Suns @ Lakers 3-30-14

[Catlover]

How could Frye (and Plumlee) let Kaman school them like that?

Why did Bledsoe just play 28 minutes?

Frye -26
Dragic -29
Bledsoe -11
Green -5
Markieff +11

It wasn't just Frye or Plumlee, it was everyone who guarded him. It was also our point guards who allowed Marshall to just go wherever, run a clean pick and roll or just make the uncontested entry pass at will. Dragic was abused defensively but neither Bledsoe nor Tucker played D like we're used to seeing.

Seriously, there wasn't one single Sun that played well for the majority of the game. Green and the Morris brothers each had short stretches but they were horrible on defense and they missed a bunch of wide open shots before they ever got anything to fall. And the absolute biggest problem was the fact they didn't even pretend to guard Frye and he still couldn't make them pay. Dragic and Bledsoe had to deal with an extra big man down low every time they drove. Goran's horrible +/- was partly his own doing but it was largely due to the fact he paired with Channing most of the game.

Goran had a couple of nice drives and tried to raise the intensity level a couple of times but all in all we had very few good moments in this game. And we were screwed by the refs too. If they had called a decent game we probably wouldn't have lost by more than 7 or 8 points. We had no energy, no intensity. Usually Tucker lights into them when they play like that but he was just as guilty as the rest of them.

I've defended Frye a lot this season because he deserved it, he played so well for us back in November and December. But this might be a sign of things to come. The Lakers are the first team that clearly game-planned to ignore him out at the 3 point line and it paid dividends. Unless teams have just abandoned scouting I have to believe others will do the same. I think other teams have guarded him from fear that leaving him open might help him regain his stroke but this game should put that fear to rest. His stroke isn't coming back until his legs come back. Give him a long nap, the man is clearly tired.

 

[Mainstreet]

How could Frye (and Plumlee) let Kaman school them like that?

Why did Bledsoe just play 28 minutes?

Frye -26
Dragic -29
Bledsoe -11
Green -5
Markieff +11

For whatever the reason, Bledsoe played slow last night and did not speed by defenders as usual to get to the rim. It may be wonder if there was something else going on with him.

 

[SirStefan32]

For whatever the reason, Bledsoe played slow last night and did not speed by defenders as usual to get to the rim. It may be wonder if there was something else going on with him.

He was also really bad on defense, which is VERY uncharacteristic for him. Hope he didn't get hurt again.

 

[BC867]

How many points does a Center have to score for Hornacek to figure out the small ball doesn't work?

This is one ugly game. Bledsoe is just atrocious, and Dragic is not much better. Frye is completely useless.

I was SCREAMING most of that (except the part about Hornacek and Dragic) at the TV during the game. How did we let an inferior Lakers team, playing without its three All Stars, humiliate us? Here's how!

Their two backup Centers are 7'0"-265 and 7'0"-260 and they played all 48 minutes -- Kamen for 32 and Sacre for 16. They totaled 34 points and 18 rebounds. Bottom line -- that is an All Star performance.

How did we cover Center? With a 5-man rotation of misfits.

Plumlee (our "starter") played 10 minutes and had 2 rebounds.

Frye (our backup) is the softest big man in the league, whether starting at Power Forward or moving to Center after a few minutes.

Markieff (his backup at Center) is an undersized Power Forward.

Len and Randolph are bench-warmers.

That is not Hornacek's fault. He has no choice but to go small (which I hate).

And it all rolled downhill. Bledsoe shooting 1-9, Frye 1-7 and Tucker 2-8. That is 4-24 from 3/5 of our starting lineup.

I have been saying all season (and for the past 40+ years) that the way the Suns are staffed catches up with them "down the stretch". And we watch it happen again.

We are a very unbalanced team. That is not Jeff's fault.

Specifically, when it became obvious that Okafor and Len were damaged goods, the Front Office should have come up with a better plan than a starting Center who averages 24 minutes per game and has "good footwork" as the announcers keep saying. Backed up by a cream puff, a light Power Forward and two bench-warmers.

Is it do-able? The Lakers did it. And made the Suns look foolish.

 

[Catlover]

I was SCREAMING most of that (except the part about Hornacek and Dragic) at the TV during the game. How did we let an inferior Lakers team, playing without its three All Stars, humiliate us? Here's how!

Their two backup Centers are 7'0"-265 and 7'0"-260 and they played all 48 minutes -- Kamen for 32 and Sacre for 16. They totaled 34 points and 18 rebounds. Bottom line -- that is an All Star performance.

