Game 21: Phoenix Suns at LA Clippers, Wednesday, November 28, 8:30PM MST

[bwgood77]

I dont get it Gaspar..... was there something in that interview I missed ? He chuckled and charmed his way out of the line of fire. May be the question should have been, ' You were completely dominated tonight and virtually invisible....were you tired or just intimidated by Boban and Harrell ?'

This was She-andre on full display. Im afraid we are going to have to deal with it as he is definitely not an alpha male. My/our bad for expecting that. We were warned the dude has no killer in him. Just a shame the Suns have always been labeled a soft team... We finally get our 'big guy' and he turns out to be a 7'2" Mr Rogers. No coach is going to change that.

May be we should adopt his 'Dont worry be happy' approach with our expectations.

Yeah, not matter what it HAS to be the coach...last year, this year, any coach he has in the future.

I do like that he's being honest but turning a blind eye to his weaknesses is just denying the truth.

[bwgood77]

Ariza and Crawford combined for 4/19......Ayton only gets 4 shots

I don't get it

He passes the ball a lot...kind of plays like Bender sometimes and gets passive.

[bwgood77]

As far as the Luka vs. Ayton thing it's no surprise that Luka is more polished right now that was pretty widely accepted from anyone who had watched both of them play. Luka is very competitive and plays with some f-u in his game and Ayton has a tendency to drift a little; again this isn't something new or unexpected. 20 games in honestly I would say both Doncic and Ayton are pretty much what I expected. Personally I would have taken Luka because I just love guys with high BBIQ but I had Ayton 2 on my board and I like a lot of what I see from him. It would't surprise me if 5 years from now Ayton is the best player in this draft but it also wouldn't shock me if someone like JJJ was. This draft was really good.

I would like to see them run some more pick and roll with him. Booker is OK at this but having a higher quality point guard would help. Ayton should work on setting better picks too.

Another area that he needs to put a little focus on is boxing out; it's pretty common for bigs that are as athletic as him to neglect that area at the lower levels because they can simply out jump guys for rebounds but when you get to the NBA it's a fundamental you need.

The number one skill I would have him work on this offseason would be developing the ability to pump fake and put it on the floor for a dribble or two and get to the rim. With how good of a mid range shooter he is this would be huge weapon for his offensive arsenal.

And it's not easy for big guys to dominate immediately. And some of the other guys that maybe have, like Duncan played 4 years in college, Shaq and Kareem 3 years, and Blake 2. Ayton is already joining some lists with his points and rebounds. This was expected.

I mean he has joined a historic lists for points and people are complaining about a coach not having him score MORE. It's already historic.

While discussing the draft, many were worried about his defense, shot blocking, help D, taking plays off, not knowing where to be, but everyone agreed he had the tools. We know it wasn't going to happen overnight.

[sunsfever68]

Ayton needs a punishing big man coach/mentor to teach him how to be aggressive, and do the fundamentals right. boxing out, going up hard for offensive rebounds,

I can see some of the progress he's making but he's definitely a finesse player as of now and needs to develop into the #bullyszn thing he seems to self promote about himself

DeAndre is still a lock to get buckets around the basket when he's set up properly.

[3toheadmelo]

what happened in the 2nd half? i fell asleep at halftime. ayton was pretty engaged on defense in the 1st half

[Domejandro]

what happened in the 2nd half? i fell asleep at halftime. ayton was pretty engaged on defense in the 1st half

Outside of the Phoenix fandom, but I watched the recorded game today, and the better team just kind of pulled away; Phoenix's lack of competent distributor made it so they could not function offensively, and defensive most of the younger players are lost.

I really don't think blaming Igor is the right answer here, the front-office brought in someone who was redundant and didn't care in Trevor Ariza, desperately tried to band-aid their Power-Forward position with Ryan Anderson (when Deandre Ayton is your starting Center!!!), and completely failed to put a single, complementary/distributing piece around their young players. The front-office completely flopped, and this season is a result of that. Not a huge deal that the season is lost given how strong the West is, but their lack of distributor is not healthy for player development, in my opinion.

[lilfishi22]

Read on Twitter

This is one of my favorite plays of the season so far. The big actually helps and recovers in time when the opposing team gets a mismatch with a big on one of our guards.

Getting Holmes re-signed has to be priority #1 for the Suns this summer...even above getting a PG. I hope his defense and rim protection ability rubs off on Ayton in the long run.

These types of blocks are pretty damn hard to get too on big men without fouling.

