Game 10: Sacramento Kings (5-4) @ Phoenix Suns (8-1) l Sunday l 6:00pm l AZFamily

[Iceman36]

Fought hard and lost, cause we had no answer stopping Demar and Derozan Middies.

The only thing that bothers me is, why didn‘t Book go to the money Middy instead of a hard contested 3 at the end of regulation? That‘s what KD had done…

[Mulhollanddrive]

I didn't mind the strategy of making them make 10/15 mid range jumpers or whatever it was. Problem was we didn't have length or speed to make it difficult for DeRozan and Fox.

[Frank Lee]

Lack of length and speed will be our downfall… if health doesn’t sabotage us.


Cracking up at the ‘proud’ boys.

[sunsbg]

Based on the box score Suns emulated Celtics in this one. 57 3pt shots vs 48 for 2. Celtics were 50 vs 38 in their game. Haven't watched yet but I assume it's the same strategy, put a 3 as soon as you see any space, for the stars don't even need to be open. Shoot with a hand in your face to look cool, try to draw a foul if the defender is close to you. Looks low IQ shot and player ends shooting low %, but I guess this is the new NBA though there always was a saying live by the three, die by the three. It applies even more now.

[RedIndian]

Fought hard and lost, cause we had no answer stopping Demar and Derozan Middies.

The only thing that bothers me is, why didn‘t Book go to the money Middy instead of a hard contested 3 at the end of regulation? That‘s what KD had done…

I think Bud should have pulled Plumlee, and gone with Oso or Royce at the 5. Demar and Fox were killing the drop with the middies, and we should have countered by switching instead of allowing that middy throughout the 4th quarter. Frustrated because that change should have sewn up the win in the 4th, but I felt Bud let it slip.

Come OT, we were too gassed.

[Revived]

Fought hard and lost, cause we had no answer stopping Demar and Derozan Middies.

The only thing that bothers me is, why didn‘t Book go to the money Middy instead of a hard contested 3 at the end of regulation? That‘s what KD had done…

I think Bud should have pulled Plumlee, and gone with Oso or Royce at the 5. Demar and Fox were killing the drop with the middies, and we should have countered by switching instead of allowing that middy throughout the 4th quarter. Frustrated because that change should have sewn up the win in the 4th, but I felt Bud let it slip.

Come OT, we were too gassed.

Drop coverage didn’t even matter, DeRozan kept hitting it over his primary defender O’Neal numerous times and 3 times for and-1 too.

EJ kept saying it on the broadcast but Suns had to double DeRozan and make someone else make a shot in that 4th qtr besides DeRozan or Fox. That was the solution. Live with the results if whoever that player is makes the open shot.

Other teams many times force the Suns to end up having a guy that’s not Booker, or KD shoot the ball in 4th qtrs and Suns needed to implement that as well.

[Puff]

WTF . I thought we needed a point guard last year. That is why we brought in 3 of them

Jones 4 Assists
Morris DNP
Gillespie G league

Point Book 12 assists

I thought we brought Bol Bol back as a back up to KD - DNP

Quite frankly I do not understand. Yeah, Bud appears to be a good guy and coach but I don't get this stuff, it just does not make sense to me.

1. Give Bol Bol some minutes
2. Let Book play his natural position.

It appears that Jones is our best 2 guard - WTF

[Revived]

Ayo looked really good in his mins. I’d love to see a lineup where the Suns go big and play him on the second unit with Plumlee.

If Nurkic is out for few games with injury then we will see Ayo by default which im excited about.

Kid has great passing vision. He moves pretty well defensively too. Just needs to learn more discipline defensively and not jump at fakes and such. That will come with more playing time.

Sucks we wasted a great Tyus Jones scoring game today.

[Revived]

We all would love for KD to have played 30mpg, rested plenty and still go 8-1 but if he did play 30mpg and we're 4-5 instead, we'd all be calling for Bud's head.

We need to give it a chance to see how it goes. Maybe we go 6-3 instead of 8-1 with KD and Book playing 35 mins or less.

And you know what, I’ll take that. Because im tired of these players being worn out and playing insanely heavy mins during the regular season and then once playoffs come around and other teams star players are more fresh, our guys are exhausted, and broken down due to the heavy miles and wear and tear from the regular season.

Sacrificing a few regular season wins to have players especially old guys like KD and Beal more fresh for postseason is one that’s worth making imo. Booker too considering he just played in the Olympics too and was a starter there so he’s gotta be plenty tired overall.

