Suns @ Magic 3-4-16

[FutureSuperstar]

Don’t want to repeat myself on Len, so I’ll say 3 things I haven’t said yet that are encouraging, haha:

1. That he’s able to have a game like tonight in a Back 2 Back after playing a career high 40 minutes last night! That’s real telling – Len has shown his production doesn’t diminish w/ major minutes

2. His FTA the last several games, and even all season, has been really good. And it shows how physically dominate a guy like him can be, where players are forced or led to foul

3. He may not even be 100% w/ his ankle issue – It shows he can play through ankle sprains and whatnot. Dirk is my favorite player of all time and he was notorious for this – Spraining his ankle so many times, but not missing time or letting it affect his game. Len has sprained his ankle a couple times recently, but hasn’t lost a beat which is very encouraging for the future.

 

[Mainstreet]

Don’t want to repeat myself on Len, so I’ll say 3 things I haven’t said yet that are encouraging, haha:

1. That he’s able to have a game like tonight in a Back 2 Back after playing a career high 40 minutes last night! That’s real telling – Len has shown his production doesn’t diminish w/ major minutes

2. His FTA the last several games, and even all season, has been really good. And it shows how physically dominate a guy like him can be, where players are forced or led to foul

3. He may not even be 100% w/ his ankle issue – It shows he can play through ankle sprains and whatnot. Dirk is my favorite player of all time and he was notorious for this – Spraining his ankle so many times, but not missing time or letting it affect his game. Len has sprained his ankle a couple times recently, but hasn’t lost a beat which is very encouraging for the future.

IMO, Len has proved he can start in the NBA. Let's hope he stays healthy.

 

[elindholm]

I think it's safe to say that Len is the Suns' best center prospect since Jake Tsakalidis.

 

[Mainstreet]

I think it's safe to say that Len is the Suns' best center prospect since Jake Tsakalidis.

I think you are missing Amare Stoudemire, Marcin Gortat and Robin Lopez.

 

[JCSunsfan]

Amare yes. I think he will be better than the others

 

[BC867]

Absolutely. Alex Len is having another good game.

Where is BC? He would love the Suns twin towers, Chandler and Len in the starting lineup.

Yup, sure do. Len is really coming into his own as a starting Power Forward, if he can stay healthy.

 

[Mainstreet]

Amare yes. I think he will be better than the others

Also I think all three names I mentioned are better than Jake Tsakalidis.

 

[sunsfan88]

We haven't won on the road since December 7th and this win is unlikely to effect our lottery standings. It's all good.

Better hope the Suns don't end up being one win better than any team in bottom. Or else this win is gonna basically waste all the effort from tanking since December.

 

[nashman]

We can't even tank right.... Aarrggghhh

 

[BC867]

Better hope the Suns don't end up being one win better than any team in bottom. Or else this win is gonna basically waste all the effort from tanking since December.

That is a conundrum. You can't expect the Suns to lose every game for the rest of the season. All you do is hope the other cellar dwellars win some, too.

With Len moving to starting Power Forward and scoring (as well as rebounding), that is taking pressure off Booker. Two starting positions have been improved by one move. Perhaps that will offset not drafting quite as high.

 

[sunsfan88]

We can't even tank right.... Aarrggghhh

Thank god Brooklyn won by 1 against Denver in OT.

But this win basically kissed any chances of catching the Lakers good bye.

 

[GatorAZ]

Thank god Brooklyn won by 1 against Denver in OT.

But this win basically kissed any chances of catching the Lakers good bye.

We were never catching the Lakers. They have more incentive to tank then anyone.

 

[JCSunsfan]

We were never catching the Lakers. They have more incentive to tank then anyone.

That is correct. Even if we did catch the Lakers the odds are only slightly different, which is exactly why there is a lottery.

If you tank by playing the young players big minutes and developing them, and they win, so be it. We will never know anyway. Even if the Lakers get the number 1 pick, it doesn't mean we would have gotten it if we out tanked them , since it just done by number combinations.

 

[SirStefan32]

What a fun game to watch- twin towers, pound the ball in the post, play hard defense, rebound.

 

[TJ]

We haven't won on the road since December 7th and this win is unlikely to effect our lottery standings. It's all good.

Wins are bad. If we somehow go on a winning streak, we may be screwed.

 

[Catlover]

Wins are bad. If we somehow go on a winning streak, we may be screwed.

The only team we really have to worry about is Minnesota. Brooklyn is 1 game closer to us but they aren't tanking. Minnesota could decide to lose the rest of their games which might make us sweat a little. But we still have a 2 game safety cushion over them (3 game lead in L column) and I'm not at all concerned that we'll go on a winning streak.

