Tunnel vision of Suns coach

[cly2tw]

I'm so pissed off by the way we lost to GS! The way we played with the roster and how DA uses it compared to GS's personell and style preference, we were destined to lose right from the start!

Let's start looking at the final 6-8 minutes when we tried to come back. What happened there? Hill lost the ball a couple of times and shot the ball several times too short in midrange where he normally is a master of. He had been gasping for air ever since the second quarter. Is there any wonder that almost all his shots were too short and he had uncharacteristic dribbling turnovers in the second half?

Nash couldn't get anything going, actually all game long. And that's for a reason.

Now, we encouraged GS to get hot all game long at the trackmeet, it was no wonder that they were so confident that our tired legs couldn't stop them in the late game situations. A loss was inevitable!

Why did I claim we were destined to lose with our strategy? A good team should recognize the RELATIVE advantage over the other team and exploit it, while avoiding like a pest relative disadvantage, in order to win. A great team like the Spurs are a master at that.

Trackmeet, our relative advantage over almost all other teams in the league, is an area we don't really want to compete on with the GS. They have more athletic legs and deeper bench too. Our relative advantage would be in area of savvy. Half court execution around Amare and Hill, and Diaw as backup, assuming they are NOT TIRED for that.

No. We wanted to play OUR style even though that meant to run our main guys to the ground, rendering them ineffective in the 4th quarter, not to mention making them vulnerable to turnovers due to vanishing fitness and concentration.

Anybody wonder why Nash has been turnover prone lately and particularly against GS (and in the Spurs series)? I have a theory. The league is more prepared for Nash's tendencies and whenever the energy level of the defense is relatively high, they would pay enough attention to narrow the angles of potential passes.

In this particular game, we were more tired including Nash and they were more athletic and energetic. So, the turnovers were inevitable up until 4th quarter when Nash finally realized that pushing for speed were running ourselves to the ground which gave GS a relative advantage to intercept passes or steal the ball from great ballhandlers like Hill by harassing him at dribbles. How many points did we give up on turnovers! And the coaches were to blame for not anticipating this right from the start and to instruct to control the pace a little, to not let Nash do his instinctive things.

The fact Skinner was playing to finish was evidence that the coaches screwed up, again! Why couldn't they have used him more earlier, or given Banks some minutes to give Baron some fits, while resting Hill a little more for an eventual close game execution late in the fourth? From the very first short midranger by Hill in the 2nd quarter, was it visible that he was exhausted by the pace, wasn't it?

I am furious that we always seem to beat ourselves with tunnel visions like that.

 

[SactownSunsFan]

Why couldn't they have used him more earlier, or given Banks some minutes to give Baron some fits, while resting Hill a little more for an eventual close game execution late in the fourth?

Banks was not at the game for personal reasons. Overall though, I agree with you. Keep in mind, however, that it's still very early. Our defense was poor tonight. Great teams lose to mediocre teams during the course of an 82 game season. The Spurs did tonight against the Kings.

 

[dbUNIT16]

Golden State is really giving us some problems. They appear to have copied the Suns formula very well, and might be the only team that has had success in doing so. Take a breath, it's one game.

I think the key with GS is not to let them get hot early. It seems to carry over whenever they do. I don't want to say slow it down, because that's not our style and that's not how we have success, but we'd be well advised to go into Amare more early and make some fouls. I'd like to see us guard the 3pt line early against them, and foul them if they come inside. You just can't let them get hot early. We've seen it against us, we've seen it against Dallas.

Oh, and Monta Ellis should never score 31 points!

 

[Bufalay]

Golden State is really giving us some problems. They appear to have copied the Suns formula very well, and might be the only team that has had success in doing so. Take a breath, it's one game.

I think the key with GS is not to let them get hot early. It seems to carry over whenever they do. I don't want to say slow it down, because that's not our style and that's not how we have success, but we'd be well advised to go into Amare more early and make some fouls. I'd like to see us guard the 3pt line early against them, and foul them if they come inside. You just can't let them get hot early. We've seen it against us, we've seen it against Dallas.

Oh, and Monta Ellis should never score 31 points!

its not just one game. this is exactly what happened against them last year. The suns have now played this version of the warriors twice now and have been torched twice. Steve Nash is useless against these guys. GS beat the mavs in 6 last year, they would've swept the suns.

 

[SactownSunsFan]

My reaction?

It was one game tonight and one game last year. We went 3-1 against them last year. If they beat us again on February 13th, then I'll show concern.

 

[cly2tw]

its not just one game. this is exactly what happened against them last year. The suns have now played this version of the warriors twice now and have been torched twice. Steve Nash is useless against these guys. GS beat the mavs in 6 last year, they would've swept the suns.

