Suns vs. Hornets

[zett]

Marions 3's are keeping us in it!!! GO SUNS

 

[Chaz]

I was nervous about Marion's three from out front. In the corner he seems to be pretty good.

Suns are hanging in there. It is definately easier on the eyes with the motion and ball movement.

Baron Davis has been killing our rallies. Lets hope someone can force him to miss a few down the stretch.

Win or lose tonight I am much happier with the performance tonight than the past few weeks.

 

[slinslin]

Where is the improvement except that they were good from the field today?

D'Antoni plays even more small ball.

The defense looks as bad or worse than before. The rebounding certainly does.

The same coaching mistakes again.

- Why wait until the other team comes back from a double digit deficit to call a timeout and interrupt their run?

- Why not call timeout on the posession with 30 seconds to go when Jacobsen throws a bad pass after NO scored?

 

[Chaz]

Originally posted by slinslin
Where is the improvement except that they were good from the field today?

D'Antoni plays even more small ball.

The defense looks as bad or worse than before. The rebounding certainly does.

The same coaching mistakes again.

- Why wait until the other team comes back from a double digit deficit to call a timeout and interrupt their run?

- Why not call timeout on the posession with 30 seconds to go when Jacobsen throws a bad pass after NO scored?

NO is a very good rebounding team and the Suns are short handed. The rebounding sucked but we knew with a healthy team rebounding would be an issue for this team.

The improvement is the are moving and the offense (and shooting %) is much better as a result. There are reason to be encouraged and they can definately play better than they did tonight.

At least I didn't see the "stand around and jack up threes" offense in the fourth.

 

[slinslin]

No?

Maybe it is not as obvious on days when they make shots...

 

[FrustratedSON]

You can question this, that and the other, but BOTTOM LINE is we are terribly undermanned in the big guy department and until Amare comes back very little will change... and that just proves we need depth at PF. How many teams can say when they're starting power forward goes down, they don't have another power forward to cover him. We just throw our SG in at PF.

We had 25 rebounds.

Voskul, White and Googs are the lone 'power players' That is laughable. And people wonder why we play small ball.

ps I don't consider googs are power forward. All he is to the Suns is a bad investment almost over.

 

[Chaplin]

Against a much bigger team, I don't see a good enough reason not to play Scott Williams--whether it's at center or PF.

 

[matt_whitlock]

Originally posted by FrustratedSON
You can question this, that and the other, but BOTTOM LINE is we are terribly undermanned in the big guy department and until Amare comes back very little will change... and that just proves we need depth at PF. How many teams can say when they're starting power forward goes down, they don't have another power forward to cover him. We just throw our SG in at PF.

We had 25 rebounds.

Voskul, White and Googs are the lone 'power players' That is laughable. And people wonder why we play small ball.

ps I don't consider googs are power forward. All he is to the Suns is a bad investment almost over.

So what would you like to do? Just lay down and let other teams walk all over us until Amare comes back?

What's the point of playing basketball right now?

 

[FrustratedSON]

I'm saying stop bitching about small ball.

 

[PhiLLmattiC]

Pejnny didn't play at all the fourth quarter. I know they were making a run and tyhew people on court were playing pretty well, but they had a few turnovers towards the end that could have definataly been avoided if they protected the ball and made smarter plays. They did play well though. Baron Davis is just deadly.

 

[Joe Mama]

Originally posted by slinslin
Where is the improvement except that they were good from the field today?

D'Antoni plays even more small ball.

The defense looks as bad or worse than before. The rebounding certainly does.

The same coaching mistakes again.

- Why wait until the other team comes back from a double digit deficit to call a timeout and interrupt their run?

- Why not call timeout on the posession with 30 seconds to go when Jacobsen throws a bad pass after NO scored?

You must be joking. What kind of improvement did you really expect after one practice under the new head coach? The defense did not look as bad or worse than they did against Miami or the last three quarters against Orlando. The Suns got killed on the inside against a very good group of big men. That should have been expected. If you did not expect that you were fully yourself.

I would have loved of victory tonight, but I was happy with what I saw. I would still like to see some more movement in the half-court offense, especially along the baseline. I would also like them to go inside more, but that's tough to do when opponents have decided they are going to pack the middle of the floor. It's also tough to do when the team is missing its top two power forwards.

