Game 50: Dallas Mavericks (25-24) @ Phoenix Suns (25-24)

[Ghost of Kleine]

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Not a shimmering endorsement here on Monty's adjustment abilities. But at least he's being honest about it I guess!

[lilfishi22]

Watched the whole game and rewatched the 4th quarter this morning. I never said we lost this game because Ayton missed a rebound, let Powell get through the back door multiple times or that he missed two dozen bunnies. I said we had multiple opportunities that were gifted to us and we weren't able to take advantage like Luka being out early and we had two guys closest to that critical rebound. It was a team loss but when DA is paid to be the man, he has to shoulder the responsibility that comes with being a max player just like Booker has to when we lose with him.

That’s cool. Just tell Craig get out the way next time.

While you're doing that, someone needs to tell Mikal to actually defend. Just once I'd like to see him shut another team's lead guy down. Since I have to hear about he's so much better than Ayton and is Kawhi 2.0....

This place has blinders on about Mikal and his deficiencies.

If you're bringing up Kawhi 2.0, why don't you bring up Shaq or David Robinson for DA

[lilfishi22]

Read on Twitter

Not a shimmering endorsement here on Monty's adjustment abilities. But at least he's being honest about it I guess!

Monty calling out the bench for not knowing the game plan and not being ready and you're criticising him for it?

[Slim Charless]

That’s cool. Just tell Craig get out the way next time.

While you're doing that, someone needs to tell Mikal to actually defend. Just once I'd like to see him shut another team's lead guy down. Since I have to hear about he's so much better than Ayton and is Kawhi 2.0....

This place has blinders on about Mikal and his deficiencies.

If you're bringing up Kawhi 2.0, why don't you bring up Shaq or David Robinson for DA

No one had ever called Ayton any form of Shaq. The Admiral? Maybe. That was when he was drafted. I heard Kawhi just a month or 2 ago in regards to Mikal.

His defense has fallen off.

[lilfishi22]

While you're doing that, someone needs to tell Mikal to actually defend. Just once I'd like to see him shut another team's lead guy down. Since I have to hear about he's so much better than Ayton and is Kawhi 2.0....

This place has blinders on about Mikal and his deficiencies.

If you're bringing up Kawhi 2.0, why don't you bring up Shaq or David Robinson for DA

No one had ever called Ayton any form of Shaq. The Admiral? Maybe. That was when he was drafted. I heard Kawhi just a month or 2 ago in regards to Mikal.

His defense has fallen off.

LOL DA has had way more comparisons to Shaq and the Admiral than Mikal has ever had with Kawhi.

Mikal still has a 4.03 DRPM which is 5th among SF's. So yes, his defense has dipped, certainly has nothing to do with playing every single game while every starter has been missed at least a handful of games each. The 4.03 is also a drop from 4.91 the season before.

On the other hand, DA had a DRPM of 4.19 last season and 3.22 the season before. Really really solid. It's 1.90 this season so if we're talking fallen off the cliff, don't forget your boy

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/DRPM/position/9

[Ghost of Kleine]

Read on Twitter

Not a shimmering endorsement here on Monty's adjustment abilities. But at least he's being honest about it I guess!

Monty calling out the bench for not knowing the game plan and not being ready and you're criticizing him for it?

No, I think you might have missed my point! The point wherein Monty himself says " I made a few subs and the energy went, the focus went."

The suns have struggled, Monty's rotations have been under scrutiny for a while now as has been his ability to adapt to "in game" schemes as well. with a new owner incoming in less than two weeks, and he himself says that after he (the coach- responsible for having the team ready, focused, and keeping them engaged) made his substitutions, and basically after his preferred substitutions, the energy went, and the focus went. Now kudos for him to call out accountability for the players. But he's also basically incriminating himself in this comment as he's responsible for the rotations that he himself acknowledged led to the energy leaving and focus leaving! Now to be clear here man, I absolutely respect that. But a new owner who'll likely be reviewing any/all issues relating to the team as well as the coaching staff issues and front office issues that might be affecting competitive performance and team trajectory, will have to take into account all of these stated issues towards whether or not he'll be retained.

Again, I have the utmost respect for those that hold themselves accountable for their weaknesses and/or deficiencies in their role seeking to improve/ get better. But these concerns have been ongoing for multiple seasons now with little to no measurable improvement to date. These same stated issues that Williams admitted to contributing to the Dallas loss. That's what I was referencing man.

[oddity]

Ayton had a poor shooting game. He wasn't perfect. But he certainly didn't lack motor. Heck, he almost made what could have been a game saving play knocking the ball out of Powell's hands, but unfortunately Craig for some reason reached out and touched it. That last rebound was going Craig's way. Ayton went for it. They got tangled. If Ayton doesn't go for it he gets crucified,but maybe Craig gets it.