Unless we adjust to shift the playground to an area where we have huge advantage, I agree we will have no chance in a 7-game series.

Actually, with Amare and Hill as the reliable go-to guys and Diaw's savvy at attacking them inside, we have much better chance than Mavs to beat these guys by execution of a game with controlled tempo. Let's say Nash ought to play a little more conservative passing the ball into the paint, and we properly manage the fitness level of the two main guys Amare and Hill to win the game down the wire.

What happened to Banks?

 

[cly2tw]

Banks was not at the game for personal reasons. Overall though, I agree with you. Keep in mind, however, that it's still very early. Our defense was poor tonight. Great teams lose to mediocre teams during the course of an 82 game season. The Spurs did tonight against the Kings.

It's about the way we lost! We simply chose the wrong strategy that doomed us. Well, we might win a game this way as it is open both ways. But we are much better team to play them even just at a 50-50 chance. All we need to do is to play where they have most disadvantage that'd give a 80-20 odds at wins.

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

I would have to agree that we were outcoached tonight. We shot well, great stat sheet (except turnovers). But there were some fundamental flaws in our methodology.

 

[dodie53]

even if it's only 1 game,
the coaching staff should know when to adjust to situations.

 

[Stargazer]

I hate losing any game, but I'm not sure I see the point of changing our whole approach just to beat one team in one regular season game. Ironically, this is exactly the same thinking that other teams have against the Suns, and I think it's a big part of why the Suns rack up so many regular season wins -- but that doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. Most teams play a half-court offense, and that's the type of offense the Suns need to be preparing against. If they happen to come up against GS in the playoffs, then yes, they need to make the adjustments. But for one game that probably won't matter, why bother?

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

I see no problem in changing the approach depending on the team. If you see their weak spot, take advantage of it.

Changing the approach vs the warriors doesnt mean slow and grind. It mean more pick and rolls with amare, feeding amare WAY more than we did, giving Hill mismatches inside the arc, using diaw's post moves.

These are all tools we use on a daily basis that were not taken advantage of as much as they should have.

 

[Mainstreet]

This game very much reminded me of the Atlanta game in that the Hawks (and GS) appeared so much more athletic with fresh legs. I agree with some that the Suns might actually benefit from slowing the ball down with GS. However, this is not the Suns style although it would not hurt them to practice this style in preparation for the playoffs. The only thing that could have saved the Suns last night is defense which was sadly lacking. I will say this, I don't think many teams could have beaten GS last night as they were clearly clicking on all cylinders. I don't think they can play that way every night but this is not meant to be an excuse. Nellie just played better small ball than Phoenix.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

Banks wasn't with the team on Monday. He was attending a family matter.

 

[nashman]

They hit almost every shot the put up and they were allowed to be pretty rough with no foul calls, in other words NO TEAM would have beat them last night. I'm not to concerned about a regular season loss in a game where we played little D and just try to shoot our way to a win, which normally works when your not playing a team thats on fire from 3 like GS.

 

[Errntknght]

My main theme this year has been that D'Antoni needs to keep fresh legs on the court if he hopes to get the most out of his style. He even said he wanted to keep the tempo higher this year and acknowledged that he'd erred in under utilizing his bench last year so you'd have to imagine he was thinking along those lines. He hadn't shown anything like that so far and then when it was painfully obvious to everyone that he needed to act, he stuck his head in the sand instead.

Not having Banks available is weak excuse - we all know that he might well have played Marcus five minutes then sat him for the duration. I wish he'd been available so we could have seen if Mike would actually put some trust in him.

But, crap, if you need fresh legs on the floor and all you've got are rookies you bite the bullet and play rookies. If nothing else they'd gain some much needed experience in real games, so the game wouldn't be a total loss. Frankly, I don't how they could have hurt anything out there.

Some good may still come of the game - if it causes Mike to get his head out of the sand. Here was a game that highlighted the fact our regulars tire too much to maintain a high tempo and if he's half the coach he's considered to be he'll grasp that. Its lucky that it happened when it did - he's got the main rotation ironed out pretty well and there's plenty of season left to add the needed players to the rotation and get them used to contributing.

I think the combination of Grant Hill turning out so well and our cakewalk of a schedule conspired to make Mike believe that everything was fine with a minimal rotation so he retreated back into his comfort zone. Well, now he's seen what should be a convincing demonstration that that is not the case. I hope he was awake...

 

[Maligzar]

So much of this is rehash...

We're not going to change our style to match up with different teams. Get over it guys. Love it or hate it this is how the Suns are going to be run. D'Antoni has said he wants a track meet and if we lose we lose.

Amare was 17/8 for the night. He played downright bad. On a night like this Amare should have scored 30+ .

