Game 72: Phoenix Suns (38-33) @ Los Angeles Lakers (35-37)

[Saberestar]

It was disgusting to watch...FTs and more FTs for every player on the Lakers.

Every time a saw Reeves, Russell or AD going ISO I was absolutely sure that FTs were coming...WHAT THE HECK??

I understand why Monty Williams was angry after this game. In some games before this one you could argue about the calls being wrong or not...In this one it was unfair since the first **** minute of the game. RIDICULOUS.

[Slim Charless]

There's no hope of us retaining the fourth spot with both the Clippers and Warriors closing on us fast. I expect a slip into the play in and a potential first round exit at this point.

Williams needs to be fired during the off-season.

Sent from my [Samsung Z4 Fold] using RealGM mobile app

While I agree 1000000000000000000000000000000000000% on your second point, I'm not sure the Clips will hold that 4th seed much less catch us. Losing PG13 is a killer for them to improve. They are very deep though so who knows.

Trade Monty for Udoka and profit. In the off-season if we don't win the chip.

I doubt Udoka would win many games coaching a team missing 4 of his 6 players from a 64 win team

Ayton, Bridges, Johnson and Crowder

Last year's Celtics had numerous injuries all across their team. Brown, Smart, Timelord and Horford all missed significant time last year and the team still won and won and won. He instilled an incredibly tough team, both mentally and how they actually go about their business on the floor.

I'll add that they averaged 21 FTA as a team compared to our 16 per game this year. Probably gave up less FTs to their opponents as well. Defense is obviously no contest as last year's Celts were far and away the better team-even when we had Mikal.

Lastly he managed to devise a defense to harass our very own Kevin Durant into a terrible series and a sweep when they met in the playoff....on the way to Boston getting to the Finals.

I think we should be so lucky to have Ime as our coach next season.

[garrick]

While I agree 1000000000000000000000000000000000000% on your second point, I'm not sure the Clips will hold that 4th seed much less catch us. Losing PG13 is a killer for them to improve. They are very deep though so who knows.

Trade Monty for Udoka and profit. In the off-season if we don't win the chip.

I doubt Udoka would win many games coaching a team missing 4 of his 6 players from a 64 win team

Ayton, Bridges, Johnson and Crowder

Last year's Celtics had numerous injuries all across their team. Brown, Smart, Timelord and Horford all missed significant time last year and the team still won and won and won. He instilled an incredibly tough team, both mentally and how they actually go about their business on the floor.

I'll add that they averaged 21 FTA as a team compared to our 16 per game this year. Probably gave up less FTs to their opponents as well. Defense is obviously no contest as last year's Celts were far and away the better team-even when we had Mikal.

Lastly he managed to devise a defense to harass our very own Kevin Durant into a terrible series and a sweep when they met in the playoff....on the way to Boston getting to the Finals.

I think we should be so lucky to have Ime as our coach next season.

Hiring Udoka is never going to happen.

After Sarver giving the Suns a bad reputation with his transgressions the last thing the league will want to do is have a former coach who broke team rules with his extracurricular behavior. I certainly don't want him and don't think with this roster he can do more since the Suns are nowhere near as good on defense as the Celtics are.

[Slim Charless]

I doubt Udoka would win many games coaching a team missing 4 of his 6 players from a 64 win team

Ayton, Bridges, Johnson and Crowder

Last year's Celtics had numerous injuries all across their team. Brown, Smart, Timelord and Horford all missed significant time last year and the team still won and won and won. He instilled an incredibly tough team, both mentally and how they actually go about their business on the floor.

I'll add that they averaged 21 FTA as a team compared to our 16 per game this year. Probably gave up less FTs to their opponents as well. Defense is obviously no contest as last year's Celts were far and away the better team-even when we had Mikal.

Lastly he managed to devise a defense to harass our very own Kevin Durant into a terrible series and a sweep when they met in the playoff....on the way to Boston getting to the Finals.

I think we should be so lucky to have Ime as our coach next season.

Hiring Udoka is never going to happen.

