Suns @ Magic Wednesday game thread 3-24-2021

[Sunburn]

It’s not really Ayton that this team is going to live and die by its Cam and Bridges when those two guys are off it’s pretty much a L

That goes both ways. If Ayton would've played well down the stretch, it would've been a W tonight. If Ayton plays consistently well, it would allow for more of a margin of error for Cam and Bridges.

 

[Chaplin]

That goes both ways. If Ayton would've played well down the stretch, it would've been a W tonight. If Ayton plays consistently well, it would allow for more of a margin of error for Cam and Bridges.

Regardless, Bridges should be better. One of the worst performances this year for him. I expect him to have a great game on Friday.

 

[Cheesebeef]

That goes both ways. If Ayton would've played well down the stretch, it would've been a W tonight. If Ayton plays consistently well, it would allow for more of a margin of error for Cam and Bridges.

eh... they deserve big blame tonight also. Ayton struggled down the stretch but those games stunk all game.

 

[elindholm]

A crappy loss here and then Mexico scores against the USMNT on FS1.

Dammit, Mexico, you'll pay for that!

 

[SirStefan32]

Suns just seem to lose to crappy teams. They play well against good teams, but they really struggle against bad teams. I hope it's just a normal part of a "new" good team and that they will naturally develop that ability to not play down to their competition, but there is a part of me that's a bit worried.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

This was a total team let down except, imo, crowder I payed well.

When bridges no-shows offensively he’s got to at least shut down the Fourniers of the league. Fail.

cam was just MIA.

Dario has now run 6 games of poor play. It’s killing the bench and the bench is underperforming the competition.

cp3 needed to become a scorer earlier imo.

book and Ayton were having excellent games and then both just SUCKED in the fourth quarter. And when I say sucked I mean they SUUUUUUCKED.

Really scuffling along post-all star break. No bueno.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Suns just seem to lose to crappy teams. They play well against good teams, but they really struggle against bad teams. I hope it's just a normal part of a "new" good team and that they will naturally develop that ability to not play down to their competition, but there is a part of me that's a bit worried.

It might be a learning thing . . . but if it is it’s a bad sign bc it keeps happening which means . . . they ain’t learning.


It’s a total lack of focus and necessary intensity. There are enough vets with Paul, crowder, book, saric, Moore, Galloway, Craig (now),for this not to occur as frequently as it seemingly is lately.

 

[95pro]

Book tried to get into a pissing match with Gordon and lost.

Bridges was awful

Cam was abused on defense

Payne didn’t do much of anything

bench was awful

Although Craig did good, giving him this many minutes messed with team chemistry

The MO is out on Dario, stay down and don’t fall for his fakes.

Monty needs to call timeouts instead of making the bench play through it.

Galloway got too many minutes for his output.

Refs sucked.

Ayton was open at the 1:30ish mark near the end of the game but Booker looked him off.

bleh

 

[Finito]

That goes both ways. If Ayton would've played well down the stretch, it would've been a W tonight. If Ayton plays consistently well, it would allow for more of a margin of error for Cam and Bridges.

so it’s Aytons fault Cam, Bridges and Dario were horrible tonight. Gotcha sounds about right here. By the way Ayton went 21/9 tonight he wasn’t the problem

 

[Finito]

It might be a learning thing . . . but if it is it’s a bad sign bc it keeps happening which means . . . they ain’t learning.


It’s a total lack of focus and necessary intensity. There are enough vets with Paul, crowder, book, saric, Moore, Galloway, Craig (now),for this not to occur as frequently as it seemingly is lately.

EXACTLY. This is the 9th loss where we blew a double digit lead and they all seem to be to bad teams.

they have a serious focus issue and when the tide starts turning they don’t know how to stop the bleeding and that’s on Monty not making adjustments

 

[elindholm]

EXACTLY. This is the 9th loss where we blew a double digit lead and they all seem to be to bad teams.

they have a serious focus issue and when the tide starts turning they don’t know how to stop the bleeding and that’s on Monty not making adjustments

The Suns struggle against bad teams, but I don't find the "blew a double-digit lead" angle very compelling. With the NBA having jacked the pace way up and everyone shooting so many threes, a lead in the teens just isn't very much anymore. I would guess that the percentage of games across the NBA this season in which the loser enjoyed a double-digit lead at some point is quite high. Even 60% wouldn't surprise me. So the problem with the Suns isn't that they're blowing leads to bad teams, but that they're losing to bad teams period.

 

[Chaplin]

What was our biggest lead, 13? Sure, technically that's double digits, but 13 is tiny in the NBA. Don't overblow the "blowing double digit leads" excuse.

 

[Cheesebeef]

What was our biggest lead, 13? Sure, technically that's double digits, but 13 is tiny in the NBA. Don't overblow the "blowing double digit leads" excuse.

I wonder what the stats are for the other good teams as far as this is concerned.

I did see the stat that we are 10-11 in close games within 5 points with 5 minutes left. That’s no bueno and I think might be due to not having that legit third option at crunch time. Neither Ayton nor Bridges can be depended upon to get their own shot with regularity yet.

Without having a LeBron, KD or Harden type guy, I think most of the playoff teams are still missing that guy which I think keeps them at the playoff contender level but below legit title contender level, the only two of which IMO are the Nets and Lakers (only if healthy). If the Lakers aren’t healthy, it will probably come down to whoever gets on a hot streak in the West, serving as sacrificial lamb to the Nets.

 

[Carolinacacti]

Magic played better then record, another team gunning for a top team in the Suns.