How did we cover Center? With a 5-man rotation of misfits.

Plumlee (our "starter") played 10 minutes and had 2 rebounds.

Frye (our backup) is the softest big man in the league, whether starting at Power Forward or moving to Center after a few minutes.

Markieff (his backup at Center) is an undersized Power Forward.

Len and Randolph are bench-warmers.

That is not Hornacek's fault. He has no choice but to go small (which I hate).

And it all rolled downhill. Bledsoe shooting 1-9, Frye 1-7 and Tucker 2-8. That is 4-24 from 3/5 of our starting lineup.

I have been saying all season (and for the past 40+ years) that the way the Suns are staffed catches up with them "down the stretch". And we watch it happen again.

We are a very unbalanced team. That is not Jeff's fault.

Specifically, when it became obvious that Okafor and Len were damaged goods, the Front Office should have come up with a better plan than a starting Center who averages 24 minutes per game and has "good footwork" as the announcers keep saying. Backed up by a cream puff, a light Power Forward and two bench-warmers.

Is it do-able? The Lakers did it. And made the Suns look foolish.

I really don't agree with a word of this. We could have trotted out any of the better centers in the league last night and it would have ended the same. This was a team looking past it's opponent against a team with absolutely nothing to lose. This kind of loss happens every year.

Not a single one of our players started that game with an emotional involvement in the outcome and by the time they tried to turn it on the damage had been done. It never seems to happen to a Popovich squad and I hope Jeff learns whatever secret it is that Pop possesses but it happens to just about every team every year.

 

[elindholm]

Specifically, when it became obvious that Okafor and Len were damaged goods, the Front Office should have come up with a better plan than a starting Center who averages 24 minutes per game and has "good footwork" as the announcers keep saying.

At what price? How much were you willing to give up to bring in a legitimate big man? Kaman's injury problems have dramatically lowered his value (and salary), but in his day he was an eight-figure player. As for Sacre, he happened to have a good showing in his limited minutes, but Plumlee is capable of the same -- they're both very inconsistent, and it was a coin flip that Sacre got the better of the matchup this time.

Is it do-able? The Lakers did it.

The Lakers also think they are in win-now mode, have traded away every draft pick they can, and don't care about the luxury tax. Sure, another Sacre was probably out there if the Suns wanted to mortgage their entire future. Do you really think it was worth it?

 

[BC867]

At what price? How much were you willing to give up to bring in a legitimate big man?

If you're going to stock a basketball team, why bother if it is not a balanced team?

I'll say it again.

How did we cover Center? With a 5-man rotation of misfits.

Plumlee (our "starter") played 10 minutes and had 2 rebounds.

Frye (our backup) is the softest big man in the league, whether starting at Power Forward or moving to Center after a few minutes.

Markieff (his backup at Center) is an undersized Power Forward.

Len and Randolph are bench-warmers.

Any team in the greatest professional basketball league in the world should have the skill to do better than that.

It is frustrating to root for mediocrity and difficult to justify it.

 

[desertdawg]

Channing Fried is fried toasty doneness, head been gone for a while now, he just thinks too much. Last night he bricked a 3, while his team mate faught his ass off, got the rock back and shoved it right back in Fried's hands, he popped with no hesitation and... swish. I don't know what is going on with him, but the aggression has left the building yo. I think there are some guards who can beat and bang with Shanning.

 

[elindholm]

If you're going to stock a basketball team, why bother if it is not a balanced team?

It isn't possible to fill every need simultaneously. Most teams in the league have a serious need that they haven't gotten around to filling yet.

Any team in the greatest professional basketball league in the world should have the skill to do better than that.

But there are 30 teams in the league, and not 30 quality centers. You can't get one just by wanting it. I asked you how much you were willing to give up even for the likes of someone like Kaman, and you didn't answer.

The Suns tried to draft a real center last summer. Rather than get everyone's dander back up by sharing my opinion of Len's long-term prospects, I'll just acknowledge that the front office did, indeed, make a serious attempt to address that need.

It is frustrating to root for mediocrity

Quite. That's why I've been so disappointed in this season. The Suns' best path out of mediocrity is the lottery, and now they won't have a top pick. It would be one thing if they had a real core of young talent to build around, but, as you've pointed out, they don't.

I agree that a young big with real upside is the Suns' biggest need. I just don't see how they can get one without giving up Dragic or Bledsoe. No one is going to give up a real power player for Markieff Morris and draft picks.