[lilfishi22]

Ariza and Crawford combined for 4/19......Ayton only gets 4 shots

I don't get it

Why don't you? The coach sucks when it comes to developing Ayton. Ayton is dying in this "offense." He hasn't developed anything playing like DeAndre Jordan and Rudy Gobert on offense. Two guys who are defense first players. Ayton doesn't get work on facing up and attacking, just straight post-ups, nothing. His game will not evolve. If you took a look at J Will's Rookie update last night on ESPN he said Ayton was going to regress because the Suns were bad, had no identity, and were not using Ayton for anything more than garbage baskets.

Let that sink in. We have watched it the last 21 games. We have never came down and let Ayton just go to work. Ayton is checking out, if he hasn't already. All on Igor's and his stupid offense. Next up is Death of Zion.

I watched a ton of tape on Ayton pre-draft and full games as well but nothing I saw indicated he had a halfway decent face up game. When the lane is clear, when the defender isn't ready for his physicality and when the help isn't close by, sure he can get by with a dribble or two. I've seen it a few times in college but at the NBA level how often is the lane clear? How often are defenders not actively engaged on Ayton and ow often is the help D not close by?

I brought this up pre-draft and nobody really gave it a thought saying that he would just "beast" on defenders but I mentioned that he didn't really have a face up game or an inbetween game. The inbetween game is the one inbetween the hoop and the mid-range. He didn't have the skill to put the ball on the floor right now and he never did. Perhaps it's Igor telling him he's not ready or perhaps he's not confident in putting the ball on the floor, either way, it's something he has to work on over the summer.

[JMac1]

I agree with that fact that maybe Igor isn't the right coach for somebody like Ayton. However, the suns are stuck with him for the foreseeable future. We can't fire him and create more instability within this organization. In addition, our public perception already blows, why make it worse especially during a critical summer.

Because the growth of our players are more important than what people think about us, and it can't get any worse, and who gives a **** what someone thinks? That won't win games for you.

[JMac1]

Interesting how the narrative of this team has changed from "We don't have enough ball movement, everyone just stands there and watches" to "We have too much ball movement, just give the ball to Ayton down low and let him do something" in less than a full season.

Love Ayton even if last game was rough, but I want to see him get more physical and aggressive on offense. His face-up game at this point has almost exclusively been jab stepping until he gets enough space to shoot a mid-range jump shot, and you can probably count the number of times he's attacked off the dribble out of the mid/high post instead of settling for a jumper on one hand. The same goes for the low post, it seems like he passes out whenever he feels physical pressure or a double coming instead of embracing the contact and drawing fouls.

Don't get me wrong, we need to get him more/better touches, but he also has to look to do more with it. He's #10 in post-ups per game and #7 in paint touches per game among centers, but #47 in fouls drawn per 100 possessions (#22 per game), which indicates he's passing out a lot and/or he's not very physical in the post.

That's not my narrative. My narrative is switch it up sometime. I didn't say come down and just give the ball to Ayton. Just give him more touches and let him develop his game, if he can, maybe he can't, but let's see. Also, stagger his minuets and Booker minutes sometime. Lastly, when Booker is flat out tired, let him have an opportunity.

4 Shot?!? Come on man, for real? It is not like he is getting 15 post ups/face ups a game or something. Dude got 4 shots last night and his game hasn't evolved. I guess I am just a crazy Ayton lover who wants him to get fifty shots a game. I give up.

[JMac1]

Ariza and Crawford combined for 4/19......Ayton only gets 4 shots

I don't get it

Why don't you? The coach sucks when it comes to developing Ayton. Ayton is dying in this "offense." He hasn't developed anything playing like DeAndre Jordan and Rudy Gobert on offense. Two guys who are defense first players. Ayton doesn't get work on facing up and attacking, just straight post-ups, nothing. His game will not evolve. If you took a look at J Will's Rookie update last night on ESPN he said Ayton was going to regress because the Suns were bad, had no identity, and were not using Ayton for anything more than garbage baskets.

Let that sink in. We have watched it the last 21 games. We have never came down and let Ayton just go to work. Ayton is checking out, if he hasn't already. All on Igor's and his stupid offense. Next up is Death of Zion.

I watched a ton of tape on Ayton pre-draft and full games as well but nothing I saw indicated he had a halfway decent face up game. When the lane is clear, when the defender isn't ready for his physicality and when the help isn't close by, sure he can get by with a dribble or two. I've seen it a few times in college but at the NBA level how often is the lane clear? How often are defenders not actively engaged on Ayton and ow often is the help D not close by?

I brought this up pre-draft and nobody really gave it a thought saying that he would just "beast" on defenders but I mentioned that he didn't really have a face up game or an inbetween game. The inbetween game is the one inbetween the hoop and the mid-range. He didn't have the skill to put the ball on the floor right now and he never did. Perhaps it's Igor telling him he's not ready or perhaps he's not confident in putting the ball on the floor, either way, it's something he has to work on over the summer.

