play them, but we would be winning a lot of these recent games. Okay I'm done now so you can feel free to get back to bashing our rookie head coach...

That's spot on. Add two competent NBA players to this roster and they win the last two games.

 

[1tinsoldier]

This poor coaching take is getting old.

yes. it's old because some of us have been saying it for a while now. not because it's untrue

i'm happy with the Suns improvement lately, but let's keep it in perspective. 2 weeks ago they were worse than the last place team last year. now, they're just better.

even if they go on a winning streak, it doesn't change the lack of some basic fundamentals i'm still seeing in the games that i blame the coach for allowing to be repeated every night, for not utilizing Ayton better, and for wasting time on Canaan.

The teams depth sucks and if we had at least a couple more legitimate NBA players not only would the coach play them, but we would be winning a lot of these recent games.

true. but because the team's depth sucks doesn't mean the coach doesn't. they both suck

bad coaches have had winning teams and good coaches have had losing teams.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

yes. it's old because some of us have been saying it for a while now. not because it's untrue

i'm happy with the Suns improvement lately, but let's keep it in perspective. 2 weeks ago they were worse than the last place team last year. now, they're just better.

even if they go on a winning streak, it doesn't change the lack of some basic fundamentals i'm still seeing in the games that i blame the coach for allowing to be repeated every night, for not utilizing Ayton better, and for wasting time on Canaan.



true. but because the team's depth sucks doesn't mean the coach doesn't. they both suck

bad coaches have had winning teams and good coaches have had losing teams.

And I fail to see how you can say that the coach sucks when he is playing with so little depth and no real point guard. He is the one at the helm that has his guys competing every night despite the fact that they are playing short handed. That does not speak to poor coaching to me. Sure he makes some wrong decisions, but he is human and thus that is only natural. The key will be that he learns from mistakes made as his career continues. I just can't fathom how you guys want to get rid of a coach so badly when you will openly admit that he doesn't have enough pieces to work with to begin with.

 

[Suns_fan69]

Didn't Ayton have 16 at the half? Yet he only ended up with 18...

My 2 biggest beefs with Igor right now is Canaan getting extended minutes and Ayton not getting enough looks in the 2nd half.

*edit - missed a word, i meant AYTON not getting enough looks, not Canaan.

 

[SirStefan32]

I agree. They need to get Ayton more shots. He can score and he can pass. Give him the damn ball!

 

[sdscard4]

Yet we still lose to teams who are without their star players. Time and time again. This Coach has no direction. No adjustments. I just don't see a freaking identity. Booker as a point guard is crap. If you are going to suck this bad you play the youngsters this includes Dragan this includes okobo...melton...jackson...Anyone but freaking Ariza and Canaan. I love Crawford but hell he's taking minutes from a youngster. They need to make some trades . We are a bottom 3 team in the league. That's unacceptable

 

[Superbone]

Nobody is. It bugs me but not as much as that perimeter initiated alley oop pass that almost never works for us. Booker is so good when he penetrates and lobs it to Ayton or Holmes but it's just a turnover in the making when the pass starts at the free throw line or beyond.

He ALWAYS throws the pass too low. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Drives me batty. Throw it high!

 

[AzStevenCal]

Yet we still lose to teams who are without their star players. Time and time again. This Coach has no direction. No adjustments. I just don't see a freaking identity. Booker as a point guard is crap. If you are going to suck this bad you play the youngsters this includes Dragan this includes okobo...melton...jackson...Anyone but freaking Ariza and Canaan. I love Crawford but hell he's taking minutes from a youngster. They need to make some trades . We are a bottom 3 team in the league. That's unacceptable

They beat the hell out of Utah in Utah with the same group. Oladipo is their best player but they are a good team because of their depth, not because of Victor. And we are a bottom 3 team because we have bottom 3 talent.

 

[AzStevenCal]

He ALWAYS throws the pass too low. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Drives me batty. Throw it high!

