Game 28: Phoenix Suns (17-10) @ New Orleans Pelicans (12-16) l Friday l 6:00pm l FSNAZ

[Fo-Real]

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I think Mikal Bridges defense is very overrated.His effort is good, but overall, he's average, to slightly above average.

Ingram is one of his bad match ups. A dude who is longer, as fast or faster and has the ability to stroke it or go to the basket. He has problems with that dude in particular.

[phnart]

Bridges is the type of player, though, that will find a way to figure out guys like Ingram who are besting him now. He's going to get stronger, too.

[Mulhollanddrive]

5 comeback wins in last 11 games:

down 11 vs Dallas
down 13 vs Dallas
down 16 vs Milwaukee
down 8 vs Philadelphia
down 11 vs New Orleans

[Slim Charless]

5 comeback wins in last 11 games:

down 11 vs Dallas
down 13 vs Dallas
down 16 vs Milwaukee
down 8 vs Philadelphia
down 11 vs New Orleans

They are a complacent Brooklyn half away from being the hottest team in the league. Hopefully they can handle Memphis tonight. If Ja starts going off again, I'd like to see Monty try Carter on him. He has the speed to handle and I think we rely on Bridges too much some times to handle a wide spectrum of dudes. I'm not sure CP3 still can stick with guys like that anymore.

[bwgood77]

Good to win (as always). But again tonight we shot 39 threes...and we needed Kaminsky and Crowder to go a combined 11-14 from 3 to beat the 12-16 Pelicans.

CP3 is playing incredible, shutting me up for sure for how bad his efficiency #s were early in the season.

But again, is relying on a 34 yr old PG to play like this incredible and attempting 40 threes a night a sustainable strategy?

I think Monty’s way too happy with 3s and they need to figure out ways to score efficiently even without 3s.

3pt shooting should compliment our 2pt scoring, not the other way around imo. Ideally, our 3pt attempts should be a number between the early 20s to early 30s. Just my 2 cents.

Glad they got a much needed win to wipe away the stink from the Nets game. I think this was an important win because losing it could have possibly spiraled the team in the wrong direction. Happy weekend folks.

In this day and age, you really do need to shoot a lot of 3s and be efficient doing so to keep up. However, I do agree that's not all I'd do. We need a lot of motion and cutting and going inside for easy finishes as well.

I don't know that in the end we needed that good of games shooting from Frank and Jae considering our margin of victory.

Anyway, good win.

[pj0tr]

Good to win (as always). But again tonight we shot 39 threes...and we needed Kaminsky and Crowder to go a combined 11-14 from 3 to beat the 12-16 Pelicans.

CP3 is playing incredible, shutting me up for sure for how bad his efficiency #s were early in the season.

But again, is relying on a 34 yr old PG to play like this incredible and attempting 40 threes a night a sustainable strategy?

I think Monty’s way too happy with 3s and they need to figure out ways to score efficiently even without 3s.

3pt shooting should compliment our 2pt scoring, not the other way around imo. Ideally, our 3pt attempts should be a number between the early 20s to early 30s. Just my 2 cents.

Glad they got a much needed win to wipe away the stink from the Nets game. I think this was an important win because losing it could have possibly spiraled the team in the wrong direction. Happy weekend folks.

Its a much better balance shooting 35-40 3s a game, than the 45-50 range they were shooting when they had a slump earlier in the season.

Part of it is playing to the Sun's strengths. They have CP3 and a bunch of shooters. You try to maximize the strengths of your team. Over the last 10-15 games, we've also seen Cam and Mikal drive a bunch more, with Mikal adding a bit of a mid-range game.

Plus, you have CP3 and Book, which are arguably the best mid-range shooting backcourt in the league.

Make no mistake, teams are not gonna look forward to facing Phoenix' offense come the postseason, especially with how efficient they are in the half-court.

[Revived]

Good to win (as always). But again tonight we shot 39 threes...and we needed Kaminsky and Crowder to go a combined 11-14 from 3 to beat the 12-16 Pelicans.

CP3 is playing incredible, shutting me up for sure for how bad his efficiency #s were early in the season.

But again, is relying on a 34 yr old PG to play like this incredible and attempting 40 threes a night a sustainable strategy?

I think Monty’s way too happy with 3s and they need to figure out ways to score efficiently even without 3s.

3pt shooting should compliment our 2pt scoring, not the other way around imo. Ideally, our 3pt attempts should be a number between the early 20s to early 30s. Just my 2 cents.

Glad they got a much needed win to wipe away the stink from the Nets game. I think this was an important win because losing it could have possibly spiraled the team in the wrong direction. Happy weekend folks.