I agree. He doesn't have a face up game. But his post up is pretty good though.

[lilfishi22]

Interesting how the narrative of this team has changed from "We don't have enough ball movement, everyone just stands there and watches" to "We have too much ball movement, just give the ball to Ayton down low and let him do something" in less than a full season.

Love Ayton even if last game was rough, but I want to see him get more physical and aggressive on offense. His face-up game at this point has almost exclusively been jab stepping until he gets enough space to shoot a mid-range jump shot, and you can probably count the number of times he's attacked off the dribble out of the mid/high post instead of settling for a jumper on one hand. The same goes for the low post, it seems like he passes out whenever he feels physical pressure or a double coming instead of embracing the contact and drawing fouls.

Don't get me wrong, we need to get him more/better touches, but he also has to look to do more with it. He's #10 in post-ups per game and #7 in paint touches per game among centers, but #47 in fouls drawn per 100 possessions (#22 per game), which indicates he's passing out a lot and/or he's not very physical in the post.

That's not my narrative. My narrative is switch it up sometime. I didn't say come down and just give the ball to Ayton. Just give him more touches and let him develop his game, if he can, maybe he can't, but let's see. Also, stagger his minuets and Booker minutes sometime. Lastly, when Booker is flat out tired, let him have an opportunity.

4 Shot?!? Come on man, for real? It is not like he is getting 15 post ups/face ups a game or something. Dude got 4 shots last night and his game hasn't evolved. I guess I am just a crazy Ayton lover who wants him to get fifty shots a game. I give up.

He should definitely be getting the ball more often. There needs to be two inputs in the equation. He needs to get in good position (inconsistent) and the team needs to recognize, react and get him the ball (also inconsistent). Neither are happening consistently right now

Also it's crazy to expect *any* player's game (regardless of talent) to evolve in 20 games.

[TheLogician]

Why don't you? The coach sucks when it comes to developing Ayton. Ayton is dying in this "offense." He hasn't developed anything playing like DeAndre Jordan and Rudy Gobert on offense. Two guys who are defense first players. Ayton doesn't get work on facing up and attacking, just straight post-ups, nothing. His game will not evolve. If you took a look at J Will's Rookie update last night on ESPN he said Ayton was going to regress because the Suns were bad, had no identity, and were not using Ayton for anything more than garbage baskets.

Let that sink in. We have watched it the last 21 games. We have never came down and let Ayton just go to work. Ayton is checking out, if he hasn't already. All on Igor's and his stupid offense. Next up is Death of Zion.

I watched a ton of tape on Ayton pre-draft and full games as well but nothing I saw indicated he had a halfway decent face up game. When the lane is clear, when the defender isn't ready for his physicality and when the help isn't close by, sure he can get by with a dribble or two. I've seen it a few times in college but at the NBA level how often is the lane clear? How often are defenders not actively engaged on Ayton and ow often is the help D not close by?

I brought this up pre-draft and nobody really gave it a thought saying that he would just "beast" on defenders but I mentioned that he didn't really have a face up game or an inbetween game. The inbetween game is the one inbetween the hoop and the mid-range. He didn't have the skill to put the ball on the floor right now and he never did. Perhaps it's Igor telling him he's not ready or perhaps he's not confident in putting the ball on the floor, either way, it's something he has to work on over the summer.

I agree. He doesn't have a face up game. But his post up is pretty good though.

Criminal to have a rookie C getting big minutes and no starting PG.

[lilfishi22]

Why don't you? The coach sucks when it comes to developing Ayton. Ayton is dying in this "offense." He hasn't developed anything playing like DeAndre Jordan and Rudy Gobert on offense. Two guys who are defense first players. Ayton doesn't get work on facing up and attacking, just straight post-ups, nothing. His game will not evolve. If you took a look at J Will's Rookie update last night on ESPN he said Ayton was going to regress because the Suns were bad, had no identity, and were not using Ayton for anything more than garbage baskets.

Let that sink in. We have watched it the last 21 games. We have never came down and let Ayton just go to work. Ayton is checking out, if he hasn't already. All on Igor's and his stupid offense. Next up is Death of Zion.

I watched a ton of tape on Ayton pre-draft and full games as well but nothing I saw indicated he had a halfway decent face up game. When the lane is clear, when the defender isn't ready for his physicality and when the help isn't close by, sure he can get by with a dribble or two. I've seen it a few times in college but at the NBA level how often is the lane clear? How often are defenders not actively engaged on Ayton and ow often is the help D not close by?