 

[Finito]

What was our biggest lead, 13? Sure, technically that's double digits, but 13 is tiny in the NBA. Don't overblow the "blowing double digit leads" excuse.

it’s happened 9 out of 14 times for us you can keep ignoring it if you want.

 

[Finito]

I wonder what the stats are for the other good teams as far as this is concerned.

I did see the stat that we are 10-11 in close games within 5 points with 5 minutes left. That’s no bueno and I think might be due to not having that legit third option at crunch time. Neither Ayton nor Bridges can be depended upon to get their own shot with regularity yet.

Without having a LeBron, KD or Harden type guy, I think most of the playoff teams are still missing that guy which I think keeps them at the playoff contender level but below legit title contender level, the only two of which IMO are the Nets and Lakers (only if healthy). If the Lakers aren’t healthy, it will probably come down to whoever gets on a hot streak in the West, serving as sacrificial lamb to the Nets.

right we can’t close so far. A star is a guy who can get you a bucket during crunch time. I think you have to just start going to Booker and dump the system down the stretch. It’s what all the good teams do. Throw it to Lebron and let him either score or create type stuff in those close games. Let’s see if he’s on that star level

 

[ArizonaSportsFan]

Book tried to get into a pissing match with Gordon and lost.

...

bleh

I only saw one instance of Booker taking on Gordon - didn't seem like this was the dynamic at all.

 

[95pro]

I only saw one instance of Booker taking on Gordon - didn't seem like this was the dynamic at all.

after booker got blocked by gordon, booker let off the match. before that they went a back and forth a little with trash talking. EJ commented on it.

 

[AzStevenCal]

I think our starting five, except for those games where Ayton is a real force or almost invisible, isn't much better than average compared to the league. Our bench has made us special but of late, our bench hasn't been quite so special. Monty's decision to let our bench blow the lead against mostly Orlando starters in the 2nd quarter gave the Magic momentum and confidence.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

I think our starting five, except for those games where Ayton is a real force or almost invisible, isn't much better than average compared to the league. Our bench has made us special but of late, our bench hasn't been quite so special. Monty's decision to let our bench blow the lead against mostly Orlando starters in the 2nd quarter gave the Magic momentum and confidence.

I mentioned that to cheese a few weeks back. I think our starters match most teams starters, or even trail them a little, but when the bench has come in is when we start pulling a lead and our starters are usually good enough to maintain or sometimes build on it. But with Dario dragging it’s brought the entire bench down and it’s the difference in the game as the starters can’t elevate against other starters consistently enough.

 

[82CardsGrad]

I think our starting five, except for those games where Ayton is a real force or almost invisible, isn't much better than average compared to the league. Our bench has made us special but of late, our bench hasn't been quite so special. Monty's decision to let our bench blow the lead against mostly Orlando starters in the 2nd quarter gave the Magic momentum and confidence.

Totally agree. I think it’s important that all Suns fans maintain a very realistic view of this team, especially when it comes to the post-season.
Ayton is extremely inconsistent and of course, has zero playoff experience.
Bridges is still developing and though he has shown he can be a vital component of a winning team, he too can go missing for large parts of games and again, zero playoff experience.
Booker is incredible but again, no playoff experience.
Crowder and Paul are the only two starters with post season experience. And to your point, they certainly aren’t the “best” at their positions league-wide.

Our bench is proving to be adequate at best. Saric’s steady decline as of late is very concerning.

I wouldn’t be shocked if this team made the playoffs and couldn’t get past the first round...

 

[elindholm]

I wouldn’t be shocked if this team made the playoffs and couldn’t get past the first round...

It really depends on their seed. If they finish in the top two, they'll be playing a team that just survived the mini-round. The Suns really should be a notch better than any team in that category, even Dallas (who are currently 7th). But against any other team in the Western Conference top six, a Suns series victory would have to be considered an upset.

 

[AzStevenCal]

I wouldn’t be shocked if this team made the playoffs and couldn’t get past the first round...

I wanted to focus on this part of your post. I agree. Depth is great but stars tend to play extra minutes (when needed) during the postseason so even if our bench is playing well, we might not get the boost we're used to.

Despite adding some savvy veterans, this is mostly an untested team with most players still on the upswing. Even losing Paul in a year or three, I think our potential window for competing at the highest level is still somewhere down the road. A playoff series win would be nice but realistically that might not happen.

 

[Chaplin]

it’s happened 9 out of 14 times for us you can keep ignoring it if you want.

You act like it’s some strange thing. The more concerning thing is that we lose to bad teams, not that we lose 13-point leads.

This is the NBA. Detroit and Washington aren’t good teams but that ARE NBA teams.

In the past 10 years, how many wins did we have where we were down more than 10 points? And we were an awful team. Hell, the previous two years had us beating the Bucks. But hey let’s complain about losing a 10-point lead, which is literally a few baskets.

 

[Finito]

You act like it’s some strange thing. The more concerning thing is that we lose to bad teams, not that we lose 13-point leads.

This is the NBA. Detroit and Washington aren’t good teams but that ARE NBA teams.

In the past 10 years, how many wins did we have where we were down more than 10 points? And we were an awful team. Hell, the previous two years had us beating the Bucks. But hey let’s complain about losing a 10-point lead, which is literally a few baskets.

Pay attention, I know it’s hard. It’s happened 9 of 14 times. The fact it keeps happening means we aren’t learning how to to stop it once teams start coming back. Do you understand now.