I agree with this in general, but I think the issue is roster construction. The problem we have is that we don't have a consistent threat to score at the rim. We need someone on this team that can consistently get those high percentage 2 point buckets, because shooting 2pt jumpers from 15+ feet is the most inefficient basketball play in the modern era.

Booker can get to the rim and we play SO much better when he does that consistently, but teams look to take that away from him.
Ayton gets good position but either settles for a jumper or kicks it back out. He needs to get more aggressive.
Saric is probably our best option for those kinds of buckets, but as last night showed he can't be relied on for them.
Mikal and Cam both have the ability to get inside and finish strong, but opt to camp on the 3 pt line.

The only player on our current roster that I see able to get inside and score on a somewhat regular basis (aside from Saric at times) is Nader. And he's on the fringes of the rotation at the moment.

The issue isn't necessarily coaching, it's roster construction. We're built to be a below the rim, jump shooting team. And while I love what Jones has done to make us as deep as we are, when the jumpers aren't falling, we look like a lottery team.

I agree with this. And this is why I like the idea of trading for John Collins. Now he takes a lot of 3s (efficiently too) in Atlanta but that’s by their system but he actually has a very good inside game. I’ve followed him a bit since his rookie yr because I always draft him in fantasy and stuff. He’s like a mini amare but with a little better defense.

I watch Hawks games here and there cause of him and Trae as well.

Collins has a good inside game that he’s shown in the past but their new HC has kinda turned him into this spot up shooter and he’s capable of much more. I think him and Ayton can definitely work together too. And imo he’s a guy worth of the max with how dynamic he will be and he’s gonna open up stuff for others too.

[grumpysaddle]

"It was the largest defeat in the shot-clock era for a team that entered the fourth quarter with a double-digit lead."

If I read that in the past 5 or 6 seasons, I'd assume the Suns were the team on the record books for that. Nice that they were the ones dealing it out this time.

[Revived]

Good to win (as always). But again tonight we shot 39 threes...and we needed Kaminsky and Crowder to go a combined 11-14 from 3 to beat the 12-16 Pelicans.

CP3 is playing incredible, shutting me up for sure for how bad his efficiency #s were early in the season.

But again, is relying on a 34 yr old PG to play like this incredible and attempting 40 threes a night a sustainable strategy?

I think Monty’s way too happy with 3s and they need to figure out ways to score efficiently even without 3s.

3pt shooting should compliment our 2pt scoring, not the other way around imo. Ideally, our 3pt attempts should be a number between the early 20s to early 30s. Just my 2 cents.

Glad they got a much needed win to wipe away the stink from the Nets game. I think this was an important win because losing it could have possibly spiraled the team in the wrong direction. Happy weekend folks.

In this day and age, you really do need to shoot a lot of 3s and be efficient doing so to keep up. However, I do agree that's not all I'd do. We need a lot of motion and cutting and going inside for easy finishes as well.

I don't know that in the end we needed that good of games shooting from Frank and Jae considering our margin of victory.

Anyway, good win.

I’d utilize Booker in the post. His post game is actually very good especially if they can get a switch with the PG on him. This will probably draw the double times many times but then he should be able to find a cutter off it or through secondary passing.

I don’t know maybe I’m wrong in thinking about 3pt shooting a bit too much. I’m just worried about games like the 2nd half of the Pistons or Nets games where the 3s aren’t falling and we have no offense.

But I think barkley6 is right in that it’s basically because of roster construction that we have to shoot this many 3s.

[Mulhollanddrive]

We're 30th in Free Throw Attempts and 26th in Offensive Rebounds.

So in tight stretches that puts a lot of pressure on making shots and slowing the opposition pace.

[Saberestar]

Good to win (as always). But again tonight we shot 39 threes...and we needed Kaminsky and Crowder to go a combined 11-14 from 3 to beat the 12-16 Pelicans.

CP3 is playing incredible, shutting me up for sure for how bad his efficiency #s were early in the season.

But again, is relying on a 34 yr old PG to play like this incredible and attempting 40 threes a night a sustainable strategy?

I think Monty’s way too happy with 3s and they need to figure out ways to score efficiently even without 3s.

3pt shooting should compliment our 2pt scoring, not the other way around imo. Ideally, our 3pt attempts should be a number between the early 20s to early 30s. Just my 2 cents.

Glad they got a much needed win to wipe away the stink from the Nets game. I think this was an important win because losing it could have possibly spiraled the team in the wrong direction. Happy weekend folks.

We are not shooting too many threes.
We are 13th in the league at 3PAs per game.

[grumpysaddle]

We're 30th in Free Throw Attempts and 26th in Offensive Rebounds.

So in tight stretches that puts a lot of pressure on making shots and slowing the opposition pace.

This goes to prove how Booker gets no respect from refs. He alone should mean the Suns aren't dead last in FTA by the way he drives, but we all know he rarely gets those calls unless they absolutely have to call the foul or risk being exposed for at least bias.