 

[Errntknght]

We visit the Griz next... they'll come out strong and will be planning on kicking our butts
after we 'ambushed' them.

I think Catlover and others are whistling in the dark when they talk about us holding onto the third worst record rather easily. We're only three games below the Wolves and we play them twice - we also play the lakers twice more and the Wolves don't play them again. If we take both games against the Wolves they'll be favored to beat us out for the 3rd worst record. I think they are trying to win but they don't have the knack of it...

 

[CardsFan88]

Loved seeing such a nice win with major contributions from what we hope will develop. Hate seeing that it may end up hurting us from getting a piece that matters.

But 3-28 before this I guess we were due.

 

[Catlover]

We visit the Griz next... they'll come out strong and will be planning on kicking our butts
after we 'ambushed' them.

I think Catlover and others are whistling in the dark when they talk about us holding onto the third worst record rather easily. We're only three games below the Wolves and we play them twice - we also play the lakers twice more and the Wolves don't play them again. If we take both games against the Wolves they'll be favored to beat us out for the 3rd worst record. I think they are trying to win but they don't have the knack of it...

As I mentioned, Minnesota is our only real concern. And it's true, they don't have any more games against the Lakers. But in their last dozen games they have wins over the Clippers, Bulls, Raptors, Celtics and Pelicans. Maybe they don't quite have the knack of winning but that's not a bad 12 game stretch. We've won 5 of our last 37 games and 3 of those wins are of the fluke variety IMO. We beat the Pelicans when they were having their worst stretch of the season and the other non-fluke win came against a Charlotte team that was missing Batum.

I believe we have one more game that we can win where the details are in our favor (location, rest, expected lineup) and that's the home game against the Lakers (a B2B for them). Other than that, we'll have to catch our opponent napping like we did tonight and against the Grizzlies and the Hawks. I'm sure we will catch a team on an off-night, maybe even twice. But I think 3 more wins is likely the best we'll do.

But let's say I'm way off base and we close out the season with 9 home victories. Our chance of drafting Simmons drops considerably and that will be very disappointing but I'm not sure there's much of a loss beyond that. It's still early but this looks to be one of those drafts where there's very little consensus once you get past Simmons and Ingram. If this team finishes strong it might actually mean more to us in the long run than losing out would.

 

[slinslin]

Too bad we won, but love what Watson is doing..

This is what developing young guys means. Trust them and give them opportunities to put together their games.

Unlike Hornaceks approach of making young guys earn minutes in practice and pulling them on each mistake.
Too bad TJ Warren is out.

I would like to see Earl Watson with a chance to raise this team.

 

[sunsfan88]

Kinda curious to see Ronnie Price play 45 minutes on the second night of a b2b. He wasn't really having a spectacular game or anything either, only had 3 more pts and assists than Goodwin who only played 16 mins. Would rather the young 22 yr old Goodwin get around 30 a game and same thing for Price.

 

[Catlover]

Kinda curious to see Ronnie Price play 45 minutes on the second night of a b2b. He wasn't really having a spectacular game or anything either, only had 3 more pts and assists than Goodwin who only played 16 mins. Would rather the young 22 yr old Goodwin get around 30 a game and same thing for Price.

Price had his best game for us last night, no way do we win that one without him. He played great defense in addition to grabbing 5 key steals and at least 1 block. I think we were trying everything possible to keep from breaking our all time road loss record. Hopefully Watson will go back to playing Goodwin big minutes now that we've stopped our two embarrassing streaks.

 

[Mainstreet]

We visit the Griz next... they'll come out strong and will be planning on kicking our butts
after we 'ambushed' them.

I think Catlover and others are whistling in the dark when they talk about us holding onto the third worst record rather easily. We're only three games below the Wolves and we play them twice - we also play the lakers twice more and the Wolves don't play them again. If we take both games against the Wolves they'll be favored to beat us out for the 3rd worst record. I think they are trying to win but they don't have the knack of it...

Also the Suns are playing better since the they started using the twin tower approach with Chandler and Len starting. It gives the Suns a better chance of winning being strong upfront.

 

[Mainstreet]

Yup, sure do. Len is really coming into his own as a starting Power Forward, if he can stay healthy.

I thought you would like it. And it is working.

 

[Catlover]

Also the Suns are playing better since the they started using the twin tower approach with Chandler and Len starting. It gives the Suns a better chance of winning being strong upfront.

I think it's far too small a sample size to draw any conclusions about how effective it is. And our recent 40 point loss to the Clippers came with just Len in the starting lineup but he and Tyson started and logged 60 minutes in that 34 point blowout to Charlotte.