I brought this up pre-draft and nobody really gave it a thought saying that he would just "beast" on defenders but I mentioned that he didn't really have a face up game or an inbetween game. The inbetween game is the one inbetween the hoop and the mid-range. He didn't have the skill to put the ball on the floor right now and he never did. Perhaps it's Igor telling him he's not ready or perhaps he's not confident in putting the ball on the floor, either way, it's something he has to work on over the summer.

I agree. He doesn't have a face up game. But his post up is pretty good though.

It's adequate. He doesn't really have high level post moves. He relies heavily on using his strength and athleticism to work his jump hook which has been quite successful but he has to be fairly close to the basket. The other move he has is that little turn around baseline drive under the basket to finish on the other side. But again, he has to be fairly close for that to happen.

The problem right now is he's not getting position often or consistently. And our guards aren't confident (in their own ability) to get him the ball either. Then you have to consider Booker handles the ball A LOT and is a bit of a ball hog who doesn't seem to care much for Ayton's post game. He'd much rather use Ayton as PnR option.

[JMac1]

I watched a ton of tape on Ayton pre-draft and full games as well but nothing I saw indicated he had a halfway decent face up game. When the lane is clear, when the defender isn't ready for his physicality and when the help isn't close by, sure he can get by with a dribble or two. I've seen it a few times in college but at the NBA level how often is the lane clear? How often are defenders not actively engaged on Ayton and ow often is the help D not close by?

I brought this up pre-draft and nobody really gave it a thought saying that he would just "beast" on defenders but I mentioned that he didn't really have a face up game or an inbetween game. The inbetween game is the one inbetween the hoop and the mid-range. He didn't have the skill to put the ball on the floor right now and he never did. Perhaps it's Igor telling him he's not ready or perhaps he's not confident in putting the ball on the floor, either way, it's something he has to work on over the summer.

I agree. He doesn't have a face up game. But his post up is pretty good though.

It's adequate. He doesn't really have high level post moves. He relies heavily on using his strength and athleticism to work his jump hook which has been quite successful but he has to be fairly close to the basket. The other move he has is that little turn around baseline drive under the basket to finish on the other side. But again, he has to be fairly close for that to happen.

The problem right now is he's not getting position often or consistently. And our guards aren't confident (in their own ability) to get him the ball either. Then you have to consider Booker handles the ball A LOT and is a bit of a ball hog who doesn't seem to care much for Ayton's post game. He'd much rather use Ayton as PnR option.

Yea Booker is pretty stingy with the rock late in games... I guess it took some better players to get me to see that.

[lilfishi22]

I agree. He doesn't have a face up game. But his post up is pretty good though.

It's adequate. He doesn't really have high level post moves. He relies heavily on using his strength and athleticism to work his jump hook which has been quite successful but he has to be fairly close to the basket. The other move he has is that little turn around baseline drive under the basket to finish on the other side. But again, he has to be fairly close for that to happen.

The problem right now is he's not getting position often or consistently. And our guards aren't confident (in their own ability) to get him the ball either. Then you have to consider Booker handles the ball A LOT and is a bit of a ball hog who doesn't seem to care much for Ayton's post game. He'd much rather use Ayton as PnR option.

Yea Booker is pretty stingy with the rock late in games... I guess it took some better players to get me to see that.

Not just late in the game, throughout the game. Booker has two modes, Point Book or Iso Book. He hasn't really found the balance yet and that takes times. I think it was in that Indy game where he had like 6 assist in the 1st half, he basically went Point Book but then completely went to Iso Book in the 2nd half.

You'll notice Booker really loves to use Ayton only as a screen to get his own scoring opportunities. It doesn't help that Ayton doesn't really get himself open when he rolls or even rolls that hard but Booker really loves to use the screen and when his defender is trailing him, he would use his body to hold him off while he lets Ayton draw the switch man closer to the rim to give himself space and no one in front of him to challenge his mid range shot. I see him do that in probably at least 4-5 possessions per game.

If he isn't doing that, he would use Ayton as a PnR man but not to pass to him but to get himself to the rim and hopefully draw the foul. When he *does* want to pass, it's super obvious because he takes his drive really slowly, basically in line with the speed of Ayton and I think teams really scout ahead and look for that.

I'm not saying Booker is an unwilling passer but I don't think he has the experience yet where he's taking what the offensive gives him to either pass it or try and score. If Booker has it in his head to pass, he plays a very different game. Likewise when he wants to score, he'll ignore the rest of the team. He needs to get to a stage where he's just Booker, a guy who is a legit triple threat