[bwgood77]

Good to win (as always). But again tonight we shot 39 threes...and we needed Kaminsky and Crowder to go a combined 11-14 from 3 to beat the 12-16 Pelicans.

CP3 is playing incredible, shutting me up for sure for how bad his efficiency #s were early in the season.

But again, is relying on a 34 yr old PG to play like this incredible and attempting 40 threes a night a sustainable strategy?

I think Monty’s way too happy with 3s and they need to figure out ways to score efficiently even without 3s.

3pt shooting should compliment our 2pt scoring, not the other way around imo. Ideally, our 3pt attempts should be a number between the early 20s to early 30s. Just my 2 cents.

Glad they got a much needed win to wipe away the stink from the Nets game. I think this was an important win because losing it could have possibly spiraled the team in the wrong direction. Happy weekend folks.

In this day and age, you really do need to shoot a lot of 3s and be efficient doing so to keep up. However, I do agree that's not all I'd do. We need a lot of motion and cutting and going inside for easy finishes as well.

I don't know that in the end we needed that good of games shooting from Frank and Jae considering our margin of victory.

Anyway, good win.

I’d utilize Booker in the post. His post game is actually very good especially if they can get a switch with the PG on him. This will probably draw the double times many times but then he should be able to find a cutter off it or through secondary passing.

I don’t know maybe I’m wrong in thinking about 3pt shooting a bit too much. I’m just worried about games like the 2nd half of the Pistons or Nets games where the 3s aren’t falling and we have no offense.

But I think barkley6 is right in that it’s basically because of roster construction that we have to shoot this many 3s.

It's not like we shoot that many more than league avg...we are 13th in 3pt attempts at 35.9 a game and league avg is 34.9...we have had a number of OT games too which might inflate our number a tad too.

I think when you have a big in the middle and two guys who are great in the midrange and decent 3 pt shooters, you need to spread the floor to either give room for one of Booker or Paul to drive to the rim or pull up for a short midrange, or let Ayton get the ball in single coverage.

Now if a double team comes to Ayton or Paul/Booker as they are driving, the right play is to kick it out to the shooter, and a 3 pt shot has more value than anything else other than getting to the rim. Now having two guys that are great in the midrange is a great thing to have to change things up, but it's good we have options. Most of our roster are spread the floor guys, or bigs that can spread the floor and shoot 3s (Saric/Kaminsky). That's the way they built the team.

[bwgood77]

We're 30th in Free Throw Attempts and 26th in Offensive Rebounds.

So in tight stretches that puts a lot of pressure on making shots and slowing the opposition pace.

The FTA has to change...that's in small part due to pace (29th in league).

But a few things about ORB...we do need more people to crash the boards on offense. Ayton is 5th in the NBA in ORBs so we have one guy who is elite.

However part of the reason we are lower is because we have the 8th best FG%, meaning we have fewer missed shots than 21 teams so fewer offensive boards available...combine that with the slow pace.....slow pace + 8th best FG%.....probably quite a bit fewer offensive boards for the taking when you combine the two.

[Revived]

Good to win (as always). But again tonight we shot 39 threes...and we needed Kaminsky and Crowder to go a combined 11-14 from 3 to beat the 12-16 Pelicans.

CP3 is playing incredible, shutting me up for sure for how bad his efficiency #s were early in the season.

But again, is relying on a 34 yr old PG to play like this incredible and attempting 40 threes a night a sustainable strategy?

I think Monty’s way too happy with 3s and they need to figure out ways to score efficiently even without 3s.

3pt shooting should compliment our 2pt scoring, not the other way around imo. Ideally, our 3pt attempts should be a number between the early 20s to early 30s. Just my 2 cents.

Glad they got a much needed win to wipe away the stink from the Nets game. I think this was an important win because losing it could have possibly spiraled the team in the wrong direction. Happy weekend folks.

We are not shooting too many threes.
We are 13th in the league at 3PAs per game.

We have stretches where we don’t shoot that many and then stretches that we do. They said it during the broadcast yesterday that the Suns averaged like 46 threes a game during that losing stretch we had before the previous win streak. And then during the win streak man it was at like 35 threes a game with some games in just the 20s in attempts.

[Keith_myath]

We're 30th in Free Throw Attempts and 26th in Offensive Rebounds.

So in tight stretches that puts a lot of pressure on making shots and slowing the opposition pace.

30th because we're probably the 30th best team at driving to the basket.

We suck at rebounding because we're a small list.
DA plays tall, but Saric and Tank play small as they can't get off the ground. Bridges, Crowder and Johnson, especially Johnson, aren't tall enough or big enough to continually compete physically for O.rebounds and not get banged up doing it.