Game 39: Phoenix Suns (20-18) @ Cleveland Cavaliers (24-14) l Wednesday l 5:00pm l BSAZ

[bwgood77]

We did play tough but we also have a deficit of talent on this team, shooting, rebounding, length, athleticism, it's pretty glaring

Yeah, it definitely is without Book and Cam an Crowder. We looked like the best team last year and had a better net rating with Cam in place of Crowder.

We could use more athleticism, a tough PF that can rebound...can always use more shooting but Cam changes that a lot. Book too.

I am not quitting on this team until at least Feb 10. Payne needs to get healthy; Cam J and of course Booker. The team has been missing 4 of top 8 players almost the whole season

Yeah, too many people jumping ship, or just show up to make a negative post about us being done. Some seem legit pissed off like this is so much more than a game and entertainment.

Have to see what we look like when healthy post trade deadline. If we are 11th, I will root for us to get up to 8th..if we end up 9th or 10th, I will be excited for the play in game, and if we win that, the next one, and if we get the 8th seed, excited to face the Nuggets, Pelicans or Grizzlies and if healthy, none scare me a ton. I'd prefer Denver, but hey, even if we finished higher we'd likely have to face 1 or 2 of those anyway.

And if we lose a play in game and get a lotto pick, there is silver lining there too..we are better than our finish because we had all those injuries and we get a lotterly pick to get a good player or, if we get lucky and jump to top 4, maybe a great one.

[bwgood77]

Well it’s been fun but I think I’ll take up knitting over watching Suns games at this point. Anyone here want to be knitting partners besides Grumpysaddle he already gave his consent earlier.

No, but we could have an Amazon watch party and repeatedly watch Titanic to appease our Suns withdrawals.

[bwgood77]

Were Okogie and Landale injured or just not play?

[grumpysaddle]

Were Okogie and Landale injured or just not play?

[bwgood77]

Don’t be surprised if CP3 quietly asks Jones to trade him to a contender before the deadline. Not like that sort of deal would be realistic but I could see the request. CP3 knows this team ain’t **** and this may be the last playoff run of his career.

I'd be surprised, 1, if he asked, and 2, if any contender would even want to trade out $30 million for him given what he is owed next year. Who are the contenders? Bucks, Celtics, Nets, Sixers, Cavs, Nuggets, Grizzlies, Pelicans....don't see any of those teams wanting him. Clips? That's been brought up. I guess if those others are 1% chance, Clips might be 3 or 4% chance.

He is a guy that knows not to get too high or low and that with Book and Cam back we are a lot better.

He's not like most everyone here..a guy that will give up on the team.

I made clear that it is unrealistic, not sure you needed to make up some arbitrary percentages to drive my own point home. But I could see Clippers, Philly, or Denver having some interest. Lakers too but they aren’t a contender.

Spare me the orange tinted glasses. It’s okay to call a team, front office, player, coach out if they are not performing up to their standard. We’ve seen what the team can do and this isn’t just an injury issue this season.

Just giving my opinion on how realistic I think it is for Paul to ask out or a team to want him. Paul is a pro's pro and loves this team..has said there has not been another team he's been on that is like this one. He is not the type of guy to give up when the going gets tough like so many fans do.

Orange tinted? Rose colored? Well, things are all relative to expectations. When healthy, our team was better than I expected, and we haven't really been healthy at all outside of like the first 7 games, where our starters led the league or at least had an insane net rating.

Just because others think there is some big issue this season if the team was healthy, doesn't mean I do, but I'm also not thinking one move makes a championship...it takes a lot..including luck, circumstance, healthiness, and much more.

I have stated my concerns and I know we disagree on fundamental things such as trading picks, pushing all chips in now instead of retaining flexibilty assets to prolong this young team's chance to grow, etc.

We are both fans and both have different viewpoints. Neither are right or wrong and it's fine...we are all going to want to go about things differently..it doesn't make us better or worse fans and we can still know we are ultimately in it together.

We have disagreed on things in the past, whether it was trading for Russell, drafting Culver vs Clarke or something else...and we have agreed, like both wanting Luka (pretty sure you did too)...

It's great to have a lot of fans with different takes.

I generally hate overall negativity...especially when it gets really bad, because I don't see a big point in it and it just brings everyone down more, but I understand that people want to vent and throw blame..it's human nature.

And I do get pissed off sometimes...in a big playoff game like the Spurs series with ejections and all that or the Rockets game 7 in 95 (or that whole series after game 4).

Last year's Mavs was just depressing, and I though Paul was off, and I thought something was wrong with him after game 2, but ultimately I felt our team, being a young team with no playoff experience for most of our core the year before, got too far too fast, in large part probably due to injuries on teams, and expectations were high and we just don't have that playoff resiliency yet.