This team mortgaged its entire future to try and win a championship, not for regular season wins.

[Saberestar]

****! We were just one set play away from winning this one. That attempt from Book in the last play was pretty bad, we had enough time to try to go to the rim or at least a mid-range shot...but a three on the move in front of two guys in the corner??

DeRozan has always been one of my favorite players because of his one-on-one skills. Ridiculous. Props to him, he won the game for them.

Bad shooting night for everyone not named Tyus. Allen and Royce specially were off.

Book as a creator was really good, another high assists game and he was making good reads all game long with just some exceptions.

Well job by Plumdog 2.0, he can play big minutes for us if Nurkic is out for a few games. Eubanks would have never done a game like that, huge difference in IQ.

Well...to the next one.

[Saberestar]

We're probably closer to a 6-4 or even a 5-5 team than a 8-2 team based on our net rating. But credit where credit's due, we're not blowing anyone away but no one is doing that to us either and we're getting it done in the clutch. That counts for something.

Net rating is a dumb metric to judge a team by. We are 8-2. A 1 point win still ends up in the same column as a 40 point win.

It's just one metric. Very few single metrics are good at telling someone what a team really is. But I think the point being made is that, despite having an 8-2 record, I don't think anyone is fooling themselves into thinking we're in the same echelon as other teams with similar records like OKC, Boston or GSW.

I agree about Boston, current champion and on his own tier...but GSW and OKC? We are better or as good as them.

[Fo-Real]

5 games in 7 nights coming up too

Booker 2 airballs is a red flag he tends to do a hamstring or calf when overplayed

Booker also is coming off being sick with something. He might be in one of those weird interim days where your body just feels like you are dragging while returning to health.

[bwgood77]

Not a terrible loss. We were very competitive and what are you going to do with DeRozan and Fox so hot at the end. However, I did wonder why we didn't sub in Dunn for Royce and try him on DeMar.

But then the Booker airballs...he had 2 near the end and I thought one earlier...then Beal had one.

The weird thing was it didn't feel like Book was aggressive and wanted to take over at the end. Maybe his confidence was down after the airballs, but that usually doesn't deter him. I usually don't call for more hero ball, but it was just weird he didn't seem to want to take over.

There are no teams in the west with fewer than 2 losses, and only 1 in the east and Boston has 2. However, those 4 teams have double digit pt differentials and maybe tougher schedules, while our pt differential is 2.

But hanging in there, despite shooting under 42% overall, under 32% from 3, being outrebounded by 9, getting to the line less, etc, is good. We show a lot of hustle out there. The next one should be easy, before we have a few tough road games. And OKC always kills us, though with Holmgren, Hartenstein and Kenrich Williams out, I don't know what they will do at C. I'd trade Nurkic for Hartenstein though (and I like Nurkic).

[enigmatics]

WTF . I thought we needed a point guard last year. That is why we brought in 3 of them

Jones 4 Assists
Morris DNP
Gillespie G league

Point Book 12 assists

I thought we brought Bol Bol back as a back up to KD - DNP

Quite frankly I do not understand. Yeah, Bud appears to be a good guy and coach but I don't get this stuff, it just does not make sense to me.

1. Give Bol Bol some minutes
2. Let Book play his natural position.

It appears that Jones is our best 2 guard - WTF

That's why I'm not excited about this start.

KD and Book's egos have to be checked. Absolutely absurd that on any night Book is the assist leader. GTFOH.

Oh and 57 three point attempts. Seriously I'm tired of this version of the NBA.

[bwgood77]

I was thinking early it seemed like a 3 pt shooting contest. Beal and Book each took 10, and I wanted them to take more this season, but with KD out, and Nurkic able to stretch the floor, they should get more good midrange shots which both are elite at.

When KD plays, he doesn't shoot a ton of 3s (in relation to his total shots), but with him out, I thought one of the other guys or both would shoot more midrange shots, especially if their 3s were not falling.

[bwgood77]

Regarding the poll, I was thinking, there isn't a single player on the team I don't like. While I sometimes mention Nurkic's finishing, and some things with his defense, I really like him. Good guy, likable, plays hard, etc.

[lilfishi22]

We all would love for KD to have played 30mpg, rested plenty and still go 8-1 but if he did play 30mpg and we're 4-5 instead, we'd all be calling for Bud's head.