It goes in cycles. For awhile it seemed like every one of them was two feet out of his reach, now they are right into traffic. Anyway, when they run the two man game (even Holmes in place of Ayton), Booker makes good passes to the big but the home-run passes from 20+ feet are killing us.

 

[sdscard4]

They beat the hell out of Utah in Utah with the same group. Oladipo is their best player but they are a good team because of their depth, not because of Victor. And we are a bottom 3 team because we have bottom 3 talent.

Yet you don't see an issue with coaching? I still have no idea what he's trying to do....what's our identity? I don't see development. Adjustments? I believe it's going to get worse ..I hope I'm wrong

 

[1Sun]

And I fail to see how you can say that the coach sucks when he is playing with so little depth and no real point guard. He is the one at the helm that has his guys competing every night despite the fact that they are playing short handed. That does not speak to poor coaching to me. Sure he makes some wrong decisions, but he is human and thus that is only natural. The key will be that he learns from mistakes made as his career continues. I just can't fathom how you guys want to get rid of a coach so badly when you will openly admit that he doesn't have enough pieces to work with to begin with.

But he clearly is not learning from his mistakes...or at least is way too slow to do so. He stuck with Canaan in the starting line-up way too long, and he STILL hasn't gotten the picture that Canaan needs not to play at all. Same goes for Ariza. He still isn't using Ayton properly. He is screwing around with Bridges and Jackson's playing time and roles to their detriment. He is doing nothing to even try and develop Okobo and Melton, even though they could not possibly play worse than Canaan. Need I go on?

 

[sdscard4]

We knew very quickly Watson sucked....we knew Porter sucked...we knew Frank Johnson sucked...I think Jay should have had another season. I liked his offense and style. I have no clue what Igor is trying to do

 

[AzStevenCal]

Yet you don't see an issue with coaching? I still have no idea what he's trying to do....what's our identity? I don't see development. Adjustments? I believe it's going to get worse ..I hope I'm wrong

How? How can anyone see anything definitive about the coaching given our personnel? I really have no idea whether this guy can coach. We have, easily, the worst PG/PF situation in the NBA along with probably the worst bench. Coaching is not going to make up for that.

We were the worst team in the league last year and we added one player (Ariza) that had league-wide value, an overpaid has-been (Anderson) that nobody wanted, a decent backup center (Holmes) and a nice guy (Crawford) that's good enough to be the backup to the backup at either guard spot in addition to 4 rookies. That doesn't spell improvement to me even when one of those rookies is Deandre Ayton. All I can hope for is to see improvement and IMO, we're seeing it almost daily.

 

[sunsfan88]

This team has shown significant improvement from the beginning of the season and I credit Kokoskov for that.

Also, the Suns ran a freestyle/iso mode offense under Watson and Triano but we finally have a system under Kokoskov. You can talk about how you hate the system because it initiates with Ayton at the top of the key or whatever but I still love that we at least have some sort of a system in place instead of the backyard basketball style the teams in previous years had.

Sure Kokoskov can be blamed for mins distribution (Canaan gets far too much) but at least he's learning as he reduced Anderson and Chandler's minutes earlier in the season after realizing they were hot garbage. Hopefully he can do the same with Canaan.

This is a poorly constructed roster with major holes at multiple positions. It would be erroneous to put the blame for the Suns losses on him.

 

[GatorAZ]

Worst record in the league as of right now.

 

[1tinsoldier]

He is the one at the helm that has his guys competing every night despite the fact that they are playing short handed... he doesn't have enough pieces to work with to begin with.

i'm happy they are competing lately but no fair evaluation of Igor this season would include "he has his guys competing every night."

also, no one is saying he isn't missing the right pieces to work with. we've been saying he's not working the pieces he has right

 

[95pro]

I missed the game...was it a coaching problem? personnel problem? effort? Execution?
Looks like it was close again.

 

[ArizonaSportsFan]

Didn't Ayton have 16 at the half? Yet he only ended up with 18...

My 2 biggest beefs with Igor right now is Canaan getting extended minutes and Ayton not getting enough looks in the 2nd half.

