NBA Semis | Game 1 (1) Phoenix Suns vs (4) Dallas Mavericks | May 2nd 7PM PST

[pj0tr]

Also it may be impossible to play McGee unless Powell is on the floor. When they play 5-out, he's just too slow to keep out there.

But I don't see Monty pulling McGee's minutes. I feel Monty is a lot like Mike D, where they think '"well the other team will have to adjust to us." It might be the case if McGee dominates in the paint. But the question will become how many threes are we willing to trade for twos.

I am not going to underestimate Dallas. They have good three point shooters, and while Luca was out, Brunson and Dinwiddie really stepped up. I mean they now have a starter besides Luca that can easily go off for 30-40 pts, and now a bench player who can add 20.

I am hoping for solid officiating games, no injuries on either side, and hopefully great team basketball from the Suns. We need to get back to that win every game mentality. All players have to have that attitude, and so does Monty. Can't play guys sucking big playoff minutes, while passing up guys who come in and do really well. Hopefully we see more of Holiday and Craig, both can come off the bench, provide energy, guard top players and contribute on offense (well usually).

Monty only played McGee limited minutes in Game 6 against the Pelicans.

Hes not against adjusting his rotation, as we saw in both Games 5 and 6.

Wainright/McGee might be the play here for non-Ayton minutes against Dallas. I don't think we'll see Craig at the 5 much in this series.

[NapoleonII]

The General Board is in for a rude awakening.

[SunsRback4Good]

The General Board is in for a rude awakening.

They been doubting the Suns since the bubble nothing new here. Phoenix doesn't have to prove anything they've already proved to be a legit contender these past few years.

[ATTL]

I had forgotten luka fans before this series. It's like each of them are his family and have blinders on.

[pj0tr]

The General Board is in for a rude awakening.

The Dallas fan Gimli is the biggest **** idiot I've seen on this board, and I've been reading posts on here for almost 10 years now.

[bwgood77]

Bridges will guard Luka. Not Brunson except when switched or if Luka is off the court or Mikal is in foul trouble. You do not put the best perimeter defender in basketball on a SG who is a top 45 player over the SF who is an MVP candidate. Brunson and Mikal being boys in college doesn't change that.

Yes, CP3/Booker can work on Brunson. Mikal may get some time on him, particularly when Doncic and Brunson stagger minutes, but I think, especially in game 1 with a lot of rest for CP3 (and of course Booker has had a lot of rest), they can have the energy with Brunson. A lot of guarding him is just guarding 3s, and he's short.

Obviously you have to put Bridges on Luka. Who else are you going to put on him? Maybe DA when he drives and Mikal switches off, but it's tough. Luka gets to the line a lot so you don't want either DA or Bridges to get in foul trouble. That would kill us.

Booker will probably want to guard him some but I think he should preserve his energy.

I wonder who will guard who for us? I am not sure who is a better defender, DFS or Bullock. I think DFS so he will probably get Booker and Bullock maybe Bridges or CP3.

[spanishninja]

The General Board is in for a rude awakening.

The Dallas fan Gimli is the biggest **** idiot I've seen on this board, and I've been reading posts on here for almost 10 years now.

the funniest thing about this guy is that he disregards any of the regular season matchups Luka has had against us irrelevant, while also propping up the Mavs based on their regular season record (in 2022 only, no less).

Sent from my SM-G781U using RealGM Forums mobile app

[bwgood77]

Oh man there are some seriously crazy takes on the GB about this series. I mean, crazy to me at least. I really don't see this series going to even 6 games, I think the Suns will absolutely crush the Mavs. The Mavs will try to exploit any PnR scenarios with Doncic but realize it will be harder than they think since Ayton can move his feet very well. And then on the opposite side of the floor CP3 will be having a field day with the PnR with whoever is guarding Ayton or McGee.

The only way the Mavs stay close in games is if their role players shoot lights out from 3, but I don't expect that to happen 4 times in this series.

Based on our matchups in the past, I agree with you, however,

Luka has always risen in the playoffs...from last year to the World Cup Euroleague, leading his team as a 19 year old or whatever to win 2 games after they lost the first one.

They took the title favorite Clippers WITH Kawhi to 7 last year, winning the first two in LA.

Of course the team is different this year, but I think Brunson is better than anyone they had before, or at least has a bigger role having come into his own.

I don't want it to be easy. If we can't take it in 5, it will be interesting to see how game 6 goes. Them at home, us being great at closeout games, but Luka's back against the wall.

I don't think we will lose, but I think anything could happen as far as how long the series goes.

[bwgood77]

Not sure why people don't try to ignore the GB more. Who cares?

I mean I read it and respond to some people who are way off base with player evaluations, but much of the other stuff I just laugh and move on.