That's why sometimes teams that do worse in the regular season go further in the post season (the Bucks when they won it all had better regular seasons the previous years)...not that I think we will go far this season..too injured probably)....but I think our core will be better with more playoff experience. Luka had already faced two brutal 1st round losses to the Clips, one in which they were up 2-0 winning the first two on the road.

Back to the point about Paul, I just don't see him being that type of guy. I don't think for a second he'd give up on the team. I think there would be a bigger chance (though it a very small one) that we would think about trading him to LA or something if he was ok with it, but I don't really see that either.

[bwgood77]

Mikal Bridges has shooting last 15 games field goals avg 36%. 13/15 games under 0.500. As a second option that no enough right now. Most of the reason we lost 4-5 games that period.

Yes, he is VERY good in a glue guy role, and very efficient on low volume. You do not want him as one of your top scoring options or one of the guys with the most shots on a nightly basis. I don't think he should be judged much on that.

Sure, I wish he would play better, I hope he does, and he shouldn't be shooting that poorly...I don't expect to see it long term, but we are losing because Book and Cam and others are not playing and we are severely shorthanded.

[grumpysaddle]

Mikal Bridges has shooting last 15 games field goals avg 36%. 13/15 games under 0.500. As a second option that no enough right now. Most of the reason we lost 4-5 games that period.

Yes, he is VERY good in a glue guy role, and very efficient on low volume. You do not want him as one of your top scoring options or one of the guys with the most shots on a nightly basis. I don't think he should be judged much on that.

Sure, I wish he would play better, I hope he does, and he shouldn't be shooting that poorly...I don't expect to see it long term, but we are losing because Book and Cam and others are not playing and we are severely shorthanded.

Booker really deserves more MVP attention considering how TERRIBLE this team is without him and how much better his teammates all look with him in games.

[SunsRback4Good]

Mikal Bridges has shooting last 15 games field goals avg 36%. 13/15 games under 0.500. As a second option that no enough right now. Most of the reason we lost 4-5 games that period.

Yes, he is VERY good in a glue guy role, and very efficient on low volume. You do not want him as one of your top scoring options or one of the guys with the most shots on a nightly basis. I don't think he should be judged much on that.

Sure, I wish he would play better, I hope he does, and he shouldn't be shooting that poorly...I don't expect to see it long term, but we are losing because Book and Cam and others are not playing and we are severely shorthanded.

Booker really deserves more MVP attention considering how TERRIBLE this team is without him and how much better his teammates all look with him in games.

Booker draws so much attention it’s contagious and Cam is money anywhere on the court. We need those two guys badly to complete the puzzle.

[grumpysaddle]

Yes, he is VERY good in a glue guy role, and very efficient on low volume. You do not want him as one of your top scoring options or one of the guys with the most shots on a nightly basis. I don't think he should be judged much on that.

Sure, I wish he would play better, I hope he does, and he shouldn't be shooting that poorly...I don't expect to see it long term, but we are losing because Book and Cam and others are not playing and we are severely shorthanded.

Booker really deserves more MVP attention considering how TERRIBLE this team is without him and how much better his teammates all look with him in games.

Booker draws so much attention it’s contagious and Cam is money anywhere on the court. We need those two guys badly to complete the puzzle.

If Book comes back and the team somehow gets back into the top 4 after, he should be the hands down MVP.

[SunsRback4Good]

Booker really deserves more MVP attention considering how TERRIBLE this team is without him and how much better his teammates all look with him in games.

Booker draws so much attention it’s contagious and Cam is money anywhere on the court. We need those two guys badly to complete the puzzle.

If Book comes back and the team somehow gets back into the top 4 after, he should be the hands down MVP.

Most definitely but it might be too late to get top 4 with 30 something games remaining. But we definitely need to finish 6th and stay away from play-in games. We could beat anyone once healthy Grizzlies, Nuggets don’t scare me only Pelicans and to a certain extent Warriors do, but Warriors are hobbled right now who knows what seed they finish in.

[grumpysaddle]

Booker draws so much attention it’s contagious and Cam is money anywhere on the court. We need those two guys badly to complete the puzzle.

If Book comes back and the team somehow gets back into the top 4 after, he should be the hands down MVP.

Most definitely but it might be too late to get top 4 with 30 something games remaining. But we definitely need to finish 6th and stay away from play-in games. We could beat anyone once healthy Grizzlies, Nuggets don’t scare me only Pelicans and to a certain extent Warriors do, but Warriors are hobbled right now who knows what seed they finish in.

That's my point. Getting this team back in the Top 4 would be a MONUMENTAL feat.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Monty in press conference seems deflated and defeated. I feel like he's done and hoping for an out at this point.

