RealGM

Who: Phoenix Suns @ New Orleans Pelicans

When: Friday, December 9th @ 6:30pm (8:30ET) BSAZ

Where: Smoothie King Center, New Orleans, LA

As originally mentioned in the Season Speculation thread,

Pelicans have done well lately, but their schedule has been pretty easy too. They've won 5 in a row and 7 of their last 8 including the Pistons, Spurs twice, Warriors, Thunder and their best two wins were the Nuggets and Raptors.

However, againt the Nuggets they didn't play particularly well other than Alvarado somehow hitting 8 3s and scoring 38.

Then against the Raptors, FVV and Barnes went a combined 2-15 while Trey Murphy his 6 3s and scored 26. Zion did have 33 in that one on 12/15 shooting and 9/12 from the line with 10 board, 5 ast and 4 stls.

He was pretty good against the Nuggets with 25 on about 50% shooting with 6 boards but had 4 turnovers. He does have a lot of turnovers. He had 4 against Denver as well.

It seems if some other random player doesn't have a big night, they are beatable as long as we don't shoot like crap again. Zion will probably get his because it's hard to stop that size barreling to the rim, but you can try to surround him with defenders before he starts to drive and make things tougher trying to force a pass or turnover and hope they don't get really hot from 3.

Their best win this season is probably against Memphis (though they also got killed by Memphis in another one), and the Denver one mentioned above.

They beat the Nets in the first game, LAC and Mavs early...none were playing well to start.

They've lost to Utah, Boston, Portland, Atlanta, us, Indy, Memphis and the Lakers.

I'm still surprised we are favored though after the last two games...and on the road.

I think we lose tonight and have a better chance at winning the next game. The Pels, and Pels fans, will be amped for this one. Suns will be sluggish and trying to figure things out again.

We're get'n rolled tonight...I'm already getting upset thinking about it. Silver lining in all of this.....maybe it all but ensures Jones will be active and aggressive with trades? Though at this point maybe we'd be better off saving our powder for the offseason. Hard to imagine a good big name type of trade happening in-season.

Been extremely busy with school so I haven't been able to catch a full game since I believe the Bulls game maybe. Though I did watch some of the Celtics game and was planning on watching the entire game, but after getting blown out early, it made my decision a lot easier to just turn the game off so I can focus on doing some studying for my math placement exam. I probably will only catch small tidbits of this game as well since I am throwing a white elephant party thing tonight.

Hope we get the dub! Just another 6 days before more players are eligible to be traded. Rumors are likely going to heat up this week.

Going over my friend's house soon and will probably just end up drinking and hanging out instead of watching the game. They've given me zero reason over the past week to prioritize watching them.

vegas is gonna be giving a lot of money tonight. why the **** are we favored?

King4Day wrote:I think we lose tonight and have a better chance at winning the next game. The Pels, and Pels fans, will be amped for this one. Suns will be sluggish and trying to figure things out again.

And it's Friday (I think 5 losses on Fridays). I won't be surprised if we win or lose though.

spanishninja wrote:vegas is gonna be giving a lot of money tonight. why the **** are we favored?

Often times a team that has been really good all season coming off a couple of losses to tough teams vs a team winning easy games, Vegas will do something like this baiting heavy money on what seems obvious, when to them, knowing history, isn't obvious, because good teams typically bounce back and sometimes a team's record might be better than the team really is.

Their two wins vs good teams have relied on a 38 pt game from Alvarado who made 8 3s vs the Nuggets (then he had 2 pts in the followup game vs the Pistons on 1-6 shooting) and a 26 pt game (6 3s) from Trey Murphy vs the Raptors while FVV and Barnes were a combined 2-15.

It will depend on 2 things mostly. Are they hot from 3 or does a no name guy get really hot? And are we terrible again with Book off, terrible 3pt shooting, etc. Most of those things are rarities.

I do imagine we lose the rebounding battle, though hopefully we shoot well and don't have another team blister us from 3..that's the main reason we got killed in those games..they were very hot from 3 and we were terrible..combined with off games from Book.

spanishninja wrote:vegas is gonna be giving a lot of money tonight. why the **** are we favored?

