The official Suns vs Kings thread.

[JS22]

Predictions?

Suns - 101
Kings - 102

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[thegrahamcrackr]

Suns 112
Kings 101

I think the Suns come out hard. 3 days rest, horrible loss....

Plus I really don't like the Kings this year in case you haven't heard

 

[slinslin]

Voskuhl is out, I think we will win big!

 

[slinslin]

Shawn Marion is starting to piss me off again like last season. Why is he shooting so many 3s? And why in the 4th quarter of a game he is missing everything?

 

[Buseinspectrum]

Q

It must be obvious to everyone but the Suns coach that small ball is not working tonight. Webber is killing us down the stretch. Get Q out of there and put a big guy in.

 

[Buseinspectrum]

Q just fouled out.

 

[slinslin]

Yeah great. Give the last shot to Shawn Marion. What a brilliant idea.

 

[Sunshooter]

Why Didn't The Coach Call A Timeout?

 

[slinslin]

Btw, the Suns started the 4th quarter with Hunter, Marion, Q, Jacobsen and Barbosa.

Guess what happened.

The few times one of out other bigs plays Amare is almost always out of the game.

 

[Yuma]

If I was Nash, I would have signalled Casey to spot up and would have shot for the win instead of the tie. However, we lost the game early on when we couldn't stop their pick and roll. We didn't play tough until the last half of the fourth quarter.

 

[Cheesebeef]

shocker - Marion misses a huge free throw and then a 9 footer to tie it - come on Slin - keep telling yourself he's clutch. That's just pathetic - FOR ONCE SHAWN - MAKE A FREAKING SHOT WHEN IT MATTERS! Also - nice follow up by JJ.

You guys remember that thread where we asked who to get the ball to in crunch time - anyone who said Marion and JJ need to wake up and realize that one shot over Yao Ming and ZERO shots over ANYONE EVER doesn't make you clutch. Nice to see Nash making big shots and Amare hitting key free throws down the stretch though.

Well - at least my hopes aren't so high for the entire season - but this loss sucks - the KIngs were 0-4 on the road and just got the ever living crap beat out of them by Seattle a couple nights ago.

 

[JS22]

Its going to be more of the same all season. D'antoni is afraid of hurting Q's feelings so we'll see these crappy small lineups all year. The suns will be a slightly above average team and lose in the first round.

They NEED to start Hunter at C and try to play with a more legit lineup.

Oh well, at least I have ESPN Basketball. Hunter starts at center for me!

 

[Cheesebeef]

Why is he shooting so many 3s? And why in the 4th quarter of a game he is missing everything?

Slin you're asking these questions like this is something new with Shawn - he's not a big time player when the chips are down - never has been - never will be.

 

[Billythekid]

I think it's time to change the lineup. Try bringing Q off the bench, because he needs a spark lit under his ass. He's playing like **** and we need more from him.

 

[JS22]

I think it's time to change the lineup. Try bringing Q off the bench, because he needs a spark lit under his ass. He's playing like **** and we need more from him.

I've been preaching this for awhile now. Let's hope it happens.

 

[elindholm]

In this game we saw what a difference a coach can make. The Kings ran the same pick-and-roll at the top of the key with Bibby and Webber/Miller over and over in the fourth quarter. The big man had a wide open shot every time, and most of them went down. On the other end of the floor, the Kings defended the Suns' pick-and-roll plays reasonably well. Maybe someone in the organization can study the film of this game, and try to figure out what the difference is.

Also, Marion needs to learn how to give the ball up on the break if he won't have a dunk. He always tries to draw the foul and instead misses a layup. Once in a while, he's fortunate enough to follow up his own miss, but usually it's just a missed opportunity. And since he can't make free throws anymore, just trying to draw a foul is a bad strategy anyway.

 

[jbeecham]

Small Ball killed us tonight. Marion couldn't guard Webber at all and Q couldn't guard Peja. If we had a legitimate lineup with Amare or Hunter guarding Webber then this would've been a different game. Marion & Q really sucked tonight in all aspects of the game. They couldn't make any shots and Marion blew some layups.

The main positive from the game was that Nash was awesome. The few turnovers that he had were when he got hand-checked with no foul call. He actually looked for his shot and made a majority of them.

Edit: Marion and Q both had a lot of rebounds. Their offense and defense was horrible and JJ didn't shoot well either.

 

[myrondizzo]

anyone else find it funny that hunter has more blocks than boards? at least in the box score i missed most of the suns game (@the asu game) but hunter had 4 blocks and just two boards? maybe he should not try to go after every single shot to get a block and grab a few more boards.

 

[Joe Mama]

Well, I just have to admit that I was wrong last summer when we signed Q. I did not want him at all before free agency started. Once the Suns acquired him I disagreed with those who said that his acquisition would result in far too much small ball. I thought that Mike D'Antoni would be able to manage this team, so we would see only 10 minutes or so of small ball each game. I wish.