Anyway, I'm not a guy who needs to pinpoint every loss on someone. He got a boatload of rebounds and a MASSIVE 7 offensive boards, giving us a bunch of extra shots, got to the line 10 times...I'm glad he was doing all these things when he wasn't shooting well.

He obviously made mistakes.

I think with his shooting this year he is getting into his own head. Had he just shot a little bit better, we would have won. But you can say that about a lot of players in games. Booker had a stretch of horrid shooting games for example right prior to his 58 point game, making between 4 and 6 shots in 4 consecutive games (shooting between 27 and 35%) as we got blown out by Dallas, Boston and New Orleans. He made 7 shots though in his game before those 4 games. He's had other games where he as like 8-27 too.

Bad shooting games happen.

A loss like this sucks but it was much more worrisome when Book was healthy and we were getting blown out on that streak with a healthy team.

The weird thing is he had that one 58 point game right after that horrible streak where we were blown out a bunch of times (though we did beat the 2nd/3rd string Clips one game) and hen he got injured the very next game. It was nice he had that unbelievable game before getting injured and didn't leave the sour taste of the previous 4 games....but right before he went out, things had looked really bad for a couple of weeks...and he wasn't playing well.

please stop bringing Book into this. When DA starts dropping 50 we can talk about 3 or 4 off shooting nights and make a false equivalence between a 27 and a 17 ppg scorer who's career high for a season is less than 3 free throw attempts a night. thanks

[oddity]

Ok, as hard on Ayton as I'm increasingly becoming this season, I don't see tonight as some amazing example of how bad DA is. In fact, I like the 20 FGAs, I liked how aggressively he played in the first half. I liked him getting to the line 10 times. BUT his disappearing act in the fourth is unforgivable. I've waxed poetic about how badly we need to trade Ayton for Pascal Siakam all season, but nothing I say can be as convincing as how Ayton is playing night in and night out. Even in a game that was a little ugly, but ultimately promising for the young big, Ayton is still seasons away from being ready to take that next step. Pascal would not have shied away from the ball in the 4th and that is exactly what we need.

[oddity]

If you're bringing up Kawhi 2.0, why don't you bring up Shaq or David Robinson for DA

No one had ever called Ayton any form of Shaq. The Admiral? Maybe. That was when he was drafted. I heard Kawhi just a month or 2 ago in regards to Mikal.

His defense has fallen off.

LOL DA has had way more comparisons to Shaq and the Admiral than Mikal has ever had with Kawhi.

Mikal still has a 4.03 DRPM which is 5th among SF's. So yes, his defense has dipped, certainly has nothing to do with playing every single game while every starter has been missed at least a handful of games each. The 4.03 is also a drop from 4.91 the season before.

On the other hand, DA had a DRPM of 4.19 last season and 3.22 the season before. Really really solid. It's 1.90 this season so if we're talking fallen off the cliff, don't forget your boy

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/DRPM/position/9

Just to piggyback on this post...
No one ever called DA Shaq... EXCEPT FOR DA HiMSELF. OH MY GOD DUDE. Does "Book and I can be the next Shaq and Kobe" mean nothing to you Slim lmaoooo

Lilfishi is right here - the only time people compare Mikal to Kawhi is when they compare Mikal to Kawhi's 1st championship season on the Spurs where he played a supporting role in the offense, anchored the defense, and averaged around 16 a game.

[Jesus_H_Macy]

Feels like everyone on the team is mediocre to bad on D this year. Even the second half of last season it felt like the D began to tail off. As a team I don't feel like we've been excellent on D since early last season. If the numbers say I'm wrong then fair enough. I'm surprised Mikal's D metric is that high and surprised DA's isn't lower.

Only guy that stands out this year as making any impactful plays on D is Okogie. And although I love his aggressiveness in going to the rim and he seems like he might be developing a decent set 3pt shot, he's still more often than not unplayable on O...

I just feel sick of the entire organization right now. I hope we get healthy and start winning again so I can put my orange shades back on at some point this year.

[bwgood77]

If you're bringing up Kawhi 2.0, why don't you bring up Shaq or David Robinson for DA

No one had ever called Ayton any form of Shaq. The Admiral? Maybe. That was when he was drafted. I heard Kawhi just a month or 2 ago in regards to Mikal.

His defense has fallen off.

LOL DA has had way more comparisons to Shaq and the Admiral than Mikal has ever had with Kawhi.

Mikal still has a 4.03 DRPM which is 5th among SF's. So yes, his defense has dipped, certainly has nothing to do with playing every single game while every starter has been missed at least a handful of games each. The 4.03 is also a drop from 4.91 the season before.