We need to give it a chance to see how it goes. Maybe we go 6-3 instead of 8-1 with KD and Book playing 35 mins or less.

And you know what, I’ll take that. Because im tired of these players being worn out and playing insanely heavy mins during the regular season and then once playoffs come around and other teams star players are more fresh, our guys are exhausted, and broken down due to the heavy miles and wear and tear from the regular season.

Sacrificing a few regular season wins to have players especially old guys like KD and Beal more fresh for postseason is one that’s worth making imo. Booker too considering he just played in the Olympics too and was a starter there so he’s gotta be plenty tired overall.

This team mortgaged its entire future to try and win a championship, not for regular season wins.

What I'm saying is that, if we rested KD and went 4-5 or 5-4 we be asking the opposite question, why not playing KD more? Why not give it a chance for a few more wins?

Injuries are part of the game and for a 37 year old players with his mileage, he may still have strained his calf playing 30mpg but in some other time in the season instead of now. And FWIW most load manging doesn't really start until maybe Jan or ASW when the team knows where they are record wise. Unless you're like a Kawhi or Embiid who are at the stage where their teams are already holding them out of any B2B's, it doesn't make sense to already be restrictive with his minutes especially when we've been humming. So while I'm comfortable with the premise that could have played KD less and lost a few more games, we just don't know when an injury might strike, whether or not we kept his minutes to 30mpg or where it is now.

I just know right now, I trust in Bud, the training staff and our medical experts. We're 8-2 so far and I'm not ready to start questioning their decisions.

[lilfishi22]

Net rating is a dumb metric to judge a team by. We are 8-2. A 1 point win still ends up in the same column as a 40 point win.

It's just one metric. Very few single metrics are good at telling someone what a team really is. But I think the point being made is that, despite having an 8-2 record, I don't think anyone is fooling themselves into thinking we're in the same echelon as other teams with similar records like OKC, Boston or GSW.

I agree about Boston, current champion and on his own tier...but GSW and OKC? We are better or as good as them.

Well GSW and OKC are on either ends of the spectrum of dominance. GSW are 2nd in ORTG while OKC are on their on tier defensively. Both absolutely dominant. Really the only thing we share with them is their 8-2 record. Sure you could put Boston above them but we're not in the same tier as GSW or OKC right now, at least we haven't shown it yet

[lilfishi22]

Not a terrible loss. We were very competitive and what are you going to do with DeRozan and Fox so hot at the end. However, I did wonder why we didn't sub in Dunn for Royce and try him on DeMar.

But then the Booker airballs...he had 2 near the end and I thought one earlier...then Beal had one.

The weird thing was it didn't feel like Book was aggressive and wanted to take over at the end. Maybe his confidence was down after the airballs, but that usually doesn't deter him. I usually don't call for more hero ball, but it was just weird he didn't seem to want to take over.

There are no teams in the west with fewer than 2 losses, and only 1 in the east and Boston has 2. However, those 4 teams have double digit pt differentials and maybe tougher schedules, while our pt differential is 2.

But hanging in there, despite shooting under 42% overall, under 32% from 3, being outrebounded by 9, getting to the line less, etc, is good. We show a lot of hustle out there. The next one should be easy, before we have a few tough road games. And OKC always kills us, though with Holmgren, Hartenstein and Kenrich Williams out, I don't know what they will do at C. I'd trade Nurkic for Hartenstein though (and I like Nurkic).

Airballs for Book is pretty rare. Can't help but think his illness is still affecting him.

[lilfishi22]

WTF . I thought we needed a point guard last year. That is why we brought in 3 of them

Jones 4 Assists
Morris DNP
Gillespie G league

Point Book 12 assists

I thought we brought Bol Bol back as a back up to KD - DNP

Quite frankly I do not understand. Yeah, Bud appears to be a good guy and coach but I don't get this stuff, it just does not make sense to me.

1. Give Bol Bol some minutes
2. Let Book play his natural position.

It appears that Jones is our best 2 guard - WTF

Why is Book with 12 assists a bad thing? Tyus also had 22pts because we were missing 27ppg from KD, he also dished out 4 assists. Tyus AST% is more or less in line with his career average. We as a team took 57 three point attempts and dished out 30 assists as a team on 11 turnovers. I don't see any reason to play Bol given Dunn and Royce have been so good for us.