Game 55: Phoenix Suns (29-25) @ Minnesota T-Wolves (11-42)

[Revived]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/AminESPN/status/568977457933631488[/tweet]
Lol, Amin along with Grant Hill, did not like how McD said Bledsoe & Kieff are better than Dragic!

Bledsoe chose the wrong day to crap the bed, he should have known the spot light will be on him to see if he can the run himself.

[NavLDO]

We need to sign T Rob asap. we need his hustle rebounding and energy and we need another big man

would be a great signing

Is there any "waiver awarding" process he has to go through, or can he sign anywhere he wants? If it's completely up to him, and so long as McD has a desire to sign him, you'd have to believe that the Suns would be one of his desired destinations with the Mo Bros, right?

Overall, I agree. Earl Barron is NOT the answer for our 4th big going forward.

[RunDogGun]

We need to sign T Rob asap. we need his hustle rebounding and energy and we need another big man

would be a great signing

Is there any "waiver awarding" process he has to go through, or can he sign anywhere he wants? If it's completely up to him, and so long as McD has a desire to sign him, you'd have to believe that the Suns would be one of his desired destinations with the Mo Bros, right?

Overall, I agree. Earl Barron is NOT the answer for our 4th big going forward.

It depends if he gets bought out or if he is waived. If he is bought out, he should be able to sign anywhere.

It was weird, but the game changed last night when Bennett went down and Dieng played the four spot. He was doing some crafty vet sh*t, pushing guys on the hips when they went for rebounds. I am surprised the refs allowed him to do it so many times....oh wait, he was playing the Suns, I'm not surprised at all.

As for the best player comment, if I recall Markieff scored 31, had Goran scored that much for us this season? Bledsoe played like crap, and Green shouldn't have ever been on the court. Oh, and what was up with Payne and Pek? They were punching guys left and right, some of it the refs were cool with? Payne? Really? The lack of respect our team gets is ridiculous when rookies that never play are allowed to do that crap all game.

It's tough playing young teams that love the pace we set.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Wow people settle down about the Earl barron puck up. It's a 10 day contract for god sake. They just need an extra big body at the end of the bench it's not like he's being brought in to actually play barring injury. I'm sure they're just throwing the dude a bone for being camp with the suns and playing on our dleague team.

If your complaining about that then you're just complaining for the sake of complaining.

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[BVPN]

Is knight expected to play tonight?

[NavLDO]

Been a lot of negatively on this board lately. A little positive shine. Len bullied pek in the post at times tonight. Let that sink in a bit our 21 year old center can physically handle that bull of a man in the post. If he can stay healthy with his frame, length, and skill set the sky's the limit for him. Love that he's starting to be assertive and plays with a little **** you in his game.


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Yeah, in no way, shape, or form, did I believe we'd win this game, when we just lost 2 of our top 3 scorers with no replacements fielded as of yet. Get Knight 3-5 games to find his groove on this team, and we become a contender again.

Look, we all know that the West is talented, but the Suns, IMO, are just about as talented in many ways. EB/Knight combo will be better than Dragic/IT/EB combo--you have a guy excited to be here vs 2 guys that have been a negative vibe for the past 20 games, at least. Heck, Bledsoe was probably feeling quite negative as well. The addition of Knight will help fix a lot of the team negativity.

But for a second, everyone here should step back and pretend you aren't a fan of the Suns and look at our roster in comparison to the other Playoff teams in the West, and I think you might be surprised how we stack up.

Dallas--Great starting 5 +1, but almost zero depth beyond that.
LAC--Griffin out indefinitely will have a big impact going forward
SAS--Aging, outside of Kawhi, and similar to Dallas--very little quality depth
Por--Going through a bit of a slump themselves, but didn't do anything to improve
Hou--Howard out; Jones coming back, but who knows; they do have good depth though

GS, Memphis and OKC are really the only 3 teams, that IMO, are locks, with Houston a borderline lock.

Then look at us--Bledsoe, Knight, Kieff, and Len will be pretty formidable. Then we have, to me, in order of ability, Wright, Thornton (42% 3Pt), PJ, Marcus (40% 3Pt), Green, Goodwin, and Warren/Bullock. So to me, we have a pretty darn good 8-9 man rotation. While we are young, we might very well have about the best depth, or close to it, in the West. AND, we just got better defensively--a lot better--primarily via subtraction of IT and Dragic. If we can get TRob, we'll be even deeper.

I won't be surprised at all if we don't get back to the 8th seed, but I also wouldn't be surprised if we do. Yeah, maybe I'm a homer and am "overvaluing" our players, but I don't think I am. I agree that we have probably the 9th/10th best starting 5 in the West, but with nearly the top depth, we could very well be dangerous.

[jcsunsfan]

Earl Barron has been playing very good at Bakersfield, especially as a rebounder. We have to have someone to spell Len or risk injury. Wright is going to spend some time at pf. With the potential for foul problems and injuries etc, Barron is just a filler. No biggee. Its the end of the season. Its not like you can just go out now and get a young big.