After Sarver giving the Suns a bad reputation with his transgressions the last thing the league will want to do is have a former coach who broke team rules with his extracurricular behavior. I certainly don't want him and don't think with this roster he can do more since the Suns are nowhere near as good on defense as the Celtics are.

Celtics weren't good until he got there. They had a couple decent dudes but Ime is the one who made Smart a DPOTY and made Robert Williams into The Timelord. Grant Williams also changed into a younger version of Draymond under Ime's watch. He did it, he can do it here too.

As to his "transgressions".........he had a consenuel relationship with a woman. He wasn't out here acting like Sarver. There's nothing the 2 of them have in common. Ime Udoka will have a new team come September. We will see if it's us or not.

[Saberestar]

While I agree 1000000000000000000000000000000000000% on your second point, I'm not sure the Clips will hold that 4th seed much less catch us. Losing PG13 is a killer for them to improve. They are very deep though so who knows.

Trade Monty for Udoka and profit. In the off-season if we don't win the chip.

I doubt Udoka would win many games coaching a team missing 4 of his 6 players from a 64 win team

Ayton, Bridges, Johnson and Crowder

Last year's Celtics had numerous injuries all across their team. Brown, Smart, Timelord and Horford all missed significant time last year and the team still won and won and won. He instilled an incredibly tough team, both mentally and how they actually go about their business on the floor.

I'll add that they averaged 21 FTA as a team compared to our 16 per game this year. Probably gave up less FTs to their opponents as well. Defense is obviously no contest as last year's Celts were far and away the better team-even when we had Mikal.

Lastly he managed to devise a defense to harass our very own Kevin Durant into a terrible series and a sweep when they met in the playoff....on the way to Boston getting to the Finals.

I think we should be so lucky to have Ime as our coach next season.

Have you seen the Celtics roster for the last few years? You could put a monkey to coach that roster and they will get 50 wins.

You have the proof just looking to their record (without the "great" Udoka) with a rookie HC.

[Slim Charless]

I doubt Udoka would win many games coaching a team missing 4 of his 6 players from a 64 win team

Ayton, Bridges, Johnson and Crowder

Last year's Celtics had numerous injuries all across their team. Brown, Smart, Timelord and Horford all missed significant time last year and the team still won and won and won. He instilled an incredibly tough team, both mentally and how they actually go about their business on the floor.

I'll add that they averaged 21 FTA as a team compared to our 16 per game this year. Probably gave up less FTs to their opponents as well. Defense is obviously no contest as last year's Celts were far and away the better team-even when we had Mikal.

Lastly he managed to devise a defense to harass our very own Kevin Durant into a terrible series and a sweep when they met in the playoff....on the way to Boston getting to the Finals.

I think we should be so lucky to have Ime as our coach next season.

Have you seen the Celtics roster for the last few years? You could put a monkey to coach that roster and they will get 50 wins.

You have the proof just looking to their record (without the "great" Udoka) with a rookie HC.

....take a look at the Celtics board to get a feel for how they are liking Joe Maz. I'll give you a hint: it's similar to how I feel about Monty. If not worse.

It's universally accepted that Udoka was the reason they got where they were last year lol. I'm not making this up. Brooklyn almost hired him like 2 months later then the league probably stepped in or something and vetoed the hiring. Either way, he'll have a job this fall.

Does anyone here honestly think Monty is a better coach? Do you?

[Slim Charless]

I'm not digging it up but both Tatum and Brown have said Ime is the best coach they've ever had. Both of them said that.

Once again.....show of hands who would rather have Monty over Ime....?

[Mr Puddles]

I'm increasingly losing interest in watching basketball.

Glad I missed this game.

Right now we're basically threading water with a shorthanded team. The only things I'm interested in at the moment is making sure no more players get injured and we don't fall out of a playoff spot in our remaining games.

Oh, you assume we'll make the playoffs still?

Well yeah, how else do you reckon we win the championship this year?

[lilfishi22]

We've had 5 games this season where we had 10 or more FTA's than the other team. Overall we've had more FTA than the other team 23 times.

Within +/- 5-8 FTA is what I would consider within reason.