On the other hand, DA had a DRPM of 4.19 last season and 3.22 the season before. Really really solid. It's 1.90 this season so if we're talking fallen off the cliff, don't forget your boy

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/DRPM/position/9

No one compare Ayton to Shaq, except his reference to wanting to be Shaq and Kobe. People DID say prior to the draft he looked physically like Robinson, not anything at all that they played alike.....they played nothing alike.

People, even me, have talked about Mikal as potential a lesser version of Paul George or possibly even Kawhi. I still think he can become close to a Paul George type player.

[bwgood77]

Ok, as hard on Ayton as I'm increasingly becoming this season, I don't see tonight as some amazing example of how bad DA is. In fact, I like the 20 FGAs, I liked how aggressively he played in the first half. I liked him getting to the line 10 times. BUT his disappearing act in the fourth is unforgivable. I've waxed poetic about how badly we need to trade Ayton for Pascal Siakam all season, but nothing I say can be as convincing as how Ayton is playing night in and night out. Even in a game that was a little ugly, but ultimately promising for the young big, Ayton is still seasons away from being ready to take that next step. Pascal would not have shied away from the ball in the 4th and that is exactly what we need.

I think he made a lot of good steps too, whether it be the rebounding overall, offensive rebounding, 10 FTA, taking 20 shots when he could have gotten down on himself and stopped shooting. He was also apparently congested, wheezing and experiencing dizziness. People at the game said Monty shouldn't have played him so many minutes because he looked gassed. I am guessing this impacted his 4th qtr play.

[Slim Charless]

Ok, as hard on Ayton as I'm increasingly becoming this season, I don't see tonight as some amazing example of how bad DA is. In fact, I like the 20 FGAs, I liked how aggressively he played in the first half. I liked him getting to the line 10 times. BUT his disappearing act in the fourth is unforgivable. I've waxed poetic about how badly we need to trade Ayton for Pascal Siakam all season, but nothing I say can be as convincing as how Ayton is playing night in and night out. Even in a game that was a little ugly, but ultimately promising for the young big, Ayton is still seasons away from being ready to take that next step. Pascal would not have shied away from the ball in the 4th and that is exactly what we need.

I think he made a lot of good steps too, whether it be the rebounding overall, offensive rebounding, 10 FTA, taking 20 shots when he could have gotten down on himself and stopped shooting. He was also apparently congested, wheezing and experiencing dizziness. People at the game said Monty shouldn't have played him so many minutes because he looked gassed. I am guessing this impacted his 4th qtr play.

No one had ever called Ayton any form of Shaq. The Admiral? Maybe. That was when he was drafted. I heard Kawhi just a month or 2 ago in regards to Mikal.

His defense has fallen off.

LOL DA has had way more comparisons to Shaq and the Admiral than Mikal has ever had with Kawhi.

Mikal still has a 4.03 DRPM which is 5th among SF's. So yes, his defense has dipped, certainly has nothing to do with playing every single game while every starter has been missed at least a handful of games each. The 4.03 is also a drop from 4.91 the season before.

On the other hand, DA had a DRPM of 4.19 last season and 3.22 the season before. Really really solid. It's 1.90 this season so if we're talking fallen off the cliff, don't forget your boy

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/DRPM/position/9

Just to piggyback on this post...
No one ever called DA Shaq... EXCEPT FOR DA HiMSELF. OH MY GOD DUDE. Does "Book and I can be the next Shaq and Kobe" mean nothing to you Slim lmaoooo

Lilfishi is right here - the only time people compare Mikal to Kawhi is when they compare Mikal to Kawhi's 1st championship season on the Spurs where he played a supporting role in the offense, anchored the defense, and averaged around 16 a game.

I've heard the Mikal Kawhi comparisons often. PG13 too, but not as much. I think they're way off. He and OG seem very similar to me and I think they both have reached their peaks as players. Not that that's a bad thing, both are very good. In fact I'd love to pair them at the 3,4 for us.

Once, again. Yeah I've never seen DA and Shaq being compared. That's a bad comparison. They play nothing alike and never have-even back in his college days.

[lilfishi22]

No one had ever called Ayton any form of Shaq. The Admiral? Maybe. That was when he was drafted. I heard Kawhi just a month or 2 ago in regards to Mikal.

His defense has fallen off.

LOL DA has had way more comparisons to Shaq and the Admiral than Mikal has ever had with Kawhi.

Mikal still has a 4.03 DRPM which is 5th among SF's. So yes, his defense has dipped, certainly has nothing to do with playing every single game while every starter has been missed at least a handful of games each. The 4.03 is also a drop from 4.91 the season before.