I'm less concerned about a 7 game series than I am about losing during the regular season. I don't see GS being able to continue dominating us like they did last night. If they do, then they are the better team and I can accept it.

 

[jbeecham]

I agree that we should be playing 9-10 guys a night and finding ways to work the rookies into real games for the experience. We played 8 guys 15+ minutes and no one played more than 39 minutes (G. Hill) so that's already better than D'Antoni's 7 man rotation last year with guys playing 40+ minutes every night. Our starters played an average of 34.5 minutes last night and even at the fast pace, they should've been ok. LB & Diaw both played about 26 minutes.

 

[az1965]

My main theme this year has been that D'Antoni needs to keep fresh legs on the court if he hopes to get the most out of his style. He even said he wanted to keep the tempo higher this year and acknowledged that he'd erred in under utilizing his bench last year so you'd have to imagine he was thinking along those lines. He hadn't shown anything like that so far and then when it was painfully obvious to everyone that he needed to act, he stuck his head in the sand instead.

Yeah, but that means using the 9th guy for another 5-6 min and not just using 8 guys. He is not going to go beyond the 9th guy no matter what unless it is a 30 point blowout by mid-fourth quarter.

 

[az1965]

GS shot lights out. I mean they hit 6/8 3 pointers in the first quarter only. Our defense is terrible and when a team outshoots us like that, there is no chance in hell we will win.

 

[az1965]

And by the way, we are NOT going to change our style unless you want D'Antoni to be fired. I don't mind our style. In fact, I like it. But I don't like D'Antoni's bench usage and the fact we don't play good defense.

 

[playstation]

i wonder if dantoni is the kind of guy that maximizes his players strengths or just shoves one style down their throat.

if we traded for yao ming tomorrow, would he force yao to become a player he's not??? he couldn't just bench him

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

Point of Order:

When someone says Dantoni needs to adapt to the team he is playing against... they do not mean grinding the game to a screeching halt and and pounding it out like the spurs. They mean utilizing aspects of our game we havent been using as often that are still part of our regular arsenal.

You cant use the "we arent going to change our style" card when practically no one is hinting that we do so. We underutilized amare last night, and using diaw as a low post facilitator would have done wonders in that game. Dantoni can stay within his style and still adapt to the opposition. They are NOT mutually exclusive.

Amare should have taken like 30 free throws last night. They have zero answer for him. Sure he would have had 5 fouls, maybe even fouled out, but he would have created 14-16 for GS. Instead it was a jumpshooting match, but they added driving and penetration we havent seen since parker had his way with us in the playoffs.

 

[DeAnna]

I hate losing any game, but I'm not sure I see the point of changing our whole approach just to beat one team in one regular season game. Ironically, this is exactly the same thinking that other teams have against the Suns, and I think it's a big part of why the Suns rack up so many regular season wins -- but that doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. Most teams play a half-court offense, and that's the type of offense the Suns need to be preparing against. If they happen to come up against GS in the playoffs, then yes, they need to make the adjustments. But for one game that probably won't matter, why bother?

Exactly what I was gonna say. Now, the Spurs...different story.

 

[azirish]

I'm not sure style would have changed anything. Like in college ball, three point shooting is the great equalizer. If a team can hit that many threes even when contested, there isn't much anybody can do. Still there are some things they could have done:

1. Played Skinner early on. You cannot contest shooters AND stay back to play guys driving the basket. Skinner's shot blocking could have changed the direction of the game if...

2. Give up fewer turnovers. The Suns get away with a lot of turnovers because most teams are unable to exploit them. The Warriors can. Unfortunately there were too many cases of passing into traffic, driving into traffic, and slow reaction to double teams.

3. Qucken the defensive rotations. The Warriors were making the extra pass and getting guys open under the basket. The Suns were routinely making one rotation but not the second and third.

4. Crash the boards. The Suns were bigger and had more rebounders. We've seen this go the other direction, but this was a chance to really exploit their own size advantage and they didn't do it. BTW, I think Marks might have been helpful since there was nobody to stop him.

Sadly, the Suns seemed to have a huge problem with the refs. Some of the "steals" made by the Warriors were blatant fouls and some of the charges called on the Suns were blatant blocking fouls by the Warriors. It is frustrating, but the Suns have to get used to the fact that the refs are their enemy and will never give them calls when they count.

 

[Covert Rain]

1. Played Skinner early on. You cannot contest shooters AND stay back to play guys driving the basket. Skinner's shot blocking could have changed the direction of the game if...

2. Give up fewer turnovers. The Suns get away with a lot of turnovers because most teams are unable to exploit them. The Warriors can. Unfortunately there were too many cases of passing into traffic, driving into traffic, and slow reaction to double teams.