Kind of feel sorry for him in that He had a pretty nice luxury with Paul before the rapid decline! And in having Booker elevate his game significantly really helped to cover his inadequacies. I'm sure having a HOF level player coach on the floor directing things and also an elite star level scorer combo together provided significant insulation for him as it would any coach. But now with Paul's rapid decline, Book's injury keeping him out and our up and down core and lackluster inconsistent 3rd string quality bench, He's getting exposed pretty badly. Monty's a quality coach for sure and a truly great guy too! But he's just not an elite coach. around average when it's all said and done upon full reflection and body of work! And unfortunately it'd take a truly elite coach to extract enough productivity and focus out of this team considering all of the adversity! If they intend to keep him, they seriously need to also surround him with a more elite group of assistant coaches to help him evolve quicker through this adversity! Monty needs an X's and O's coach/strategist extraordinaire, An elite disciplinarian that can encourage/ enforce proper focus habits that develop grit and determination, They definitely need to hire an elite shooting coach, and a very high caliber development and strength and training staff!

[sunsbg]

Mikal Bridges has shooting last 15 games field goals avg 36%. 13/15 games under 0.500. As a second option that no enough right now. Most of the reason we lost 4-5 games that period.

Yes, he is VERY good in a glue guy role, and very efficient on low volume. You do not want him as one of your top scoring options or one of the guys with the most shots on a nightly basis. I don't think he should be judged much on that.

Sure, I wish he would play better, I hope he does, and he shouldn't be shooting that poorly...I don't expect to see it long term, but we are losing because Book and Cam and others are not playing and we are severely shorthanded.

Some people here were fine giving him near max money, 27M or close. Good Jones didn't give him anything more than very good glue guy type of money.

[SunsRback4Good]

Mikal Bridges has shooting last 15 games field goals avg 36%. 13/15 games under 0.500. As a second option that no enough right now. Most of the reason we lost 4-5 games that period.

Yes, he is VERY good in a glue guy role, and very efficient on low volume. You do not want him as one of your top scoring options or one of the guys with the most shots on a nightly basis. I don't think he should be judged much on that.

Sure, I wish he would play better, I hope he does, and he shouldn't be shooting that poorly...I don't expect to see it long term, but we are losing because Book and Cam and others are not playing and we are severely shorthanded.

Some people here were fine giving him near max money, 27M or close. Good Jones didn't give him anything more than very good glue guy type of money.

I was wrong about Bridges I thought he would step up in Booker’s absence yet failed to do so. This guy can hit shots has a beautiful release but is feeling the pressure of being a top 1a/1b option with Ayton. You know what Ayton can do on the court he will usually give you 17-25 pts with ease but rebounds can fluctuate. With Bridges some are good games while other are bad. Recently 6 out of 7 games were pretty bad. I still want to keep him cause he can defend opponents best player and that makes him valuable anything he gives us offensively is a plus.

[lilfishi22]

Monty in press conference seems deflated and defeated. I feel like he's done and hoping for an out at this point.

Kind of feel sorry for him in that He had a pretty nice luxury with Paul before the rapid decline! And in having Booker elevate his game significantly really helped to cover his inadequacies. I'm sure having a HOF level player coach on the floor directing things and also an elite star level scorer combo together provided significant insulation for him as it would any coach. But now with Paul's rapid decline, Book's injury keeping him out and our up and down core and lackluster inconsistent 3rd string quality bench, He's getting exposed pretty badly. Monty's a quality coach for sure and a truly great guy too! But he's just not an elite coach. around average when it's all said and done upon full reflection and body of work! And unfortunately it'd take a truly elite coach to extract enough productivity and focus out of this team considering all of the adversity! If they intend to keep him, they seriously need to also surround him with a more elite group of assistant coaches to help him evolve quicker through this adversity! Monty needs an X's and O's coach/strategist extraordinaire, An elite disciplinarian that can encourage/ enforce proper focus habits that develop grit and determination, They definitely need to hire an elite shooting coach, and a very high caliber development and strength and training staff!

Totally agree we need to shake up that coaching staff because I too believe Monty needs help. That's not an indictment on Monty's coaching ability because every head coach, elite or not has a staff who help them with their weaknesses. That should be something the Suns front office should be helping to facilitate.

As for our current situation, even elite coaches can only do so much with the guys who are available to play. Raptors are 16-21 with a solid but not elite roster and a championship level coach. The Heat with their Heat culture are barely above .500 with a championship level roster that has neither been healthy nor consistent yet has a coach who's probably top 3 in the league over the past decade and a half. Likewise the Warriors are also right where we are record-wise with an elite coach with all the x's and o's in his back pocket but can only do so much with a system that's built around Steph doing Steph things. Coach Lue? He hasn't been able to do much with a injury-impacted roster either. On the other hand, JB Bickerstaff who most considered an average coach until last season is getting mad praise for elevating that Cleveland team to 4th in the East yet nobody suggests taking anything away from him now that he has a great talent in Mitchell on the team. But when we get CP3, he gets all the credit for getting us competitive but Monty is the scapegoat for all our woes when things aren't going well. Why doesn't Monty get any credit for helping Book elevate his game? Why doesn't Monty get credit for putting CP3 in a position and in a system where he/team could be maximised? When it comes to Monty, to some (not saying you specifically) he's done nothing but just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right team as if his body of work over the last couple of seasons were just so-so.