There have been 46 games his season where we had less FTA's than the other team. 23 games where we had at least 10 FTA less than the other team. The Lakers had 26 more FTA's than us in this game and the crazy thing is that isn't even the biggest disparity this season.....the biggest disparity this season was THIRTY FTA difference and the crazy thing is that it was again, against the Lakers. Here are the other teams that had a 15FTA+ differential against us.

Houston x2 - 15 and 24
Sacramento - 15
New Orleans - 22
Milwaukee - 21
Miami - 21
Washington - 18
Boston - 17
New York - 18
Portland - 15

[lilfishi22]

Watch on YouTube

If you told me this was the post game against the Bucks a week or so ago, I wouldn't even challenge you on it.

[sasquatchBob]

At this rate we're gonna miss the playoffs lol

[kennydorglas]

lets see how they whistle us in the playoffs (if we even keep our spot tbh)
like Monty Jackson said, theyre allowed to play physical and bump u everytime... in the end they end shooting 26 more FTA.
something VERY WRONG is happening

[starbosa10]

Only persons that deserves more calls is probably cam payne and book. No one else takes the ball to the hoop. Don't brag about being mid range gods and expect to go toe to toe in the FT category.

For me the issue isn't so much the calls/FTs we aren't getting but the absolutely ridiculous soft fouls that are called on us when we try to match other teams physicality defensively

[POLI]

We've had 5 games this season where we had 10 or more FTA's than the other team. Overall we've had more FTA than the other team 23 times.

Within +/- 5-8 FTA is what I would consider within reason.

There have been 46 games his season where we had less FTA's than the other team. 23 games where we had at least 10 FTA less than the other team. The Lakers had 26 more FTA's than us in this game and the crazy thing is that isn't even the biggest disparity this season.....the biggest disparity this season was THIRTY FTA difference and the crazy thing is that it was again, against the Lakers. Here are the other teams that had a 15FTA+ differential against us.

Houston x2 - 15 and 24
Sacramento - 15
New Orleans - 22
Milwaukee - 21
Miami - 21
Washington - 18
Boston - 17
New York - 18
Portland - 15

When your game is shooting midrange jumpers, getting more FTs is impossible.

When DA and KD are going to be back?

[Saberestar]

Last year's Celtics had numerous injuries all across their team. Brown, Smart, Timelord and Horford all missed significant time last year and the team still won and won and won. He instilled an incredibly tough team, both mentally and how they actually go about their business on the floor.

I'll add that they averaged 21 FTA as a team compared to our 16 per game this year. Probably gave up less FTs to their opponents as well. Defense is obviously no contest as last year's Celts were far and away the better team-even when we had Mikal.

Lastly he managed to devise a defense to harass our very own Kevin Durant into a terrible series and a sweep when they met in the playoff....on the way to Boston getting to the Finals.

I think we should be so lucky to have Ime as our coach next season.

Have you seen the Celtics roster for the last few years? You could put a monkey to coach that roster and they will get 50 wins.

You have the proof just looking to their record (without the "great" Udoka) with a rookie HC.

....take a look at the Celtics board to get a feel for how they are liking Joe Maz. I'll give you a hint: it's similar to how I feel about Monty. If not worse.

It's universally accepted that Udoka was the reason they got where they were last year lol. I'm not making this up. Brooklyn almost hired him like 2 months later then the league probably stepped in or something and vetoed the hiring. Either way, he'll have a job this fall.

Does anyone here honestly think Monty is a better coach? Do you?

Absolutely. Probably most people around the NBA agree with me.

What has Udoka accomplished? At least Monty isn't out of the league.

[BobbieL]

The team hasn't been all that fun to watch in a while. Hopefully KD can play in at least half his games the next couple of years. I don't know how long Paul has left. But things will likely go downhill quite a bit if KD can't stay on the floor when he's making $60 million in 3 years, with Book on a supermax and Paul gone and little cap space or picks.

For me there just isn't any organic growth to the team and because of it, the games have been not fun. I could care less about Ross, Damion Lee, and basically almost the majority of the Suns players. It was fun watching Okogie blossom for a bit, but that seemed to have tapered off.

