NTB wrote:Paul Pierce, CP3 and someone I don't remember made 3 lucky shots in 4th quarter. They also made tough tough shots which we defended really well. So either they are a big team or they were lucky, maybe both.
Anyways, I really enjoyed this game against Clippers. It was way better than our Portland games which we won. Defense was there, rebounding was absolutely there (big credits goes to TC) but our guards couldn't make the shots they usually make. Knight and Bledsoe (especially Knight) won't have such a bad percentage game any time soon. But if we can keep this defense and rebounding, we'll be just fine.
But we need to stop this habit which we play depending our opponent's level. I mean when our opponent is low-projected or least-favorited team, we kinda underestimate them and play real lazy. But against elite teams, we seem to play really tough. I'd rather have this in reverse. Just dominate the small team. I like to see them play tough against elite teams but if I had to choose between these, I'd choose to play better against small teams. Because you may not defeat elite teams with playing good but you will definitely defeat small teams if you play hard. Because the talent is there.
As most of you guys told earlier, Markieff is not playing like himself. I don't think he is doing this to make Phoenix lose but he is definitely not forcing. We will see if this is a temporary struggle or he just wants to get out.
For Suns, I really like how we are using Chandler in P&R. He is dominating the paint by rebounding and he is finishing lobs from our guards pretty well. This chemistry between Chandler and our guards will increase game by game. Our bench is fine but Len needs to be consistent player. He is mentally too fragile. I really liked what I see from Ronnie Price. He is so active in defense with his steals. He really helps in offense too. He is like Ish Smith with a 3 point range which is so cool to have in your backup PG.
To win games, we need to shoot at least average from 3pt. We started to season with poor 3pt shooting like end of last season.
I liked a lot of what I saw. Great rebounding, hustle, and we had more steals and assists. What is odd is that we shot about the same % from 3 against them. It seems like they were draining them and we were not.
What I didn't like was the bad shot selection. WAY too many long 2s. I don't mind if anyone takes a wide open 3, but not that many long twos. Bledsoe NEEDS to get better about having a soft touch around his hard charging layups...or dunk it if he can. They were just bouncing WAY too hard off the backboard.
One of the major things though is that we NEED to get better at closing out on 3 pt shooters. They had WAY too many wide open shots. So many teams shoot tons of 3s that if we don't guard the 3 pt line well, we are going to get killed.