Slin, you are getting pretty nitpicky with complaining about the timeouts or lack thereof. I thought there was actually a timeout or two during a time when New Orleans came back.

I believe Amare Stoudemire told Cheryl Miller that he would be out 4-5 more weeks. It will be nice to get him and Zarko back around the same time, but I sure wish it was sooner. They've got to get some help at power forward in the meantime, where this team is going to be out of the playoff picture in another week or two. Unfortunately I have no idea where they will get the help. Archibald anyone?

Joe Mama

 

[zett]

Steph has got to be focused and make his free throws, That put us out of reach in the end, along with poor defense through out the game, with a couple of minor exceptions.

We still don't look like we are even interested in playing defense, from the start you could look at the eyes of the players on D and no one showes any intensity! That is where we need to start if this thing is to get turned around.

I don't think D'antoni understands any more then Johnson did, on how to have steph run the offense,he needs to take his shots or drive when they are there, not just pass pass pass, or shoot shoot shoot, get your team involved early, unless your not missing and getting what ever you want. he needs to do the bulk of his scoring in crunch time when the leaders should take over. He is either too passive or too agressive in his mental aproach, and that changes from game to game! He acts confused on what to do.

Shawn started at the 4 slot and still only managed 7 boards, with Amare out that won't cut it! his offense has picked up tremendisly, in recent games, but we are getting killed on the boards simply because of effort, no one blocks out,and I think that is a result of no intesity on the defesive end.

 

[jbeecham]

What happened to Marbury's FT shooting tonight? He was averaging almost 90% on the year for a while and he went 3-8 tonight including 2 ft's that would've cut the lead to 2 pts.

We needed a 3rd & 4th scorer tonight. Penny played pretty well in the 1st qtr, but didn't do much the rest of the game. JJ kept getting handed the ball with 2 seconds left on the shot clock and had to rush up a shot (at least 5 of his misses). He played better in the 4th and drove the ball inside. His teammates need to learn that he can't make a shot under pressure. JJ did have 8 assists tonight.

Shawn played well and hit 3's but he needs help rebounding. I was really surprised we didn't see Scott Williams at all. I wanted to see a lineup with Scott Williams and Jake Voskuhl in there together.

Casey has been playing better and better. He's very scrappy and actually moves without the ball which got him 2 easy layups tonight. He was also one of the few Suns who tried to go up for rebounds against Magloire and put a body on him.

The game looked better tonight, but the Suns also shot 54% from the field and they won't do that every night. D'Antoni needs to get them to play defense. At one point the Hornets had 24pts off of 11 Suns turnovers (they made some 3's). They also had 12 offensive rebounds to the Suns 3. I'll agree about the officiating, NO got so many rebounds because they never left the paint on offense or defense.

 

[Chaz]

Actually Steph missed 4 FT in the 4th the second two could have tied the score with 3:00 left. On the next possession Wesley hit a three to make the lead 7.

I just watched the 4th qtr again and the offense is night and day different than the recent past. Marion did take some threes and probably 1 too many but the one from the corner was wide open. I don't mind jumpers if the guys are open off penetration or a two man game but I am glad to not see the pass around the perimeter and launch a contested shot over and over.

Transition defense and second chance points killed the Suns tonight. They need to work on boxing out a little better and limit second shots (what else is new huh?).

 

[green machine]

Originally posted by SirChaz
Actually Steph missed 4 FT in the 4th the second two could have tied the score with 3:00 left. On the next possession Wesley hit a three to make the lead 7.

We were down by 4, and Steph missed the last two free throws. He had also missed two earlier. Had he made them all, the last two would have tied it. The statement above does not make sense, mathematically

 

[George O'Brien]

I only heard part of the game. It was closer than the final score and the team scored against one of the better defensive teams in the league. Still...

1. Everyone has to be back fighting for defensive rebounds. Giving up 19 second chance points is brutal.

2. The Suns have to learn to play defense against teams that pass the ball.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

Originally posted by PhiLLmattiC
Pejnny didn't play at all the fourth quarter. I know they were making a run and tyhew people on court were playing pretty well, but they had a few turnovers towards the end that could have definataly been avoided if they protected the ball and made smarter plays. They did play well though. Baron Davis is just deadly.

