Suns @ Nuggets Friday game thread 1-1-2021

[AzStevenCal]

Booker's presence on the court has a lot to do with everyone else having room to move and shoot. You take him off that team and it's nothing more than a WAG how good we would have been - maybe we'd be 5 - 1 still but maybe we'd be 0 - 6.

 

[GoldGloveschmidt]

I’m not positive the Suns wouldn’t improve by moving CamJohnson to the starting lineup in lieu of Booker. Let Booker be the microwave scorer off the bench. Dead serious.

Whether or not this is true it will never happen

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

Booker's presence on the court has a lot to do with everyone else having room to move and shoot. You take him off that team and it's nothing more than a WAG how good we would have been - maybe we'd be 5 - 1 still but maybe we'd be 0 - 6.

Yep. Booker gets a ton of defensive attention (wouldn't be turning the ball over so much if he wasn't) and that frees up other players.

Same can be said for Ayton as well. Until last night teams were making Ayton a big defensive priority and Ayton hasn't seen a lot of touches because of it.

We should see ebbs and flows throughout the year of where teams put their attention. When it is on Booker, Paul and Ayton expect to see big games from the likes of Bridges and Cam. When team's start focusing more on guys like Bridges and Cam expect Ayton, Booker and Paul to feast.

 

[Superbone]

No MPJ, and Denver has been mediocre this year with him (20th SRS). We are 3.5 point dogs tonight so we probably don’t win with him either.

Oh, really?

 

[mjb21aztd]

Amazing win

Paul is so clutch love his fadeaway jumper and he plays lockdown def

Booker is himself and it's soooo fun seeing him on a winning team he deserves it

Also good to see a nice gm from ayton hope to see more consistent gms like that

Go suns hard gms coming up....

 

[1Sun]

And a certain poster is AWOL after a big back to back road win... again.

Again you missed my post (or deliberately ignored it for strategic reasons).

 

[1Sun]

Devin Booker is as untouchable as it gets for the Suns.

The issue with Booker is turnovers. He had 8 last night and his assist to turnover ratio so far this season is 3.8 to 5.8. In past seasons it is a positive so this should improve.

The Suns were a very tired team last night. I don't think we should push the panic button on point Booker just yet. And if Monty wants to lessen to lessen the load on Booker, this is something that can be corrected. From what I have read, it's Monty who has been pushing Booker to be more of a distributor.

Point Book has always been a failure. This is the fourth or fifth time it has failed. They really need to play him strictly as the shooting guard he is.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Again you missed my post (or deliberately ignored it for strategic reasons).

OMG! ONE WHOLE POST?! Be still my beating heart when you are posting four or five times PER PAGE, when things aren’t going well.

 

[1Sun]

OMG! ONE WHOLE POST?! Be still my beating heart when you are posting four or five times PER PAGE, when things aren’t going well.

I had other plans. Sorry to disappoint you. Sheesh.

 

[WhyAlwaysMe]

Oh, really?

I’m glad to be wrong. Really can’t believe we hung on to win this one, but Joker’s foul trouble helped.

 

[1Sun]

I dont want to put this out there but Book may have the kardashian curse

That does worry me some, after seeing what happened with Lamar Odom, and after witnessing the negative impact dating Danica Patrick had on Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay.

 

[SunsTzu]

I was checking gamecast throughout the flight and they were up 16 in the 3rd qtr then I kept seeing ‘Isaiah Hartenstein makes 2pt shot then Isaiah Hartenstein makes 3pt shot’ like who the F is this guy? At the end of the day you’d almost rather them blow a big lead but hang on for growth/experience. We’ve got two guys not afraid of the big moment.

On another note it’s good to see Jamal Murray once again turning into Step Curry vs the Suns.

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After the 5th foul on Jokic the refs started calling things a lot tighter on the Suns which seemed to take them out of rhythm. Good to see them hold on and win against a desperate Nuggets team.

 

[JCSunsfan]

That does worry me some, after seeing what happened with Lamar Odom, and after witnessing the negative impact dating Danica Patrick had on Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay.

Don't worry so much. Its not worth it and it doesn't help any. Enjoy this team in the moment.

