Game 16: Oklahoma City Thunder (7-9) @ Phoenix Suns (8-7) l Wednesday l 7:00pm l FSNAZ

[Puff]

Man, everyone shot horribly. Mikal 3-13, Crowder 5-16, Ayton 2-7, Cam 3-8. No one came to play except CP3 and he inexplicably went cold down the stretch.

Paul has to be pissed. That reminded me of him choking in that OKC series (or whatever series that was in back in the day).

He has been a choker most of his career. His play in the clutch is not HOF worthy.

[bwgood77]

Oubre with a really good game tonight...20, 8, 3, 2, 1, perfect from 3 and the line and 7-8 overall. Oddly enough they have a minus with him on the floor and Draymond, Curry and Wiggins are all near +30.

[bwgood77]

Pretty inexplicable how we are losing games the same exact way as last year and giving up leads every game. However we were missing 3 very key rotation players. When we were 5-1 we were winning games with our bench and I believe we will get back to that formula. Dario will be back most likely Saturday but crossing my fingers he plays tomorrow, and Cam Payne will hopefully play tomorrow. When we are fully healthy we should go back to our day 1 rotations with Jae in the starting lineup and Cam Johnson bombing off the bench. The day 1 starting lineup started slow net rating wise but I believe it will correct itself and the bench gives Cam more freedom. I am currently NOT panicking, but this team needs a clean bill of health and nice stretch of wins to start rolling.

Edit:
If James Wiseman out-plays Ayton tomorrow I will be very upset...

We all want Ayton to punk Wiseman like Embiid punked Ayton in their first game but if this game is anything to go by, you're likely to be very upset.

Draymond is the guy that will make Ayton tentative on offense. Wiseman had a good game tonight though...ended up hitting a few 3s. Surprised he's not rebounding more, but must have a fairly solid offensive game.

[bwgood77]

This has definitely been the most frustrating month being a fan of this team. Losing to Detroit, Washington, OKC, Denver 2x, cancelled games due to Covid. I have a feeling we will turn it around, but it will be too late in typical Suns fashion. I feel like we will miss the playoffs by like 0.5 games again and all of these stinkers will come bite us even more. Everyday I pray Vegas just gets a NBA team, so I can move on in peace.

Yeah, I can definitely see us missing it by 1 game again. I hope Curry, Wiggins and Oubre don't all suddenly get hot against us. Curry has played really well at times (but also poor at times) and Wiggins has played pretty well this season, but Oubre not so well until recently...but you can bet your balls he's pumped up for this one. He will be throwing kisses to the fans not in the arena.

If we end up as the 11th seed in the West, Suns are really bad. The 9-10th place teams at least get the play-in opportunities.

2.5 games separate 5-13 right now. It's tight. I think like 4-8 was super tight next year. But yeah, if we are 11th, it will be disappointing.

Though I do think that with Payne and Saric off the bench, we are considerably better. Our starters have struggled. Plus if you have Booker that not only obviously helps, but it also puts Cam off the bench.

So not only Booker replacing someone, but Payne, Saric and Cam instead of Moore, Nader and Frank is a considerable improvement. Would be nice to see some Galloway too.

[Mjee]

Honestly if We continue to use Ayton like we did tonight and if he comes out unprepared and lacks focus ... just trade him

[Jsbath]

What about gallowey??? We need point

[Revived]

I think we’re starting to see why Monty Williams was a lousy coach in New Orleans despite having rosters with Chris Paul, David West, Tyson Chandler, Peja Stojakovic etc in their prime. 173–221 was his record in New Orleans.

[Flying Colors]

I think we’re starting to see why Monty Williams was a lousy coach in New Orleans despite having rosters with Chris Paul, David West, Tyson Chandler, Peja Stojakovic etc in their prime. 173–221 was his record in New Orleans.

This is why I was nervous to hear that Monty was our guy after we struck out with Bud, all i ever heard about him was that he was ultimately pretty mediocre coach during his tenure NO. I found it kinda baffalong that the Suns gave hime a 5 year deal because I would not be surprised if he didn’t finshed the deal.