On the other hand, DA had a DRPM of 4.19 last season and 3.22 the season before. Really really solid. It's 1.90 this season so if we're talking fallen off the cliff, don't forget your boy

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/DRPM/position/9

No one compare Ayton to Shaq, except his reference to wanting to be Shaq and Kobe. People DID say prior to the draft he looked physically like Robinson, not anything at all that they played alike.....they played nothing alike.

People, even me, have talked about Mikal as potential a lesser version of Paul George or possibly even Kawhi. I still think he can become close to a Paul George type player.

You're really telling me there were more talks of Mikal being Kawhi or PG than the DA/Admiral/Shaq/other elite bigs comparisons?

[bwgood77]

LOL DA has had way more comparisons to Shaq and the Admiral than Mikal has ever had with Kawhi.

Mikal still has a 4.03 DRPM which is 5th among SF's. So yes, his defense has dipped, certainly has nothing to do with playing every single game while every starter has been missed at least a handful of games each. The 4.03 is also a drop from 4.91 the season before.

On the other hand, DA had a DRPM of 4.19 last season and 3.22 the season before. Really really solid. It's 1.90 this season so if we're talking fallen off the cliff, don't forget your boy

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/DRPM/position/9

No one compare Ayton to Shaq, except his reference to wanting to be Shaq and Kobe. People DID say prior to the draft he looked physically like Robinson, not anything at all that they played alike.....they played nothing alike.

People, even me, have talked about Mikal as potential a lesser version of Paul George or possibly even Kawhi. I still think he can become close to a Paul George type player.

You're really telling me there were more talks of Mikal being Kawhi or PG than the DA/Admiral/Shaq/other elite bigs comparisons?

Over the past 2-3 years? Yes. I heard some Admiral comparisons in physique pre draft, but that's about it. Not Shaq other than Ayton's one comment.

[lilfishi22]

No one compare Ayton to Shaq, except his reference to wanting to be Shaq and Kobe. People DID say prior to the draft he looked physically like Robinson, not anything at all that they played alike.....they played nothing alike.

People, even me, have talked about Mikal as potential a lesser version of Paul George or possibly even Kawhi. I still think he can become close to a Paul George type player.

You're really telling me there were more talks of Mikal being Kawhi or PG than the DA/Admiral/Shaq/other elite bigs comparisons?

Over the past 2-3 years? Yes. I heard some Admiral comparisons in physique pre draft, but that's about it. Not Shaq other than Ayton's one comment.

Last 2-3 years as in after his rookie/sophomore seasons and after virtually everyone realised he's not close to any of his pre-draft comps?

[bwgood77]

You're really telling me there were more talks of Mikal being Kawhi or PG than the DA/Admiral/Shaq/other elite bigs comparisons?

Over the past 2-3 years? Yes. I heard some Admiral comparisons in physique pre draft, but that's about it. Not Shaq other than Ayton's one comment.

Last 2-3 years as in after his rookie/sophomore seasons and after virtually everyone realised he's not close to any of his pre-draft comps?

Yeah, I never thought a Robinson comp made much sense outside of physique, after watching him at AZ. After watching at AZ, that's why I wanted Luka., knowing Luka was dominating Euroleague already at 17,

[bwgood77]

You're really telling me there were more talks of Mikal being Kawhi or PG than the DA/Admiral/Shaq/other elite bigs comparisons?

Over the past 2-3 years? Yes. I heard some Admiral comparisons in physique pre draft, but that's about it. Not Shaq other than Ayton's one comment.

Last 2-3 years as in after his rookie/sophomore seasons and after virtually everyone realised he's not close to any of his pre-draft comps?

Yeah, I never thought a Robinson comp made much sense outside of physique, after watching him at AZ. After watching at AZ, that's why I wanted Luka., knowing Luka was dominating Euroleague already at 17,

[Slim Charless]

LOL DA has had way more comparisons to Shaq and the Admiral than Mikal has ever had with Kawhi.

Mikal still has a 4.03 DRPM which is 5th among SF's. So yes, his defense has dipped, certainly has nothing to do with playing every single game while every starter has been missed at least a handful of games each. The 4.03 is also a drop from 4.91 the season before.

On the other hand, DA had a DRPM of 4.19 last season and 3.22 the season before. Really really solid. It's 1.90 this season so if we're talking fallen off the cliff, don't forget your boy

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/DRPM/position/9

No one compare Ayton to Shaq, except his reference to wanting to be Shaq and Kobe. People DID say prior to the draft he looked physically like Robinson, not anything at all that they played alike.....they played nothing alike.

People, even me, have talked about Mikal as potential a lesser version of Paul George or possibly even Kawhi. I still think he can become close to a Paul George type player.

You're really telling me there were more talks of Mikal being Kawhi or PG than the DA/Admiral/Shaq/other elite bigs comparisons?

I never said Admiral. I specifically mentioned Shaq. I've heard the David Robinson comps.