*edit - missed a word, i meant AYTON not getting enough looks, not Canaan.

And if he goes aggressively at the shots he had in the second half he has 30 and the Suns win. Did Igor tell him to go soft at the rim? He is a rookie. He is playing and learning and repeating the same mistakes which he will probably continue to make all year. He stands around for rebounds in any type of crowd. It is what it is. It is not like they can suspend the season for a few weeks to redo training camp now that the players have had time to gel and Anderson has been weeded out despite his salary and Canaan has been moved to the bench... SMH.

Edit: Let me give an example of coaching. I watched the Pacers dismantle the Jazz on Monday night. The Pacers run the pick and roll with Collison and Turner. They ran the exact same play three times straight and Utah left Turner wide open every time at the free throw line extended for his set shot. He made all three. Gobert hid in the lane (because he is all about blocks) and the PG didn't rotate. This is coach-of-year-candidate Snyder and a defensive specialist team. Fast forward to last night. The first time (and every time) the Pacers tried that play in the first quarter Booker rotated right on to Turner. I think he made 1 of the 3 or 4 times they ran that. I mean, this is Booker. The Suns are being taught fundamentals. It is sinking in. They are playing more cohesively. Their bench is at least a player or two short but they put forth a great effort in the third last night. The Suns shot poorly as a group and that hurt, but they were right there at the end given the poor shooting.

 

[Krangodnzr]

This poor coaching take is getting old. He has his guys competing night in night out with no depth and no real point guard to work with. He is doing all this as a first time NBA head coach. If this team simply had better depth we are likely on like a 5 game win streak right now.

I think when you are questioning whether coaching is the question, you have to ask yourself, would this team be appreciably better with a better coaching?

At best, maybe they would have won 3 more games with a better coach, but the way some people complain you would think that this team would be undefeated.

The starting lineup is starting to get for the most part, but the bench is epically bad. It's going to take another off-season.

 

[1Sun]

i'm happy they are competing lately but no fair evaluation of Igor this season would include "he has his guys competing every night."

also, no one is saying he isn't missing the right pieces to work with. we've been saying he's not working the pieces he has right

Bingo.

 

[1Sun]

I missed the game...was it a coaching problem? personnel problem? effort? Execution?
Looks like it was close again.

Kokoskov inexplicably stuck with a tanking Ariza and awful Canaan, even at critical moments. Different game, same story.

 

[1Sun]

I think when you are questioning whether coaching is the question, you have to ask yourself, would this team be appreciably better with a better coaching?

At best, maybe they would have won 3 more games with a better coach, but the way some people complain you would think that this team would be undefeated.

The starting lineup is starting to get for the most part, but the bench is epically bad. It's going to take another off-season.

It's not just about wins. Ayton, Bridges, Jackson, Okobo and Melton would all be developing at far greater rates, and Booker wouldn't be regressing (last night's anomaly of a stellar defensive effort notwithstanding).

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

i'm happy they are competing lately but no fair evaluation of Igor this season would include "he has his guys competing every night."

also, no one is saying he isn't missing the right pieces to work with. we've been saying he's not working the pieces he has right

To your liking, but I am inclined to trust his judgement about who can execute in his system and who can't. He has seen much more of Melton and Okobo than we have and if he thought there was even a remote chance they would be better than Canaan they would probably be playing. What I find funny is that if he was doing everything you want him to do and it failed there would be a list of people in here complaining about those decisions as well. He's basically between a rock and a hard place and it will take some trades that bring in some more talent for him to get out of it.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

This poor coaching take is getting old. He has his guys competing night in night out with no depth and no real point guard to work with. He is doing all this as a first time NBA head coach. If this team simply had better depth we are likely on like a 5 game win streak right now.

Hmm I’m unsure I agree with the depth argument. Lately Holmes, JJ, and Crawford have been supplying pretty minutes and output. Now of course it kills us to play Canaan and when ariza and bridges combine for like 3-15 shooting, but in the last few games it hasn’t been lack of depth per se, that’s hurt.