 

[Superbone]

2nd game in a row that Ayton has won the tip.

I've noticed lately that he's much more consistent in winning tip offs than in the past. It's a positive thing. He should always be competing no matter what it is.

 

[JCSunsfan]

Watching the replay of CP3's last shot, if he had missed, DA had complete control of the board space. Any rebound other than a long carom would have been snatched an put back by DA. Great position.

DA had a great game. His defense is spot on. I would like to see more aggression from him on offense, but I would prefer excellent defense over that at this point in his career.

 

[Cheesebeef]

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After the 5th foul on Jokic the refs started calling things a lot tighter on the Suns which seemed to take them out of rhythm. Good to see them hold on and win against a desperate Nuggets team.

we also got VERY unfocused after that 5th foul. We had just bumped the lead to 16 and then turned the ball over on five of the next six possessions.

really good to see that they rallied after blowing the big lead. Good teams get that lead back and close, bad teams let the comeback steamroll
Them once the lead evaporates.

excited to see what we do against an up and down clippers squad tomorrow night.

 

[JCSunsfan]

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[SunsTzu]

we also got VERY unfocused after that 5th foul. We had just bumped the lead to 16 and then turned the ball over on five of the next six possessions.

really good to see that they rallied after blowing the big lead. Good teams get that lead back and close, bad teams let the comeback steamroll
Them once the lead evaporates.

excited to see what we do against an up and down clippers squad tomorrow night.

I agree I just think it was some of the calls that went against them after that 5th foul that caused them to lose focus. The first possession after Jokic went to the bench was an offensive foul on Booker just past half court that I don't think gets called if Jokic hadn't been sent to the bench and the possession after that there was an off ball offensive foul that I didn't even notice and I don't recall seeing a replay on. After that the Suns just kept shooting themselves in the foot.

Still impressive display of grit to get the W against probably the hardest back to back we'll have based on how we've played Utah and Den in recent history.

 

[82CardsGrad]

Is there really a debate taking place here about the merits of moving Book to the bench???????? Seriously? Wow.... [emoji15]

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Booker’s Utah dagger was a 3 with a 7pt lead. I’ll grant he hit the clutch shot against Dallas, but we are very obviously 5-1 despite him not because of him.

Hmm you want to credit Ayton for his gravity when he has subpar offensive games but no acknowledgment that defenses are geared to stop our known primary offensive weapon and what effect that has on opening the remaining players? Seems hypocritical.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Is there really a debate taking place here about the merits of moving Book to the bench???????? Seriously? Wow.... [emoji15]

I don’t believe it’s a serious debate. I think one poster mentioned and no one has agreed with the plan.

 

[WhyAlwaysMe]

Hmm you want to credit Ayton for his gravity when he has subpar offensive games but no acknowledgment that defenses are geared to stop our known primary offensive weapon and what effect that has on opening the remaining players? Seems hypocritical.

Ayton rolls to the basket and three guys suck in to him. Booker doesn’t usually generate any double team attention off the ball, when he is getting double teamed on the ball he has been turning it over, often live ball, which has been a disaster given how elite our set defense is (again, thanks largely to Ayton).

 

[WhyAlwaysMe]

To clarify, I never said Booker should move to the bench. I also very clearly never said it should happen now.

I said I’m not sure our team wouldn’t be better with CamJ starting in lieu of Booker. Booker would still play 25+ mpg, but he just wouldn’t share the floor with CP3 as much. All of early lineup stats bear out that our starting unit has been less productive than our bench units. Some, not all, of that has to do with our relative bench strength. Some, not all, of that has to do with Booker’s poor play and the doubly bad effects his bad play has on taking the ball out of Paul’s far more capable (thus far with this team and this system) hands.

 

[WhyAlwaysMe]

I wouldn’t make this move now, either. I don’t want to overrate a six game sample, especially in light of our priors regarding Booker, but it’s also a potentially more significant sample given that it’s the only sample in which we have CP3.

 

[Superbone]

Ayton played a much better game tonight. That said, I honestly wonder why he doesn’t dunk the ball. It’s gotten weird to me. Like he’s intent on not dunking this year on purpose.

He's punking us.