RealGM

Who: Detroit Pistons @ Phoenix Suns

When: Fri, February 28th @ 7:00pm, FSNAZ

Where: Talking Stick Resort Arena, Phoenix, AZ








Detroit Pistons starting lineup:

C- Hanson

F- Wood

F- Snell

G- Mykhailiuk

G- Rose


Reserves: Galloway/Knight/Doumbouya/Thomas/Maker






Phoenix Suns starting lineup:


C- Ayton

F- Saric

F- Bridges

G- Booker

G- Rubio


Reserves: Baynes/Cam/Carter/Diallo/Okobo

Even without Kelly O, the Suns need to win games like this in order to stay competitive for the last playoff spot. Can't be blowing home games against non-playoff teams anymore like earlier in the season.

Hoping Cam gets lots of playing time.

Perfect game to challenge Ty Jerome in. Rose is quality, but the rest of the team is meh.

If we play with speed and good ball movement, the a few Jerome mistakes for the sake of learning shouldn't be too detrimental to the overall result.

Good game to start Cam over Saric. Get back to the idea of starting off strong and fast. Still give Dario a bunch of minutes though. Good game to see Diallo get some burn as well. Bring him off the bench with Saric.

Give Carter a bunch of minutes as well.

Start Rubio, Booker, Cam, Bridges, Ayton and then bring in Carter, Saric, Diallo off the bench. Run an eight man team for most of the game. If we are doing really well, then incorporate more bench players, hopefully we can finish strong with our bench.

I expect Wood to play really well, and I would like to see Bridges play him wisely. I am worried about Saric guarding Wood.

Boy, that Pistons team is sad to watch, on paper.

Vegas Phoenix - 7.5 ??? We should blow this squad out with Ayton dropping 35+ ... should.... right?

I seriously doubt we start Cam. We have 3 really efficient guys to start and he is effective coming off the bench and not nearly the defender or rebounder Saric is. But regardless, I don't think it will happen anyway, since Saric has been an effective starter on a solid Philly team, and for much of his career. I'm impressed with Cam, but all he really provides is shooting, and some occasionally nice passes.

Drummond and reggie killed us last game but rose didn't play. I assume if you take away Drummond's 30/20 we win.

Their front court might be worse than the bulls last week. Ayton needs to get that 2nd half focus he had against the bulls this whole game. This should be ayton's 30/20.

bwgood77 wrote:I seriously doubt we start Cam. We have 3 really efficient guys to start and he is effective coming off the bench and not nearly the defender or rebounder Saric is. But regardless, I don't think it will happen anyway, since Saric has been an effective starter on a solid Philly team, and for much of his career. I'm impressed with Cam, but all he really provides is shooting, and some occasionally nice passes.

Am I the only one who realized that he has improved defensively?

bwgood77 wrote:I seriously doubt we start Cam. We have 3 really efficient guys to start and he is effective coming off the bench and not nearly the defender or rebounder Saric is. But regardless, I don't think it will happen anyway, since Saric has been an effective starter on a solid Philly team, and for much of his career. I'm impressed with Cam, but all he really provides is shooting, and some occasionally nice passes.

It gives Rubio another target for passes, and he opens up the paint for Ayton, and he forces teams to guard him, and not slack off to help double Booker. Cam has really played harder since coming back from the injury. He seems to be moving better both on offense and defense. I like the idea of Bridges working with Cam and get him to a new level.

Speaking of shooting, he is shooting 50% from three since the Allstar game.

Dario is just too slow. He tries hard, but just isn't a starter. I would much rather start pushing Cam to see what else he can do. We have seen that he is improving at just playing in the NBA. Lets surround him with our starters, and see what we have. Saric, we know what we have, a solid bench player, who can play the 4-5 spot, and he can play just fine coming off the bench. We just have to give him more mins off the bench, hence the smaller rotation.

Saric isn't much of a rebounder, so we aren't losing much there, and looking at the Piston line up, I would rather have Bridges hounding Wood, which I think is their best front court player at this point. Saric is slow getting out on shooters and doesn't make up for that with massive boarding or blocks. We have created a nice team dynamic with starting out as a run and gun team, it seems like a step backwards to go back to a traditional line up, with a slower forward.

But hey, lets go back to those slow starts and try and come back from behind. Then we will finish quarters and the game with the line up I am pushing....again. So what is the over/under of games it will take to get to this?

Well I guess all I can hope for is that Dario doesn't go 1-7 again, forcing other guys to try and take too many forced shots to make up for it.

KLEON wrote:

bwgood77 wrote:I seriously doubt we start Cam. We have 3 really efficient guys to start and he is effective coming off the bench and not nearly the defender or rebounder Saric is. But regardless, I don't think it will happen anyway, since Saric has been an effective starter on a solid Philly team, and for much of his career. I'm impressed with Cam, but all he really provides is shooting, and some occasionally nice passes.