I wasn't happy with the Shawn Marion three-point attempts, but that's hardly the first thing I would point out and complain about. First of all, I can't believe nobody has said anything about the officiating. Especially in the first half it was flat out awful. I fear that the referees have already forgot about the changes they were supposed to be making with respect to the handchecking rules. They continue to allow defenders to grab and use their hands far too much. There were also four or five very obvious blown calls or no calls around the basket that went against Phoenix in the first half alone.

Richardson really needs to be coming off the bench. Except for his scoring he is actually playing quite well, but I think against the other team's bench players he could gain some confidence in his shot. They should be putting him down in the low post much more often.

I think it's a mistake to have both Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire out of the game at the same time for extended periods. The Suns have too much trouble scoring without one of them in the game.

I'm still not sure I would start Stephen Hunter, but I do like him playing some decent minutes in the middle. He is a very, very good shot blocker. The dilemma is that if you are trying to get away from small ball I'm not sure who you can really start in place of Richardson if it's not going to be Hunter. Jake Voskuhl? Lampe? I've never been convinced that The Sausage King is anything more than an end of the bench player.

One thing that cannot be complained about was the pace of this game. It was nice to see a couple of teams move the ball up the court and score on each other. Each team shot right around 50% for the game. Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire were a combined 22-32 from the field in this game. Despite the loss it was fun to watch. I don't remember any time in the last three years that I've enjoyed watching a game that the Phoenix Suns lost.

Joe Mama

 

[jbeecham]

Joe, I noticed the same thing about the officiating, but it seems like I'm always the 1st person complaining about the officiating so I thought I'd let someone else mention it tonight.

The hand checking in the last 2 games has been really bad. Also, they weren't calling many fouls in general. There were a lot of plays down in the post where guys got hacked across the arm during their shots without any calls. I also thought Brad Miller trying to elbow JJ in the head should've been a flagrant foul. For those of you who didn't see the play, JJ got switched onto Brad Miller and was defending him strongly. Brad Miller couldn't back him down so he turned and faced JJ and swung his elbows low to clear space and then swung his elbows again right at JJ's head.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

First of all, I can't believe nobody has said anything about the officiating. Especially in the first half it was flat out awful. I fear that the referees have already forgot about the changes they were supposed to be making with respect to the handchecking rules. They continue to allow defenders to grab and use their hands far too much.

This may just be something with the Suns recent games. I had to watch the Detroit/Jazz game tonight, and they were nailing the Pistons on hand checks all game long. I think they may be looking for it more from teams that were aggressive defensively last season than for others. At least that is the only possible explanation I can come up with.

 

[elindholm]

First of all, I can't believe nobody has said anything about the officiating. Especially in the first half it was flat out awful.

Maybe, but the Suns definitely got the lion's share of the calls in the second half. Brad Miller got mugged every time around the basket, and Stoudemire was rewarded with foul shots at least a couple of times when all he did was bulldoze into people.

The dilemma is that if you are trying to get away from small ball I'm not sure who you can really start in place of Richardson if it's not going to be Hunter.

Outlaw. I made this suggestion before. Sure, he's looked like crap in his first couple of games with the team this year, but he'll snap out of it. And it would be refreshing to replace Richardson with someone who doesn't feel like he has to shoot every time he touches the ball.

By the way, I'm starting to be in the camp of people who say "It will be a shame if the Suns lose Johnson next summer." He missed the last shot tonight and didn't have much impact on the game, but I feel that overall he has played much better than either Marion or (especially) Richardson so far this season. If the Suns wind up with the two ugly stepsisters while their Cinderella skips away, that will be a real shame.

 

[Billythekid]

I'm actually worried for Stoudemire. We have NO one right now who can score inside consistantly apart from him. Lampe is sitting on the bench, Hunter is up and down.

Even the signing of outlaw is ok to a degree but he offers nothing as far as offense. We need someone to score inside and ease the load on Stoudemire or else he will be completely spent by March / April.

 

[Gaddabout]

I officially have my doubts about D'Antoni as a head coach. He's a respected offensive mind with the ability to teach. I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe he can manage a good team. His substitution patterns are more akin to a train schedule than someone making decisions based on the feel and look of the game. He also seems very stubborn about forcing his philosophy. The halfcourt offense is less focused than a Grateful Dead jam and seems to set the Suns up for failure in tight games. This is compounded by the fact the Suns aren't a very good offensive rebounding team.

I get the feeling D'Antoni makes up his mind how the game is going to be played before tip off, and then it becomes gospel. I hope he learns it's OK to adjust as the game goes on. I wish Cotton were around to tutor him!

 

[Mike Olbinski]

Anyone whining about the referee's tonight needs to get a reality check...Brad Miller was being abused by Stoudemire in the second half, and if you were a Kings fan, you'd be calling for the Amare's head.

Bad calls go both ways, live with it. I have blaming refs for everything.

Suns just let them get that big lead and couldn't overcome...good game though, very exciting.

It's a long season, we're 4-2 and playing great ball...

Mike