Game 78: New Orleans Pelicans (45-32) @ Phoenix Suns (46-31) l Sunday l 3:00pm l AZFamily

[Slim Charless]

Big 3: 23-14
Book/KD: 12-8
Book/Beal: 3-1
Beal/KD: 4-4
KD: 2-4
Book: 2-1
Beal: 0-0

Total: 46-32

We're not the Suns, we're the Dones.

I feel like you skip these when we're on win streaks Mayagi-San and it's updated faster when we lose.....

Nonetheless, I feel good about the Big 3 and surprisingly good about a potential Beal/Booker pairing next yr if KD asks out. Those 2 plus whatever assets we get will prove wonders for us if need be.

[Hitachi77]

There is an outside chance the Suns could make it to 4th place in the standings. Currently the Clippers are getting slaughtered by the Cavs, the Mavs are losing to the Rockets.

A Clippers loss would put them at 49-28
A Mavs loss would put them at 47-31
A Suns win would put them at 47-31

We play the Clippers back to back, which could tie the Suns and Clippers record at 49-31. Suns would have a tied series with the Clippers since we lost the previous two games to the Clippers. First game Suns lost by 7 (without KD), 2nd game Suns got smashed by 27. So I'm unsure how the tiebreaker would work.

Just putting it out there.

It's my fault guys. This post is the reason we lost... and that the Clippers won... despite being down 21 at half... and that the Mavs won in OT against the Rockets.

Clippers and Mavs wins are fine. We want the Clippers hosting the Mavs in the 4-5, and it might mean less urgency in them bringing back Kawhi.

[Frank Lee]

Book sure is streaky from 3 lately.

[Calvin Klein]

I know eubanks sucks but I just think Vogel sticks with him because he is the only big who can defend quicker guys. Or at least in theory he can. Vogel has no options on defense. Who is suited to defend Zion on this roster? Absolutely nobody.

[Hitachi77]

Inexcusable loss. Should have locked up the 6th spot, instead we'll have to beat the clippers now twice to even hold on to it.

Well the Pelicans still probably lose 1-2 more games and we have the tiebreaker vs them. The Kings probably lose 1-2 more too. The Kings play the Pelicans so obviously 1 loss is guaranteed between the two.

I think the Lakers have the highest chance to jump us as they might run the table. But if OKC is at 3, us being at 7 might just work out (gotta win the playin though obv).

[Mr Puddles]

Inexcusable loss. Should have locked up the 6th spot, instead we'll have to beat the clippers now twice to even hold on to it.

Well the Pelicans still probably lose 1-2 more games and we have the tiebreaker vs them. The Kings probably lose 1-2 more too. The Kings play the Pelicans so obviously 1 loss is guaranteed between the two.

I think the Lakers have the highest chance to jump us as they might run the table. But if OKC is at 3, us being at 7 might just work out (gotta win the playin though obv).

Unlike us, the Lakers and Pelicans will not have a gimme at the end of the season (since they're facing each other) , which makes a big difference imo. The suns effectively only have 3 games left, and then a game for which the Wolves will likely roll out their C squad.

Overall, we're still most likely to get the 6th spot, but the Suns didn't make things easy on themselves by dropping today's game.

[Saberestar]

I know eubanks sucks but I just think Vogel sticks with him because he is the only big who can defend quicker guys. Or at least in theory he can. Vogel has no options on defense. Who is suited to defend Zion on this roster? Absolutely nobody.

It would have been much better to put Royce O'Neale on him and KD as a help defender.

O'Neale played just 14 minutes today.

[Calvin Klein]

I know eubanks sucks but I just think Vogel sticks with him because he is the only big who can defend quicker guys. Or at least in theory he can. Vogel has no options on defense. Who is suited to defend Zion on this roster? Absolutely nobody.

It would have been much better to put Royce O'Neale on him and KD as a help defender.

O'Neale played just 14 minutes today.

He is too small though isn’t he? I just don’t see anybody in the roster who can do a decent job against him

[Saberestar]

I know eubanks sucks but I just think Vogel sticks with him because he is the only big who can defend quicker guys. Or at least in theory he can. Vogel has no options on defense. Who is suited to defend Zion on this roster? Absolutely nobody.

It would have been much better to put Royce O'Neale on him and KD as a help defender.

O'Neale played just 14 minutes today.

He is too small though isn’t he? I just don’t see anybody in the roster who can do a decent job against him

He plays bigger than his size.

No one can really defend Zion one on one very well, but Nurkic can't move his feet against perimeter players or Zion. He was literally a chair out there and offensively he created more problems than solutions. They wanted us to give the ball to Nurkic around the paint.

It's nice to have him against big man like Valanciunas or Gobert. But If they don't play at all you have to sit Nurkic after watching that he couldn't help on any side of the court for a bunch of minutes.

[Calvin Klein]

It would have been much better to put Royce O'Neale on him and KD as a help defender.

O'Neale played just 14 minutes today.

He is too small though isn’t he? I just don’t see anybody in the roster who can do a decent job against him

He plays bigger than his size.

No one can really defend Zion one on one very well, but Nurkic can't move his feet against perimeter players or Zion. He was literally a chair out there and offensively he created more problems than solutions. They wanted us to give the ball to Nurkic around the paint.

It's nice to have him against big man like Valanciunas or Gobert. But If they don't play at all you have to sit Nurkic after watching that he couldn't help on any side of the court for a bunch of minutes.