Am I the only one who realized that he has improved defensively?

No, which is why I wanted to start him. I think working with Bridges in the starting forward positions will really push Cam's game defensively. Also, that extra hustle on defense has helped his shooting (50% from 3 since ASG) and overall game awareness. He is making some smart passes. If he was pushed into the Oubre role, we may find that drafting him at 11 was a smart move after all.

ATTL wrote:Drummond and reggie killed us last game but rose didn't play. I assume if you take away Drummond's 30/20 we win.

Their front court might be worse than the bulls last week. Ayton needs to get that 2nd half focus he had against the bulls this whole game. This should be ayton's 30/20.

I know, I was slightly pissed that Reggie got another chance to hurt us, but on a better team like the Clips.

Rose will be tough, but if we play our faster defenders, I think he will be managed better. Hopefully Carter gets a bulk of the guard mins off the bench.

Sorry, they sold

Cam makes a lot of sense next to Ayton. I like him more and more with every game. He's looking more athletic than at start of season, probably the hip issues have something to do with it. Great shooter, great team player with high BBIQ, moves the ball well, a decent defender. He's certainly not a wasted pick like many others in recent years.

Saric is disappointing. Had a few nice games, but overall looking at his Phily clips with some amazing passing, he's like a completely different player now. Slow and mediocre in general. Not a great fit with Rubio and Mikal in the lineup either.

Oh, and one of them is much more likely to be on the team next season, so maybe just start him to build chemistry with the other starters.

sunsbg wrote:Cam makes a lot of sense next to Ayton. I like him more and more with every game. He's looking more athletic than at start of season, probably the hip issues have something to do with it. Great shooter, great team player with high BBIQ, moves the ball well, a decent defender. He's certainly not a wasted pick like many others in recent years.

Saric is disappointing. Had a few nice games, but overall looking at his Phily clips with some amazing passing, he's like a completely different player now. Slow and mediocre in general. Not a great fit with Rubio and Mikal in the lineup either.

Oh, and one of them is much more likely to be on the team next season, so maybe just start him to build chemistry with the other starters.

Imagine him getting solid minutes with our starters. His shot looks nice right now, and that could really open up players like Ayton and Booker. Cam would keep a lot of defenses honest. But more than likely, we will just go with Saric, and slowly go through the game. All we can hope for is that Saric hits those open shots he will get, when Detroit doubles either Booker or Ayton.

Christian wood is playing for a good contract this summer.
I liked him coming out, wanted the suns to try him out after he kept getting cut. I was excited when he made our summer league roster. I figured he just wasn't good since he kept getting cut.

Do y'all think he's for real or just looter in a riot stats for the pistons?

ATTL wrote:Christian wood is playing for a good contract this summer.
I liked him coming out, wanted the suns to try him out after he kept getting cut. I was excited when he made our summer league roster. I figured he just wasn't good since he kept getting cut.

Do y'all think he's for real or just looter in a riot stats for the pistons?

He has a pretty good game and he hustles. I am a bit surprised it took him this long to showcase what he can do, but sometimes you just get a break, and the injury to Blake and then the other injuries and trades, he got the most out of the minutes available to him.

He had a good run in NOP last year too. It sucked that he only got ten games, but he was 16/8 with 1.3 blocks and 0.9 steals in those ten games, and only starting twice.

I doubt we start Cam. What I'm interested to see is how we play with Bridges starting next to Saric as a lot of us called for from the get. That argument was based on Oubre possibly fitting better as a bench scorer, so that's the hole we really have to figure out how to fill.

Without Oubre, there's no one really suited to be a one-man wrecking ball / microwave player so it's got to come from somewhere else.

Maybe we go for longer stretches of small ball with Saric at center?

Maybe we just go all-in on hustle and defense from the bench, with lots of Carter and Baynes?

Or we shorten Booker's minutes with the starters and turn the whole team over to him for longer stretches? I could see that. Booker starts with Rubio/Mikal/Saric/Ayton, but subs out fairly early and then comes back for heavy minutes with the bench, e.g. Carter/Booker/Mikal/Cam/Baynes.

Glad it's the Pistons tonight so we have a little more room for error as we adapt to life without Oubre.

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ATTL wrote:Christian wood is playing for a good contract this summer.
I liked him coming out, wanted the suns to try him out after he kept getting cut. I was excited when he made our summer league roster. I figured he just wasn't good since he kept getting cut.

Do y'all think he's for real or just looter in a riot stats for the pistons?

I could never figure out why Christian Wood did not catch on somewhere for a decent deal.