It is interesting the two Global Mods on the GB are a Suns fan and a Mavs fan.

There is one fan here over reporting and sometimes that has a backward effect.

If there is a blatant personal attack (and you didn't initiate it with one yourself calling someone a clown or something), then report.

Also if you think someone is subtly trolling but toeing the rules, PM jamaalstar21 with your concerns. He is almost always around and is very good and unbiased.

[pj0tr]

I'd expect:

CP3 on Bullock
Booker on Brunson
Bridges on Luka
Jae on DFS
DA on Powell

to start games. I'm assuming tomorrow we see a lot of the soft hedge into a double that we saw on Ingram in Games 5 and 6, from Bridges, and DA defending Luka. I don't think we see hard doubles in Game 1, at least in the first half until the Suns get an idea how of how capable the Mavs are of moving the ball against the Suns elite wing defense compared to the Jazz.

I'd assume we see Dallas try to get the switch around the middle of the shot clock from Luka onto either CP3 or Booker. DA hedging and soft-trapping Luka takes away of some of that.

[lilfishi22]

I know Luka is Luka but how worried should we be about Brunson? He had a solid all-around performance against us this season and even though they lost every game and he had a negative +/- but this was mostly early in the season when I think both teams were still finding their footing and before he seems to have taken a bit of a leap in the playoffs.

Aside from Dinwiddie who we didn't play for the Mavs when we last played them, this new Brunson seems to be the only "new" piece we haven't really seen.

[pj0tr]

I know Luka is Luka but how worried should we be about Brunson? He had a solid all-around performance against us this season and even though they lost every game and he had a negative +/- but this was mostly early in the season when I think both teams were still finding their footing and before he seems to have taken a bit of a leap in the playoffs.

Aside from Dinwiddie who we didn't play for the Mavs when we last played them, this new Brunson seems to be the only "new" piece we haven't really seen.

Brunson got his pick of Jazz defenders - O'Neal, Mitchell, Conley, etc...

Oddly the only guy that seemed to give him a little trouble was Bogdanovic.

He does worry me to be clear. He has VERY good body position and footwork, and has a pretty nasty low-post game that people don't seem to realize.

I guess its kind of wait and see? Luka is the first priority.

[ATTL]

The General Board is in for a rude awakening.

The Dallas fan Gimli is the biggest **** idiot I've seen on this board, and I've been reading posts on here for almost 10 years now.

He said hes slovenian. His opinion will never be changed. It's like telling me my kid wont be an Olympian. You can show me all the stats showing how unlikely it is but I will just tell you that at 2 years old my kid is already well ahead of the curve.

He could be right that the suns will get swept but this masterbation before they play is just insufferable.

[lilfishi22]

I know Luka is Luka but how worried should we be about Brunson? He had a solid all-around performance against us this season and even though they lost every game and he had a negative +/- but this was mostly early in the season when I think both teams were still finding their footing and before he seems to have taken a bit of a leap in the playoffs.

Aside from Dinwiddie who we didn't play for the Mavs when we last played them, this new Brunson seems to be the only "new" piece we haven't really seen.

Brunson got his pick of Jazz defenders - O'Neal, Mitchell, Conley, etc...

Oddly the only guy that seemed to give him a little trouble was Bogdanovic.

He does worry me to be clear. He has VERY good body position and footwork, and has a pretty nasty low-post game that people don't seem to realize.

I guess its kind of wait and see? Luka is the first priority.

With Luka and similar to BI, he's going to get his and he's going to have a couple of massive games but you're not going to stop these elite offensive players anyway. Best thing we can do is make it hard for him, tire him out and perhaps force him to give up the rock more than he would like but he's going to get his.

It's the other guys that we need to keep from going off. Brunson is obviously the obvious clear candidate to drop 30-40 while also playmaking so he's the only real worry for me. But you make a great point about the Utah defense and Brunson getting whatever he wanted against them. Our perimeter defense is miles better with multiple, switchable wings who are tough, long and defensively disciplined.

I think the other question as well is are we going to make shots, especially from 3. There's no clear reason why we were in such a shooting slump in the first series and we suddenly got it going again. If there's no clear reason why we were shooting bad then it could come back to bite us again against the Mavs.

[pj0tr]

I know Luka is Luka but how worried should we be about Brunson? He had a solid all-around performance against us this season and even though they lost every game and he had a negative +/- but this was mostly early in the season when I think both teams were still finding their footing and before he seems to have taken a bit of a leap in the playoffs.

Aside from Dinwiddie who we didn't play for the Mavs when we last played them, this new Brunson seems to be the only "new" piece we haven't really seen.

Brunson got his pick of Jazz defenders - O'Neal, Mitchell, Conley, etc...

Oddly the only guy that seemed to give him a little trouble was Bogdanovic.