Penny was FULLY dressed in the forth quarter. I am talking jersey, long sleve shirt, short sleve ****, warm up jacket.

I dont know what happened but he sure figured he was done for the night.

If the game had been any longer I think we would have seen him in his bathrobe gettin ready for bed

 

[slinslin]

Originally posted by Joe Mama


Slin, you are getting pretty nitpicky with complaining about the timeouts or lack thereof. I thought there was actually a timeout or two during a time when New Orleans came back.



Joe Mama [/B]

No,
D'Antoni called the first timeout when New Orleans already had tied the game.

All the good coaches like Carlisle or Phil Jackson are calling timeout when the other team STARTS to make a run not when they are already back in the game.

PJ Brown and Magloire are certainly no offensive monsters and George Lynch and Stacey Augmon are no big man.


And it is not like they were dominating the boards. Even Baron Davis.

They continued with their defensive rotations and let a player like David Wesley open at the 3pt line.

Even if you are small you can still block out which the Suns didn't do. 25 rebounds is simply pathetic.

Tom Gugliotta played only 12 minutes. I think that's dumb. He is not a great player but he has to play more than that if we are lacking size so badly instead of playing Casey Jacobsen.

 

[Joe Mama]

Originally posted by slinslin
No,
D'Antoni called the first timeout when New Orleans already had tied the game.

All the good coaches like Carlisle or Phil Jackson are calling timeout when the other team STARTS to make a run not when they are already back in the game.

Phil Jackson is notorious for making his teams play through runs by the other team. However I do think it is a good idea for the coach to call a timeout when the other team starts getting hot. Usually I start yelling at the TV when they don't, but I don't remember thinking it was that big a deal in this case.

I think D'Antoni and the rest of the staff will work with the team on their rebounding and transition defense. I'm not sure D'Antoni is one to make a difference, but I'm going to get him more than one game to show it. IMO the Suns did better than I expected them to do tonight. At least they were much more exciting to watch tonight.

Joe Mama

 

[Chaz]

Originally posted by green machine
We were down by 4, and Steph missed the last two free throws. He had also missed two earlier. Had he made them all, the last two would have tied it. The statement above does not make sense, mathematically

Well, Adam, we can't all be well spoken like a radio host.

 

[scotsman13]

Originally posted by FrustratedSON
You can question this, that and the other, but BOTTOM LINE is we are terribly undermanned in the big guy department and until Amare comes back very little will change... and that just proves we need depth at PF.

yea we need depth at power forward, i think his name was zarko. he is on the IR right now, along with amare. and googs who is being paid something like 12 million this year is not having a good year. and the last power forward on the roster is robert archibald who the coaches arent taking advanage of or he isnt ready to play.

 

[matt_whitlock]

Originally posted by thegrahamcrackr
Penny was FULLY dressed in the forth quarter. I am talking jersey, long sleve shirt, short sleve ****, warm up jacket.

I dont know what happened but he sure figured he was done for the night.

If the game had been any longer I think we would have seen him in his bathrobe gettin ready for bed

I'm not totally sure why that was. It seemed like he was playing with a good amount of energy, and Joe Johnson shot 33% from the field. Penny was getting to the line, shooting well, and playing good defense.

 

[matt_whitlock]

Also, it seems like there's something wrong with Marbury's game. Statistically, last night he had a great game, with 24 points (9-13 shooting), 8 assists, and 3 turnovers, but somethign seems to be missing from last year. Maybe it's just the fact that we're losing, but he just doesn't seem to have "it", the quality that separated him from the rest of the point guards in the league last year.

It's probably his body language. At times, he could make a clown weap in melancholy gloom. I dunno, has anybody else noticed this, or am i imagining things?

 

[Chaplin]

I noticed that Shawn really seemed to be the only guy that was pumped up--usually I expect Steph to get the crowd going. Maybe he did and TNT didn't shoot it, but I don't remember him getting excited.

 

[SweetD]

Steph took a big hit on the head in the 4qt after he went up for that layup and hit his head on floor. You could tell he didn't want to get up. He just was not right after that missing the four free throws. I for one was proud of the way they played sure we didn't win but with Amare and Zarko this team would have beat one of the hottest teams out there. Good Game I look forward to watching the games again.