 

[devilalum]

If you're going to stock a basketball team, why bother if it is not a balanced team?

I'll say it again.

Any team in the greatest professional basketball league in the world should have the skill to do better than that.

It is frustrating to root for mediocrity and difficult to justify it.

You do realize you're talking about year one of a complete rebuild?
The Suns may not have a single legit big man but they've got some awesome assets to help get one.

 

[Catlover]

Quite. That's why I've been so disappointed in this season. The Suns' best path out of mediocrity is the lottery, and now they won't have a top pick. It would be one thing if they had a real core of young talent to build around, but, as you've pointed out, they don't.

That is so sad.

 

[elindholm]

That is so sad.

Look me up in another five or six years when the Suns have peaked with a few 50-and-fade runs and this board is wailing, again, about how the franchise can't win a title. It's blindingly obvious to me that this is where we are headed.

 

[Neo]

For some people the glass if half full. For some people the glass is half empty. For Eric the water is terrible and there will never be any hope that the water be anything but awful so we must all abandon hope and dispair as much as humanly possible.

 

[sunsfan88]

This loss was completely on Hornacek. He was out coached by D'Antoni and didn't have his guys prepared to play.

And will the Suns ever hire a HC that doesn't love small ball? I'm just wondering...

 

[Superbone]

This loss was completely on Hornacek. He was out coached by D'Antoni and didn't have his guys prepared to play.

And will the Suns ever hire a HC that doesn't love small ball? I'm just wondering...

Hornacek isn't out on the court shooting the ball. That being said, he could have sent a message and pulled all the starters in favor of the bench after their mail-it-in attitude in this one.

 

[Catlover]

Look me up in another five or six years when the Suns have peaked with a few 50-and-fade runs and this board is wailing, again, about how the franchise can't win a title. It's blindingly obvious to me that this is where we are headed.

Maybe but there were a lot of great moments this year that you missed while sitting there smelling the manure. I choose the roses myself.

There really wasn't much of a market for any of the players on our team. We could have given Dragic away for maybe a couple of second round picks and we could have insisted on not getting Bledsoe back when we traded Dudley. Without those moves we were never going to be bad enough to draft in the top 4 or so and the draft pool is pretty even after that.

Yes, coming in 9th or 10th would have given us a slightly better chance to beat the odds in the drawing but even if we did that, what would we have? We'd have an unproven rookie and no one to put around him. How is that a winning plan? Maybe it's worth it when you see a Lebron or a Duncan in the draft but long before NBA the season started, wiser heads were calling the top players overrated. This draft is very deep from everything I've read and it sounds like we'll be better off with the 14th and the 17th than the pick we probably would have earned without Bledsoe (10th?, 11th?).

 

[Catlover]

This loss was completely on Hornacek. He was out coached by D'Antoni and didn't have his guys prepared to play.

And will the Suns ever hire a HC that doesn't love small ball? I'm just wondering...

Plumlee is bigger than Kaman and they destroyed us when he was on the court too. And did you not notice that the Lakers beat us up with their small guys too?

 

[elindholm]

There really wasn't much of a market for any of the players on our team. We could have given Dragic away for maybe a couple of second round picks and we could have insisted on not getting Bledsoe back when we traded Dudley. Without those moves we were never going to be bad enough to draft in the top 4 or so and the draft pool is pretty even after that.

I agree that it isn't clear what the Suns could have done instead. I think mainly they've been unlucky that the castoffs they picked up as part of the rebuilding process have proved to be better than expected, mainly Green and Plumlee. That's good for them, and for this year's team, but it sets them back in the long term. But I do think that it has been bad luck more than it has been faulty management.

 

[Catlover]

I agree that it isn't clear what the Suns could have done instead. I think mainly they've been unlucky that the castoffs they picked up as part of the rebuilding process have proved to be better than expected, mainly Green and Plumlee. That's good for them, and for this year's team, but it sets them back in the long term. But I do think that it has been bad luck more than it has been faulty management.

I don't even see how it sets them back though. We had no assets. Now we have extra draft picks, more talent and cap space. Keeping that talent might use up our cap space but that still seems like an improvement to me. It will depend on what we do with those assets but at least we have something to work with.

 

[sunsfan88]

Hornacek isn't out on the court shooting the ball. That being said, he could have sent a message and pulled all the starters in favor of the bench after their mail-it-in attitude in this one.

Hornacek needs to get angry sometimes. He's always looking cool & calm and that's really helping our young team no doubt but I think he should show some emotion sometimes and actually scream & yell. It's been 71 games and I can probably count the number of times that he got mad at a player this whole season with just my right hand.