[GDFTony]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ScottHoward42/status/568977427906457600[/tweet]

Gonna happen with young players and stupidity at times. Hornacek is a smart guy. I know you and the other dude want to prove otherwise but you need to chill. He is going to be a good coach for a long time. Knee jerk reactions don't do any good. You guys would hire a new coach every two weeks.

And you know I don't mean any disrespect, I just disagree with your take on Hornacek.

So tell me what you do in this situation:

You are going down the stretch with a team. Kevin Martin has been destroying Gerald Green, a guy known for being a terrible defender. You have Archie Goodwin on the bench, a guy known for being a great defender. Archie Goodwin has also been outplaying Green by a mile on the offensive night and based off of small sample sizes of Goodwin it appears he is a better player than Green.

Who do you play and have guard Martin down the stretch? Anybody with even half of a a decent basketball intelligence should see that you need to PUT ARCHIE GOODWIN IN THE GAME!

If you watched, you should be able to say that there isn't even doubt that we would have won if Archie was in the game instead of Green.

Hornacek does **** like this in what seems to be the majority of games now. He is simply a bad coach and this team will never reach any kind of significant success until Hornacek is GONE.

You people are so caught up in the Hornacek promo from the Suns organization and the media/public hype train from the 1st half of last season when he was actually a good coach. You are many others then flat out IGNORED the mistakes here and there in the 2nd half of last season and completely ignore the plethora of mistakes he makes on a nightly basis this season.

Fire him. Jeff Hornacek is a horrible basketball coach. His daughter is hot as ****, but he sucks. Accept it.

Since when is Archie a great defender? He looked lost last night on D.

[RunDogGun]

Nav, I think if Bledsoe took the team on his back, we could have easily won that game. Well that and if Green didn't step on the court.

[RunDogGun]

I'm usually tough on Goodwin, but I would not say he was lost on defense at all. In fact it was refreshing to see someone press full court and still be able to recover back to half court. Put Bullock in there to guard the inbounder, and I think those two could get a few steals and easy hoops.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Goodwin needs to play the rest of the year period. Time to see what he can do.

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[RunDogGun]

Goodwin needs to play the rest of the year period. Time to see what he can do.

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I don't mind seeing what Thornton can do at the two, but for the most part I want Knight (16/16 pg/sg), Goodwin 16 mins at sg, Bullock 16 mins at sg. Maybe a few games a few mins for Goodwin at the point. I think we should definitely try Knight with Goodwin, and Bledsoe with Bullock. It would be strong defensively. Green was just terrible last night, even his wide open dunk looked weak.

I still don't like how we missed opportunities inside. Len ran the floor really well on one play, and no one fed him the ball. Bledsoe had a wide open cutting Markieff, and just didn't pass it to him. It was down the stretch too.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Goodwin even hit a 3 last night. If he can become even an average 3pt shooter he's a plus offensive player because his ability to get to the rim has never been in question. Hell make mistakes on d but so will green and I'd rather Archie try to learn from them instead of watching green make them over and over again.

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[sunsfever68]

This whole thing will come down to trust and chemistry. Suns have the talent in Bledsoe Knight and Markieff for each of them to put up 20 a game and Len can be the enforcer, clean up the garbage hit some shots and block shots and rebound if he stays healthy.

It's all about how well do Bledsoe and Knight play together.

Knight needs to be active like a Kyle Korver/Bradley Beal/Ray Allen type at SG cutting rolling off screens catch and shoot. His release on his shot is pretty, it's a nice shot so he can definitely transition to the 2 and play backup 1.

The biggest thing is we can not be ball dominant as an offense and play isolation ball with Bledsoe/Knight/Goodwin/thornton green etc any of our guards. More movement, more cutting more screens I want to see more set plays where 2 or 3 players are moving in the half court and we swing the ball around the perimeter.

This can work if Knight buys into being a 2 guard and getting some minutes as a backup point guard but ultimately I need to see improvement from bledsoe this year and next year before I'm comfortable with him as the point guard of the future bc he's not really a true point guard floor general like a Rondo/Paul/nash type.

Hoping for the best and hope we sign Thomas Robinson he would solve our rebounding/hustle/energy woes!

[sunsfever68]

My recommendation (dead serious) is everyone should tweet at T Rob to join the Suns. NBA players are on twitter the most of any social network, most young athletes are glued to their phones the same way most of us are glued to technology. I would tweet at thomas robinson to join the Suns we all need to do our part to show him the love, be the best salesmen we can be haha. Him off the bench with Wright would be an athletic backup front court

[kennydorglas]

My recommendation (dead serious) is everyone should tweet at T Rob to join the Suns. NBA players are on twitter the most of any social network, most young athletes are glued to their phones the same way most of us are glued to technology. I would tweet at thomas robinson to join the Suns we all need to do our part to show him the love, be the best salesmen we can be haha. Him off the bench with Wright would be an athletic backup front court

Mook already did that.