He does worry me to be clear. He has VERY good body position and footwork, and has a pretty nasty low-post game that people don't seem to realize.

I guess its kind of wait and see? Luka is the first priority.

With Luka and similar to BI, he's going to get his and he's going to have a couple of massive games but you're not going to stop these elite offensive players anyway. Best thing we can do is make it hard for him, tire him out and perhaps force him to give up the rock more than he would like but he's going to get his.

It's the other guys that we need to keep from going off. Brunson is obviously the obvious clear candidate to drop 30-40 while also playmaking so he's the only real worry for me. But you make a great point about the Utah defense and Brunson getting whatever he wanted against them. Our perimeter defense is miles better with multiple, switchable wings who are tough, long and defensively disciplined.

I think the other question as well is are we going to make shots, especially from 3. There's no clear reason why we were in such a shooting slump in the first series and we suddenly got it going again. If there's no clear reason why we were shooting bad then it could come back to bite us again against the Mavs.

The shooting % thing is just one of those I don't know if there is a right answer for, and honestly, the team didn't shoot that much differently than their averages in the regular season. The Game 3 and Game 4 games obviously stand out, but those were the first 2 games without Booker. For the series...

Game 1 - 10/28 - 35.7%
Game 2 - 13/35 - 37.1%
Game 3 - 4/26 - 15.4%
Game 4 - 7/27 - 25.9%
Game 5 - 10/27 - 37.0%
Game 6 - 8/20 - 40.0%

https://go.nba.com/4fmsn

I'm not concerned about the shooting to be honest. Crowder is historically a streaky shooter, Johnson only shot 35.7%, although its very clear his play is trending upwards overall, especially in Games 5 and 6. If I was concerned about a particular player, Payne is probably the player I am most concerned about.

Him and Shamet will need to hit big 3s in the playoffs for this team.

[lilfishi22]

Also it may be impossible to play McGee unless Powell is on the floor. When they play 5-out, he's just too slow to keep out there.

But I don't see Monty pulling McGee's minutes. I feel Monty is a lot like Mike D, where they think '"well the other team will have to adjust to us." It might be the case if McGee dominates in the paint. But the question will become how many threes are we willing to trade for twos.

I am not going to underestimate Dallas. They have good three point shooters, and while Luca was out, Brunson and Dinwiddie really stepped up. I mean they now have a starter besides Luca that can easily go off for 30-40 pts, and now a bench player who can add 20.

I am hoping for solid officiating games, no injuries on either side, and hopefully great team basketball from the Suns. We need to get back to that win every game mentality. All players have to have that attitude, and so does Monty. Can't play guys sucking big playoff minutes, while passing up guys who come in and do really well. Hopefully we see more of Holiday and Craig, both can come off the bench, provide energy, guard top players and contribute on offense (well usually).

Monty only played McGee limited minutes in Game 6 against the Pelicans.

Hes not against adjusting his rotation, as we saw in both Games 5 and 6.

Wainright/McGee might be the play here for non-Ayton minutes against Dallas. I don't think we'll see Craig at the 5 much in this series.

I think we'll see more Craig than in the Pels series where we saw about 10mpg in the first 4 games and then didn't see him at all in the last 2. I think Craig was just a poor match up against the Pels because they had size and rebounding in their front line and he couldn't do much against his primary defensive assignment in BI.

This series will be different, he's going to get his minutes on Luka, he's going to get his minutes against their wings who are shooting very well from 3 so he'll be seeing a lot of switching out there and he's going to get his minutes against their bigs who I think he matches up against better than against the Pels front line considering they aren't the super strong, bruising types. I also think he'll get decent minutes just because we'll want to throw Luka different looks on defense. Crowder, Bridges, Cam and Craig are all gonna get a shot at Luka.

I do think McGee will get minutes too because he has the length and athleticism to play big. The Mavs don't have a single guy over 6-10 who are playing playoff minutes for them so we should certainly use our size to our advantage. Only time we'll see McGee lose minutes is if he just get put into an island by Luka in which case we'll play a bit more Craig imo

[lilfishi22]

Brunson got his pick of Jazz defenders - O'Neal, Mitchell, Conley, etc...

Oddly the only guy that seemed to give him a little trouble was Bogdanovic.

He does worry me to be clear. He has VERY good body position and footwork, and has a pretty nasty low-post game that people don't seem to realize.

I guess its kind of wait and see? Luka is the first priority.

With Luka and similar to BI, he's going to get his and he's going to have a couple of massive games but you're not going to stop these elite offensive players anyway. Best thing we can do is make it hard for him, tire him out and perhaps force him to give up the rock more than he would like but he's going to get his.