Yeah, you get vested (or at least I did) in a team you watch grow. Now it just seems like a mishmash of players with a couple of aging stars and Book. Then of course you have Ayton but if he's playing (and I'm one of the few who would rather watch him than Biz or Jock), and you follow in a game thread, it's just anti Ayton rhetoric, so then it takes away more from watching. It's just become increasingly less fun to watch.

Even with KD, I used to love watching him on OKC back in the day, but then on GS, adding him to that fun organic successful team just felt like a cheat code, then Brooklyn. For us, he is smooth to watch. Makes our team tough, frees up Book to be more open and score more points, but it still feels then we are missing that heart, that team and unified feeling we had..the way the team loved each other. I know KD is all about business, and Book and Paul, but Bridges played hard but also brought the team together in kind of a special way like he now has in Brooklyn.

So it feels it's more than just Bridges being gone, etc, but that the team doesn't have that heart and unity it did. There is less fun. And there will be more pressure, which could make it even tougher to perform. Then fans will be even more pissed and upset and will have to blame Monty or Ayton or someone else, when we may just get outplayed by a deeper, more cohesive team like Memphis. Or another team with high top end talent as well like the Clips, or even Dallas if they can squeeze into the playoffs.

Exactly. That team was fun to watch
My concern wuth a durant trade was too much depth and his injury history
Well - this was the scenarios that happened
Plus that other team was just getting healthy.

If durant can okay next week - he needs to play

[RayLight]

The huge problem is the referees actually don`t respect the Suns` defense. Yeah, it happens to miss a couple of fouls for Phoenix here and there, but the major problem is the opponent's star and even role players are getting ridiculous calls every single night.
I don`t know why, but Monty is right - this is becoming a tendency or habit if you say it, and is bad not only for the Suns` organization but also for the NBA as a whole.

Considering the team's performance the last 10 days, well, without KD as the current roster relies so much on him, we are just a 10-12 team like Washington with Beal or Portland with Dame. Let's be honest - CP3 regressed a lot this year, and we don`t have anybody reliable to defend the opposing stars (no, DA is not such a guy as he is super lazy this year) + our role players are third-string players (I like Okogie, D.Lee, and Ross though).

I know that with KD playing, the opponent`s defense collapses and many guys are/will be open to shooting, but still, with KD`s and CP3`s injury history, the Suns are pretty much relying on luck.

I am not saying that with Bridges and Cam, we would have had a better chance to win it all. YES, we had this chance last year, when something happened after the regular season and the team collapsed mentally during the playoffs. If they had played the way they did during the regular season, I am sure the title would have been in Phoenix.

Anyway, I really hope KD will be available next week as there is a real chance to slip to the 7-10 places and I don`t like this play-in tournament at all!

[Sunlight]

Why Monty's most important rotation player and best defender Ish Wainright was suddenly out of the game? And where was Suns best three point shooter Damien Lee? This team goes nowhere if Moronty all the time change his rotation often than his pants. That guy is chaos.

[sunsfan1o1]

Lakers need to make the play in. That’s why they got the free throws.
Suns will get a game where the whistle is in our favor to keep us in the playoffs. But it won’t be against the lakers.
The refs and NBA are working overtime right now to figure out what games need to be manipulated so their teams make the playoffs or play in and to keep the end of the season interesting.

Nothing we can do but hope teams miss free throws or, stop playing guys who suck and don’t make shots (Craig, Shamet, Landale).

That’s why TJ and Ross should be playing over Shamet.
We only need one guy on the court who can defend because it doesn’t matter the refs are gonna call fouls. But on the other end you got defense crowding the paint doubling Booker and keeping Paul and Book out of the mid range.

Space the floor with Ross and TJ and forget about Craig. He sucks.
NBA don’t wanna see defense they wanna see scoring. If you play defense you get called for a foul.

[irish22022]

I'm not nearly as annoyed by the 20 as I am the 46. We really aren't allowed to defend. If a team doesn't attack the paint against us that coach should be fired at halftime.

As for the monty hate: look at our trash roster. I was all for them not rushing KD back but we need to keep the 4th seed at all costs. If KD can even come off the bench and give us 15 mins for 3-5 games before he's back as a starter, that would be very helpful.