Ingram out.

Jesus_H_Macy wrote:We're get'n rolled tonight...I'm already getting upset thinking about it.

This is not healthy. Making an assumption and getting mad or upset about it. I am very knowledgeable about this behavior because I do it too much myself (though not with sports).

Pelicans allow ~70% FG in the restricted area for the season.

Suns need to live in the paint. Don’t chuck up bunch of stupid 3s please. We’re bound to have a good 3pt shooting game because of how god awful they’ve shot it the last 2 games but still.

Revived wrote:Pelicans allow ~70% FG in the restricted area for the season.

Suns need to live in the paint. Don’t chuck up bunch of stupid 3s please. We’re bound to have a good 3pt shooting game because of how god awful they’ve shot it the last 2 games but still.

Getting into the paint should open up our 3 pt shooters.

Praise the Pels, that they gift us more losses so that we may receive He of insane wingspan!

Who wants to be in the playoffs anyway, since we're not winning a championship.

Saberestar wrote:

spanishninja wrote:vegas is gonna be giving a lot of money tonight. why the **** are we favored?

Ingram out.

And Herb Jones is out. Meaning they have nobody to guard Booker.

I wouldn’t bet against the Suns in this one. I certain won’t even with it being a Friday game and all, it doesn’t meet my other conditions for betting against the Suns. Suns should be more desperate than Pels for a W.

Revived wrote:

Saberestar wrote:

spanishninja wrote:vegas is gonna be giving a lot of money tonight. why the **** are we favored?

Ingram out.

And Herb Jones is out. Meaning they have nobody to guard Booker.

I wouldn’t bet against the Suns in this one. I certain won’t even with it being a Friday game and all, it doesn’t meet my other conditions for betting against the Suns. Suns should be more desperate than Pels for a W.

I guess you haven't seen Dyson Daniels?

Que Rico wrote:

Revived wrote:

Saberestar wrote:Ingram out.

And Herb Jones is out. Meaning they have nobody to guard Booker.

I wouldn’t bet against the Suns in this one. I certain won’t even with it being a Friday game and all, it doesn’t meet my other conditions for betting against the Suns. Suns should be more desperate than Pels for a W.

I guess you haven't seen Dyson Daniels?

they beat the Nuggets too, and I don't see us as being much better than them if at all.

Que Rico wrote:

Revived wrote:

Saberestar wrote:Ingram out.

And Herb Jones is out. Meaning they have nobody to guard Booker.

I wouldn’t bet against the Suns in this one. I certain won’t even with it being a Friday game and all, it doesn’t meet my other conditions for betting against the Suns. Suns should be more desperate than Pels for a W.

I guess you haven't seen Dyson Daniels?

The guy who averages 5ppg? Booker will laugh and use his MJ impersonation “ easy 30” might actually go off for 35+ tonight.

Revived wrote:

Saberestar wrote:

spanishninja wrote:vegas is gonna be giving a lot of money tonight. why the **** are we favored?

Ingram out.

And Herb Jones is out. Meaning they have nobody to guard Booker.

I wouldn’t bet against the Suns in this one. I certain won’t even with it being a Friday game and all, it doesn’t meet my other conditions for betting against the Suns. Suns should be more desperate than Pels for a W.

Those guys have been out for quite awhile and they've been winning. They probably have a lot of incentive to win, having lost to us in the playoffs and in the earlier game this season.

We don't really have anyone to guard Zion who is more unguardable than Book. Then they have CJ and JV is pretty solid. We've certainly lost some games on Friday that we definitely should win, too.

bwgood77 wrote:

Jesus_H_Macy wrote:We're get'n rolled tonight...I'm already getting upset thinking about it.

This is not healthy. Making an assumption and getting mad or upset about it. I am very knowledgeable about this behavior because I do it too much myself (though not with sports).

Some hyperbole on my part but appreciate the concern and agree. Other than the Suns I don’t let things in life bother me that I don’t have any control over. Just happen to be a Suns degenerate unfortunately