It's the other guys that we need to keep from going off. Brunson is obviously the obvious clear candidate to drop 30-40 while also playmaking so he's the only real worry for me. But you make a great point about the Utah defense and Brunson getting whatever he wanted against them. Our perimeter defense is miles better with multiple, switchable wings who are tough, long and defensively disciplined.

I think the other question as well is are we going to make shots, especially from 3. There's no clear reason why we were in such a shooting slump in the first series and we suddenly got it going again. If there's no clear reason why we were shooting bad then it could come back to bite us again against the Mavs.

The shooting % thing is just one of those I don't know if there is a right answer for, and honestly, the team didn't shoot that much differently than their averages in the regular season. The Game 3 and Game 4 games obviously stand out, but those were the first 2 games without Booker. For the series...

Game 1 - 10/28 - 35.7%
Game 2 - 13/35 - 37.1%
Game 3 - 4/26 - 15.4%
Game 4 - 7/27 - 25.9%
Game 5 - 10/27 - 37.0%
Game 6 - 8/20 - 40.0%

https://go.nba.com/4fmsn

I'm not concerned about the shooting to be honest. Crowder is historically a streaky shooter, Johnson only shot 35.7%, although its very clear his play is trending upwards overall, especially in Games 5 and 6. If I was concerned about a particular player, Payne is probably the player I am most concerned about.

Him and Shamet will need to hit big 3s in the playoffs for this team.

Book was the major factor in the passable 3PT% in the first few games. If not for him bombing it from range, we're a lot closer to that 30% mark in G1 and G2. Then suddenly we found something in G5 and G6, possibly going back to Phoenix helped.

I'm not overly concerned about our shooting but it does worry me that we can just go on these 2-3 game long B2B team shooting slump and on the other side, Dallas have shot really well from 3 (I also take your point about Utah wing defenders) and outside of G1, they've averaged about 17 3PM a game.

[pj0tr]

With Luka and similar to BI, he's going to get his and he's going to have a couple of massive games but you're not going to stop these elite offensive players anyway. Best thing we can do is make it hard for him, tire him out and perhaps force him to give up the rock more than he would like but he's going to get his.

It's the other guys that we need to keep from going off. Brunson is obviously the obvious clear candidate to drop 30-40 while also playmaking so he's the only real worry for me. But you make a great point about the Utah defense and Brunson getting whatever he wanted against them. Our perimeter defense is miles better with multiple, switchable wings who are tough, long and defensively disciplined.

I think the other question as well is are we going to make shots, especially from 3. There's no clear reason why we were in such a shooting slump in the first series and we suddenly got it going again. If there's no clear reason why we were shooting bad then it could come back to bite us again against the Mavs.

The shooting % thing is just one of those I don't know if there is a right answer for, and honestly, the team didn't shoot that much differently than their averages in the regular season. The Game 3 and Game 4 games obviously stand out, but those were the first 2 games without Booker. For the series...

Game 1 - 10/28 - 35.7%
Game 2 - 13/35 - 37.1%
Game 3 - 4/26 - 15.4%
Game 4 - 7/27 - 25.9%
Game 5 - 10/27 - 37.0%
Game 6 - 8/20 - 40.0%

https://go.nba.com/4fmsn

I'm not concerned about the shooting to be honest. Crowder is historically a streaky shooter, Johnson only shot 35.7%, although its very clear his play is trending upwards overall, especially in Games 5 and 6. If I was concerned about a particular player, Payne is probably the player I am most concerned about.

Him and Shamet will need to hit big 3s in the playoffs for this team.

Book was the major factor in the passable 3PT% in the first few games. If not for him bombing it from range, we're a lot closer to that 30% mark in G1 and G2. Then suddenly we found something in G5 and G6, possibly going back to Phoenix helped.

I'm not overly concerned about our shooting but it does worry me that we can just go on these 2-3 game long B2B team shooting slump and on the other side, Dallas have shot really well from 3 (I also take your point about Utah wing defenders) and outside of G1, they've averaged about 17 3PM a game.

OTOH, despite the shooting struggles, they had an ORTG of 117.8, which is 3rd out of the 16 teams in the first round.

So the shooting from 3 is something to watch, but not the end all be all.

[lilfishi22]

I was pretty amazed that we still shot pretty damn well everywhere else inside the 3PT line and for the most part, we took care of the ball. This will be a fun series and it's extra interesting because it'll be the first time we've matched up with the Mavs in the playoffs since the SSOL days about 16 years ago

[AtheJ415]

What do we shoot as a team without Crowder though? Crowder shot 11% from 3 on over 5 attempts a game. That is unheard of.

I expect we'll shoot much better in this series, including Crowder (he's an average shooter and I expect that to return to form), though he better be sitting for Cam, who is just worlds better at this point.

Both Cam's had a down series shooting as well and should return to form.