[RedIndian]

The answers are actually in the team stats if you look at them:

17th in FGA at 88.3
15th in FG% at 45.9%
4th in 3PA at 39.2
18th in 3P% at 35.7
29th in FTA at 18.3
2nd in FT% at 82.3%
19th in PPG at 110.2

That tells me this, as Eddie Johnson repeatedly says - we need to balance our attack:

- Need to pick up the pace and take more shots. Should be top 10 in FGA
- We're league average at 3P%, and thus have no business jacking up so many threes. Pull back the 3PAs to about 35-37 a game and not 40-42. I'd suspect our 3P% would go up as well if we shot fewer and better shots.
- Desperately need to start getting to the FT line more. Baseline should be 3 FTA for CP3, Mikal, Cam and Crowder each. 4 FTA for Ayton and 6 FTA for Booker. That's not unrealistic. Just more aggression and better decision making from everyone. Pick those FTA from 18 to like 22-23 a game.

Do that and I think you see a 5-7 point swing, and a top 10 offense.

[King4Day]

I think we’re starting to see why Monty Williams was a lousy coach in New Orleans despite having rosters with Chris Paul, David West, Tyson Chandler, Peja Stojakovic etc in their prime. 173–221 was his record in New Orleans.

This is why I was nervous to hear that Monty was our guy after we struck out with Bud, all i ever heard about him was that he was ultimately pretty mediocre coach during his tenure NO. I found it kinda baffalong that the Suns gave hime a 5 year deal because I would not be surprised if he didn’t finshed the deal.

Monty was needed for a culture change and I still agree with it. If we didn't get him, it would have been another new coach who stinks.
I believe Monty has a 3 year leash. If after next season there aren't any improvements, the whole thing will be blown up anyway.

[handsome salary]

3-7 last 10 games. That puts them in the bottom 3 of WC teams in that stretch. Pathetic and currently out of the playoffs.

[Jesus_H_Macy]

This app isn't user friendly but this is the most angry I've ever seen Monty.

Here's Monty Williams' full postgame availability after a bad Suns loss to the Thunder. https://t.co/hM89O4RhwH

Sent from my SM-G970U using RealGM mobile app

I’m glad he’s angry. What’s he going to do about it? Do we need to jack out of rhythm threes more consistently than we have been?

He’s definitely right about when we get in jack-mode we let that affect our effort and focus on D. The extra confidence that the other teams get when they see us miss 10 threes in a row compounded with that just makes it even worse.

[Jesus_H_Macy]

I really like Crowder. Great defender and team guy, great energy. I appreciate his fearlessness on O and his ultra-quick release. And when he gets hot he gets hot. But his light is so green it off the visible spectrum. He’s the most egregious jacker on the team. He should be taking 3-4 less shots per game, and 2-3 of the remaining shots he takes should be drives to the rim instead of 3s. He’s out there playing like he’s Steph Curry. He should have one or two spots where he shoots from, not from every location along the 3pt line. He seems pretty good at getting to the rim...which leads me back to the ultimate blame lies with Monty for not reining these guys in sometimes. The only dudes on the team who should have anything even approximating his green light are Cam and Galloway (and Good Booker), but Cam is struggling right now for some reason and even when Galloway gets hot we still yank him and plant him in the bench for the rest of the game. I like that Cam has been getting to the corners lately though. He and to a lesser extent Bridges seem to have a good understanding of mixing it up when their shots aren’t falling, but I think Crowder’s jack-ness kind of ends up spilling over to the rest of the guys. Carter isn’t getting enough minutes to have the same effect, but that dude needs to chill on the 3s too. He should only be spotting up in the corner. He’s bombing from everywhere and would probably be averaging the same 3pt FGA per game as Crowder if he was getting the minutes. If we take and miss three 3s in a row I want to see Moore and Nader put into the game. For any flaws they have those guys were at least trying to get to the rim

[Adrao]

Our main players had a bad day but I consider Monty responsible for the defeat. He must find solutions and improve our system. He also has to choose the right players, I don't understand why Galloway is not having minutes nor Jalen, for example. He is not reading matches and changing them.
You can't win by 17, then lose by 13 and nothing happens.
I'm really angry with him.

[SlovenianDragon]

thats a shaqtin play

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