Yes, Nurkic will probably be bench a few times during the playoffs. I like him a lot but he is one of those players that can be taken out of the game with certain matchups

[lilfishi22]

I know eubanks sucks but I just think Vogel sticks with him because he is the only big who can defend quicker guys. Or at least in theory he can. Vogel has no options on defense. Who is suited to defend Zion on this roster? Absolutely nobody.

It would have been much better to put Royce O'Neale on him and KD as a help defender.

O'Neale played just 14 minutes today.

He is too small though isn’t he? I just don’t see anybody in the roster who can do a decent job against him

Doesn't hurt to try. We regularly stick Beal on Zion and RON is basically the same size but heavier.

But when it comes to Zion, when he's got it going on, he's basically impossible to stop outside of forcing him to take jumpers away from the basket. He's like a prime Lebron when he's going downhill

[garrick]

I know everyone wants to focus on Vogel adjusting and going small. I don’t think he should have. Suns lost this game because Book was not aggressive enough when we needed him to be, also shot 0-6 from three, KD was off, Grayson was terrible on BOTH ends (he is why we lost actually). The only adjustment Vogel should have done is more Royce for Grayson.


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Unfortunately we're going to have to overpay for Grayson for at least 20M per season but he's just a role player that can't carry this team like a star can.

Not particularly fast or athletic enough to be a lockdown defender or an elite scorer, hopefully his stats can mirror JJ Reddick who really picked up his scoring after age 29 and he did have some high scoring seasons in his 30's.

[lilfishi22]

Didn’t Thad Young actually play well when he was given mins recently? How the hell is Eubanks still ahead of him in the rotation? What the f**k man.

Vogel's favorite player in the entire league is Eubanks. He believes in him and loves him over everything.

This is Monty Williams and Landry Shamet all over again. Pathetic.

It's another situation where we don't have better options elsewhere. I don't think Had brings enough quickness to recover when beaten off the dribble. Likewise we never had a real backup to Book at the guard position outside of Shamet.

If Bol could play C, I don't think Eubanks would see any minutes but he can't so it's Eubanks

[lilfishi22]

I know everyone wants to focus on Vogel adjusting and going small. I don’t think he should have. Suns lost this game because Book was not aggressive enough when we needed him to be, also shot 0-6 from three, KD was off, Grayson was terrible on BOTH ends (he is why we lost actually). The only adjustment Vogel should have done is more Royce for Grayson.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Unfortunately we're going to have to overpay for Grayson for at least 20M per season but he's just a role player that can't carry this team like a star can.

Not particularly fast or athletic enough to be a lockdown defender or an elite scorer, hopefully his stats can mirror JJ Reddick who really picked up his scoring after age 29 and he did have some high scoring seasons in his 30's.

$20m these days is the going rate for a starting level role player which is what Grayson is. Grayson is also way more versatile on both ends of the court than JJ who's basically just a shooter.

[sunsbg]

At least Lakers lose too. I guess Suns destiny still in their own hands. Though that means a TO this season.

Kings play Pels and us on a b2b, so hopefully they win first game and are tired for the second.

[sashaturiaf]

What a bum fat zion is

So when he decides to try he's a world beater(all because of physical gifts), but 90% of games he's just sleepwalking and just waiting to DM instathots after the game. Really glad we don't have to watch this bum on a nightly basis

[Hitachi77]

That Lakers loss to Minnesota is good and bad. Good for the 6 seed. Bad because it makes it more likely OKC stays at 3. The Twolves are very likely going to have the tiebreaker over OKC, unless it ends up as a 3 way tiebreaker which is unlikely. So the only way OKC climbs to the 2 is if they run the table and Minny drops the games to Denver and us, which is very unlike because OKC is either playing terribly or tanking.

[Revived]

Vogel's favorite player in the entire league is Eubanks. He believes in him and loves him over everything.

This is Monty Williams and Landry Shamet all over again. Pathetic.

It's another situation where we don't have better options elsewhere. I don't think Had brings enough quickness to recover when beaten off the dribble.

Eubanks doesn’t bring that quickness either, he’s routinely beat off dribble so I don’t understand your point?

[lilfishi22]

This is Monty Williams and Landry Shamet all over again. Pathetic.

It's another situation where we don't have better options elsewhere. I don't think Had brings enough quickness to recover when beaten off the dribble.

Eubanks doesn’t bring that quickness either, he’s routinely beat off dribble so I don’t understand your point?

He's quicker than Bol, Nurk and Thad at this point in his career. He's almost certainly quicker than Udoka

Is there another 5 on the roster I don't know about?

[Saberestar]

It's another situation where we don't have better options elsewhere. I don't think Had brings enough quickness to recover when beaten off the dribble.

Eubanks doesn’t bring that quickness either, he’s routinely beat off dribble so I don’t understand your point?

He's quicker than Bol, Nurk and Thad at this point in his career. He's almost certainly quicker than Udoka

Is there another 5 on the roster I don't know about?

I don’t think that he is quicker than Bol or Thad. He certainly has more strength and he is somewhat more explosive but that doesn't translate as a net positive because of his awful awareness/lack of touch/terrible passing and overall a superlow basketball IQ.

Javale McGee had a really low basketball IQ but at least he was a physical specimen with crazy measurements. Eubanks is even small for a C.

I would play Thad always over him. The few times that he has played he has done a good job...but oh well, it will not happen.