Game 72: Suns (42-29) @ Spurs (15-56) | March 25th

[King4Day]

Usually, this type of loss would upset me but as John Voita said a couple weeks ago.... acceptance. Much easier handling inexcusable losses like this when you simply no longer have expectations.

It'll be fun to see this team either crash and burn over the next 10, or find a way. At least there won't be the fanbase explosion if we lose to a bad team again. All remaining teams have better records then us.
Just read that it's the hardest schedule for a team since 15-16

[sunskerr]

Glad I don't watch the team anymore.

[SunsRback4Good]

Should have a record of 44-28 going into a very tough stretch of games instead they lost to the rockets couple weeks ago and now to SA. We should be sitting a half a game behind Clippers & Pels right now with 10 remaining. Oh well, just glad that the season is almost over.

[garrick]

Maybe the best thing for us is to not make the playoffs and get a better draft pick in the lottery.

Nurk, KD and Beal get a longer time to rest and avoid injury and JJ/Ishbia go all in on the pre draft process and see if they can get a steal late in the lottery.

All was good and nice until I read JJ and draft.

Yeah JJ sucks at the draft but I think it's not all his decision anymore and he did get a good pick in Camara considering he was taken late in the 2nd round.

I also would look into trading Nurk before his value drops off because he's only going to get slower so if you can get anyone that is younger and can do an average job at center I would take him. We don't need Nurkic's play making and his poor defense and inability to score at the rim is a huge liability that kind of offsets his rebounding and ability to guard Jokic.

[Ghost of Kleine]

This loss was truly unfortunate! And the injuries to BOTH of Nurkic and Beal at the worst possible time in the season are just the sunsiest things ever to happen!! But there are key points of concern to focus upon in this game that have been discussed for awhile now throughout the season:

1- The overall lack of urgency and professionalism.
This loss much like all the lesser teams that we've let beat us all season reflect a delusional and misplaced arrogance wherein we take our situation for granted believing that we'll just coast through games to a win just on the basis of being superior on paper when IN REALITY (which our team isn't living in apparently) no win is guaranteed, and you must bring the full effort every single game because at the nba level, any team can beat you on any given night.

2- The same lack of basic basketball fundamentals that have plagued us the entire season have not been addressed
Again, since the beginning of the season we've carried these glaring issues and done nothing to correct them all season. And now unfortunately, we really don't have any time left to correct things. These players are NOT INEXPERIENCED ROOKIES HERE! These players have been playing basketball their entire lives and should under no circumstances be making such very basic rudimentary mistakes. And be making them over and over again repeatedly. These things to me at least reflect a passive, indifferent non chalant mentality that allows them to not focus and delude themselves into believing they are just better than everyone else and don't have to put in the work or effort to get better continually. Now a fair amount of this could be exhaustion with a top heavy roster right now, as well as lack of fully developed chemistry amongst a ragtag constructed roster. But the lack of focus and effort are inexcusable given our fully und4rstood stated expectations of this team.

3- Giving Away games to lesser teams consistently all throughout the season
I know this sounds somewhat redundent to the previous issues mentioned above, BUT this is more about understanding how critically important it truly is to NOT GIVE ANY GAMES AWAY and bank as many wins as you can early on! This very situation that we find ourselves in currently is reflective of not securing those wins/ tiebreakers early on with more effort and urgency. They should fully understand first that our team is built with an aging and injured core with a VERY LIMITED WINDOW OF CONTENTION at best and no legitimate future to look to due to b eing overzealous in what we gave up to try the gimmicky super team scheme with no depth contingency plan in place. I say this meaning that they needed to have a consistent "do or die!" "no tommorow" type of mentality. They needed to play with heart and passion, but haven't shown yet to have either. When you give games away so casually, it will come back to bite you!! And this lesson is one we never seem to learn.

4- The roster construction and value exchange from the trades doesn't equate to a legit contender
This has clearly been historically documented that superteams with no depth just don't win championships. And our front office glaringly ignored thse well documented facts and still opted to go "all in" without fully/ diligently planning for any supportive depth to sustain our team even from the jump or visualization of this premised strategy. Our front office has PERENNIALLY made gross errors in judgement in terms of valuation of assets, have intentionally IGNORED our roster weaknesses year after year that have been repeatedly exploited by the opposition each year, and they arrogantly try to continue doing the same minimal moves expecting a different outcome. There needs to be serious reflection on this roster construction and why our people in charge of this roster construction sat on their hands fort so many seasons letting opportunities repeatedly pass us by and then we come up short as a direct result. Serious changes must be made! And department upgrades need to hapopen ASAP!

[Calvin Klein]

This loss was truly unfortunate! And the injuries to BOTH of Nurkic and Beal at the worst possible time in the season are just the sunsiest things ever to happen!! But there are key points of concern to focus upon in this game that have been discussed for awhile now throughout the season:

1- The overall lack of urgency and professionalism.
This loss much like all the lesser teams that we've let beat us all season reflect a delusional and misplaced arrogance wherein we take our situation for granted believing that we'll just coast through games to a win just on the basis of being superior on paper when IN REALITY (which our team isn't living in apparently) no win is guaranteed, and you must bring the full effort every single game because at the nba level, any team can beat you on any given night.