Monty isn't perfect and I mentioned last offseason I would be in favor of parting ways with him if that was the direction we were considering but some are really pretending like replacing Monty with Coach X would fix our injury issue, somehow give DA the aggressiveness and ball handling ability he needs to be a legit #2, get Mikal to be aggressive, get CP3 to reverse his aging or get Crowder to play for the Suns again...

Replacing Monty isn't a magic bullet.

[Bogyo]

I still dont get why the CP+Crowder for Love+Rubio trade isn't happening.
Thats a gift for literally everyone involved. Teams, players, front offices, owners, fans, you name it - win-win-win all around.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Absolutely agree with all of your points in your post! It's like the basketball gods are balancing out the advantages they gifted us in our finals run with Paul when the majority of Western conference contenders had key players and/ or stars out for pretty the majority of our series. There's really nothing that you can do with so many players out besides just play as hard as you can, toughen up and platoon together battling by committee to cover your teammates and weather the storm until the key players return to help! But it's even harder for a decent But not great coach like Monty in this situation as it leaves him pretty much a " lame duck" in this scenario! And maybe...........

Just maybe if he had a stronger supporting cast alongside him off the bench too, then maybe all these distractions and adversity wouldn't be as unmanageable for him as he'd have better minds to help shoulder the burden of the situation and figure things out or at least adapt quicker and navigate through this storm more effectively! He's a truly nice guy and a salt of the earth! But a truly strong presence that demands accountability, discipline and focus is sorely lacking on our coaching bench.

Monty for all his successes just doesn't possess those dominant characteristics/ qualities needed to properly motivate, or keep the players focused, disciplined and consistently dialed in to the proven successful team dynamic/ scheme. He's still a quality coach for sure! But all the greatest coaches also had/ have great supporting casts to help carry the burden of large scale necessity adaptations and evolutions for their team's success. And under the parsimonious skinflint " Saver" ( every penny he can)! We've been undercut and bottomlined into near irrelevance yet again as has been the procedural pattern for Saver every time we get close under his tenure here! And it looks like he's intending to give us one last big foam finger on his way out the door!

I've settled into the realization that big changes throughout the franchise are coming regardless of what we may want or what's fair! So whilst there is no magic bullet for replacing Monty, the further we fall down the rabbit hole, the greater the odds of drastic reactionary changes being implemented throughout. Even possibly and very likely with regards to him as well. I'm at the point of acceptance in any outcome with the singular peace of to know at least we'll finally be free of Saver! Then hopefully the healing and competitive resurrection can begin!!! But in the meantime, I'd just as rather not put exponential wear and tear on our primary star whilst also running our other core players into the ground early in the pursuit of a medial and ultimately still quite disappointing outcome at best! Risking the longterm durability of our core to offset our injuries in the pursuit of a likely early offseason exit and a finish well lower than our stated goals seems frivolous and shortsighted to our long term success/ sustainability!

We need to be more conservative and protective of our core upon the acceptance of the reality of our imminent projection. And get a jumpstart on adding talent and legitimate depth whilst exercising greater caution and restraint with Booker and other exhausted Core players too. Sometimes the strongest and smartest move you can make is to know when to accept your losses and take a step back to come back stronger!

[garrick]

Mikal Bridges has shooting last 15 games field goals avg 36%. 13/15 games under 0.500. As a second option that no enough right now. Most of the reason we lost 4-5 games that period.

He's really only a 3rd or even a 4th option and one of the biggest reasons we have been losing is he has largely been unable to contribute much more than 10 points per game on most of the nights when one of our players stepped up.

Shamet contributed 30 points on two occasions as well as Ayton on 1 occasion and had Bridges been able to score like 20 at least we would have had three more wins but he has been absolutely brutal for most of this stretch. His go to move is the fadeaway but I really don't like that shot because it's one that he won't ever get a foul called for and it's just been so unreliable he would be better off trying to drive and create contact instead.

Both Bridges and Ayton need to take some lessons from CP3 on how to draw contact and get to the line sometimes because when their jumpers are not falling it's pretty ugly.

[SkyBill40]

Ayton 18rebs while Allen+Mobley 16rebs. Ayton owned those guys. Just give us PF and healthy Booker. Noone team can stop us winning the Title.

That must be sarcasm because it's not rooted in fact. Hell, there's several teams in our conference, let alone not bringing anyone into the East into the conversation, that can stop us dead in the first round alone.

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