Suns sometimes play as if it doesn't matter and as if nobody cares whether or not they play with effort or not. That's unacceptable. That's on the coach.

Also, when guys are bricking and cold as ice, he needs to know when to take them out of the game.

 

[Catlover]

Hornacek needs to get angry sometimes. He's always looking cool & calm and that's really helping our young team no doubt but I think he should show some emotion sometimes and actually scream & yell. It's been 71 games and I can probably count the number of times that he got mad at a player this whole season with just my right hand.

Suns sometimes play as if it doesn't matter and as if nobody cares whether or not they play with effort or not. That's unacceptable. That's on the coach.

Also, when guys are bricking and cold as ice, he needs to know when to take them out of the game.

You can sit there and fault him for not being a raving lunatic? You've never been in that huddle and you've never been in that locker room. You have no clue what he says to these guys or how he says it and yet you're jumping to a conclusion about it and then drawing inferences from an unsupported conclusion.

The best team that has ever played in the NBA lost 11 games, all of them to inferior opponents. I don't know why you're so invested in finding someone to blame every time this team loses. The Lakers have also notched wins this season against OKC, Toronto and Portland. Maybe we should blame Jeff for those losses too. It would make almost as much sense.

 

[JS22]

Quite. That's why I've been so disappointed in this season. The Suns' best path out of mediocrity is the lottery, and now they won't have a top pick. It would be one thing if they had a real core of young talent to build around, but, as you've pointed out, they don't.

I agree that a young big with real upside is the Suns' biggest need. I just don't see how they can get one without giving up Dragic or Bledsoe. No one is going to give up a real power player for Markieff Morris and draft picks.

I don't agree with this at all. The Suns have plenty of picks and $$$ to play with in the offseason. I'm sure McD will find a way to build around a pretty solid young group of players.

This untalented core of players would have home court advantage in the East. A healthy Bledsoe probably would have given them at least a few extra wins as well, IMO. Which would put them somewhere between 5-6 in the West.

They could legitimately win 48-49 games and miss the playoffs. The West is just stacked this year.

And the draft isn't loaded at the top as most thought anyway. The Suns are better of building a winning culture (and being the positive story of the league) than praying for ping pong balls and a draft pick to save the franchise.

 

[JS22]

You can sit there and fault him for not being a raving lunatic? You've never been in that huddle and you've never been in that locker room. You have no clue what he says to these guys or how he says it and yet you're jumping to a conclusion about it and then drawing inferences from an unsupported conclusion.

The best team that has ever played in the NBA lost 11 games, all of them to inferior opponents. I don't know why you're so invested in finding someone to blame every time this team loses. The Lakers have also notched wins this season against OKC, Toronto and Portland. Maybe we should blame Jeff for those losses too. It would make almost as much sense.

I've seen him get mad plenty of times. Most would prefer that he flail his arms around and scream at everyone. He's a lot more subtle, which is a good change after Mike "PANIC!!!" D'antoni.

 

[Catlover]

I've seen him get mad plenty of times. Most would prefer that he flail his arms around and scream at everyone. He's a lot more subtle, which is a good change after Mike "PANIC!!!" D'antoni.

Me too, his expressions and body language speak clearly. I've also heard post game comments from several of the players that Jeff not only gets upset with them but that he makes his displeasure quite apparent to them. I don't know why a fan would demand histrionics from their head coach, it makes little sense. Some people are screamers, some aren't.

 

[sunsfan88]

You can sit there and fault him for not being a raving lunatic? You've never been in that huddle and you've never been in that locker room. You have no clue what he says to these guys or how he says it and yet you're jumping to a conclusion about it and then drawing inferences from an unsupported conclusion.

The best team that has ever played in the NBA lost 11 games, all of them to inferior opponents. I don't know why you're so invested in finding someone to blame every time this team loses. The Lakers have also notched wins this season against OKC, Toronto and Portland. Maybe we should blame Jeff for those losses too. It would make almost as much sense.

How does it not make sense to you that the HC deserves blame for losses? It happens in every sport. I'm sure most here were bashing and waiting for the day that the Whisenhunt of the Cardinals left. Many here wanted D'Antoni gone. Many here wanted Gentry. Btw when I say "many", I'm not excluding myself.

It's completely ok to lose to inferior teams but it's not ok to come out flat against a garbage team in such an important game. And also, Suns have the most losses to sub .500 teams out of the top 9 teams in the West.