2- The same lack of basic basketball fundamentals that have plagued us the entire season have not been addressedAgain, since the beginning of the season we've carried these glaring issues and done nothing to correct them all season. And now unfortunately, we really don't have any time left to correct things. These players are NOT INEXPERIENCED ROOKIES HERE! These players have been playing basketball their entire lives and should under no circumstances be making such very basic rudimentary mistakes. And be making them over and over again repeatedly. These things to me at least reflect a passive, indifferent non chalant mentality that allows them to not focus and delude themselves into believing they are just better than everyone else and don't have to put in the work or effort to get better continually. Now a fair amount of this could be exhaustion with a top heavy roster right now, as well as lack of fully developed chemistry amongst a ragtag constructed roster. But the lack of focus and effort are inexcusable given our fully und4rstood stated expectations of this team.

3- Giving Away games to lesser teams consistently all throughout the season
I know this sounds somewhat redundent to the previous issues mentioned above, BUT this is more about understanding how critically important it truly is to NOT GIVE ANY GAMES AWAY and bank as many wins as you can early on! This very situation that we find ourselves in currently is reflective of not securing those wins/ tiebreakers early on with more effort and urgency. They should fully understand first that our team is built with an aging and injured core with a VERY LIMITED WINDOW OF CONTENTION at best and no legitimate future to look to due to b eing overzealous in what we gave up to try the gimmicky super team scheme with no depth contingency plan in place. I say this meaning that they needed to have a consistent "do or die!" "no tommorow" type of mentality. They needed to play with heart and passion, but haven't shown yet to have either. When you give games away so casually, it will come back to bite you!! And this lesson is one we never seem to learn.

4- The roster construction and value exchange from the trades doesn't equate to a legit contender
This has clearly been historically documented that superteams with no depth just don't win championships. And our front office glaringly ignored thse well documented facts and still opted to go "all in" without fully/ diligently planning for any supportive depth to sustain our team even from the jump or visualization of this premised strategy. Our front office has PERENNIALLY made gross errors in judgement in terms of valuation of assets, have intentionally IGNORED our roster weaknesses year after year that have been repeatedly exploited by the opposition each year, and they arrogantly try to continue doing the same minimal moves expecting a different outcome. There needs to be serious reflection on this roster construction and why our people in charge of this roster construction sat on their hands fort so many seasons letting opportunities repeatedly pass us by and then we come up short as a direct result. Serious changes must be made! And department upgrades need to hapopen ASAP!

Every obvious concern lots of people had about the roster construction for the Suns since Ishbia took over have been confirmed.

Injury prone roster. Suns were plagged with injuries throughout the season.
KD being old. Despite still being a great player. He can't perform at elite level consistently.
No point guard (4th quarter issues, turnover issues, ISO ball heavy team. All signs of a lack of point guard.)
No leadership.
No bench.

Nobody can deny these points anymore. It would be lunacy to do it. On the level of Ayton stans delusion.

And you used the correct word. Arrogance.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Read on Twitter

It's good that he understands the difference between talk and action, BUT it's now been 72 games in and.............................

[bwgood77]

I don't know. This game is a weird one, especially evaluating based on the #s. A few more free throws win it. Fewer turnovers win it. But we outrebounded them and held their shooting to terrible shooting. But they limited turnovers and shot better from the line.

But it shouldn't have been close in the first place.

Maybe it's ANOTHER wake up call before we hit this final tough stretch. As I predicted before the final 14, I expect us to finish 8th (prior to play in), and have 2 chances to get a playoff spot. Unless the Kings or Mavs really suffer. They play each other twice, so if one sweeps, it could help. The Mavs do have the Rockets and Warriors twice, as Saber mentioned, but the Warriors are not looking good and I expect Houston to cool off. Most of their wins were not against great teams and their schedule gets tougher.

[Ghost of Kleine]

I don't know. This game is a weird one, especially evaluating based on the #s. A few more free throws win it. Fewer turnovers win it. But we outrebounded them and held their shooting to terrible shooting. But they limited turnovers and shot better from the line.

But it shouldn't have been close in the first place.

Maybe it's ANOTHER wake up call before we hit this final tough stretch. As I predicted before the final 14, I expect us to finish 8th (prior to play in), and have 2 chances to get a playoff spot. Unless the Kings or Mavs really suffer. They play each other twice, so if one sweeps, it could help. The Mavs do have the Rockets and Warriors twice, as Saber mentioned, but the Warriors are not looking good and I expect Houston to cool off. Most of their wins were not against great teams and their schedule gets tougher.

Of course the details you mentioned are true in that it was a really close loss! And it really could've gone either way and ended up as a win. But the next part that you said is also true in that It really never should of been that close in the first place. With our level of talent, playing aainst one of if not the very worst team in the league. The concern that has reemerged repeatedly throughout the entire season with us has been and is still having no sense of urgency or professionalism in closing out lesser teams because we're (as a team) so arrogant that we keep taking these teams for granted believing that it's a foregone conclusion that we're just guaranteed a playoff birth and deep title run by virtue of having big splashy names on our team. It's pretty idiotic considering the level of experience shared between our big three, yet it's a simple lesson that we just refuse to learn and it keeps coming back to bite us in the azz!

This is why at the beginning of the season I had us finishing around 46/36 with a 1st round exit. Then of course followed up by the predictable response of these superteams just take time, and next year is our year because of the experience that we've built from this year.

[King4Day]

I think it was Gerald Bourguet who said this was our worst loss of the season. I still feel the first Spurs loss was. KD allowing Johnson to take the ball from him and them scoring and winning. I still haven't forgiven that loss.
This one was horrible but that other one was the most avoidable. Like, it just simply shouldn't have happened. Microcosm of the season