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"D'Antoni was asked how uneasy the Lakers' make him: "I feel comfortable because I think we're better than they are. I think we're better than anybody in the league. Will there be some rebounds we don't get? Yeah, that just means we have to play better at moving the ball. We have to shoot it better. We have to run better."

This is Dantoni stands why we are horrible in rebounding and I think he will stick to it. He has a point but my question is, are we going to average 45 - 50 percent in FG in the playoffs?

^ when you play small of course there are going to be some rebounds you dont get

people look at our rebounding and say that single handedly the reason we lose

BUT, the small ball system that costs us rebounds and second chance points on one end, also creates mismatches and scores points for us on the other end

dantoni is hanging this teams hat on offense which means absorbing the rebounding losses and getting them back on the other end

it can and has worked in the past, its just a case of live by the offense die by the offense

when our offense isnt clicking, we will lose, simple as that, thats us in a teacup

a team who hangs their hat on defense can usually absorb a bad offensive night by letting their D shine through and its not as common to have a bad defensive night so generally they are more stable, hence the "defense wins championships" mentality

but if we are firing at the right time of the year, things will be fine, and yes i agree with dantoni, there will be rebounds we dont get

youre asking will the suns shoot 45 to 50% inthe playoffs, the answer is yes, we are the league leading team and there is no reason to think that will change

SDU, while your spin control is very well thought out, you cant deny the fact that this is dantoni's solution for EVERY shortcoming the Suns have.

no rebounding? shoot better, run faster
jock itch? shoot better, run faster
worst defense in the league? shoot better, run faster
global warming? shooter better, run faster
chemistry and injury issues affecting gameplay? shoot better, run faster
stuck in the middle of a street gang war? shoot better, run faster
lack of depth hurting more than helping? shoot better, run faster
US on the brink of an economic recession? shoot better, run faster

Neither of you are fooling anyone anymore.

SDU might be spinning it, but the fact is that it's our system. Again, we want guys leaking out and getting down court (including our best rebounder in Shawn) after the other team put up a shot (missed or made) so it's only logical that the Suns acquire the least amount of possible offensive rebounds in the league. If we sent all 5 guys crashing, our rebounding rates (47%, good enough for 30th in the league...) would most likely improve.

Um, alright, I'll just come out and ask the obvious:

Why do you have guys running down the floor if you didn't get the rebound?

nashill wrote:He has a point but my question is, are we going to average 45 - 50 percent in FG in the playoffs?

hmm ... since I don't have my crystal ball with me, lets look at past seasons VS play-offs stats to see if we can unearth anything in relation to this. Of course past performance is not guarantee of future performance but I can't think of another more logical way of approaching this so here we go.

(FG% followed by 3pt %)

04-05 season: 47.8 - 39.3
04-05 playoffs: 49.3 - 43.6

05-06 season: 47.9 - 39.9
05-06 playoffs: 48.2 - 39.2

06-07 season: 49.4 - 40.0
06-07 playoffs: 47.7 - 37.9

I think it's a fair bet that we'll have b/w 45-50% FG% since we've done that 3 years straight. Last season was possibly our biggest drop-off from the reg season in terms of shooting %'s. Every other season was pretty much a draw if not a slight increase in the playoffs if you calc eFG.

The drop in 06-07 playoffs = Amare's suspension + barbosa's elbow

Yeah, I think LB alone managed to stink up our 3pt % in the Spurs series. Just checked it ... 2 from 17 ... yikes!!!

WTFsunsFTW wrote:SDU, while your spin control is very well thought out, you cant deny the fact that this is dantoni's solution for EVERY shortcoming the Suns have.

no rebounding? shoot better, run faster
jock itch? shoot better, run faster
worst defense in the league? shoot better, run faster
global warming? shooter better, run faster
chemistry and injury issues affecting gameplay? shoot better, run faster
stuck in the middle of a street gang war? shoot better, run faster
lack of depth hurting more than helping? shoot better, run faster
US on the brink of an economic recession? shoot better, run faster

Neither of you are fooling anyone anymore.

Got a good laugh out of this one

Just stop bynum from getting his alley oops and put backs and we'll be fine. make him earn his points. if bynum doesn't play well they don't win. kobe can't beat us in 4 games alone, we've proven that.

im not putting a positive spin on it as much as im explaining dantonis mentality

ill readily acknowledge that a defensive team can get away with an off night more than an offensive team because they can accommodate for shots not going in

BUT, we are a fast break running team, we will get outrebounded because we are small, but we will also usually beat the other team in hustle stats (blocks steals charges drawn etc) and usually get more 3's and fast break points due to our smaller size

so it does even out, ONLY when our shots are falling, and there in lies the key. w e have all seen how unstoppable the suns are when its falling, and dantoni wants to aim for more offensive consistency rather than give up that and go for trying to stop teams scoring. this way its on us whether we win or lose, not whether we stop the other team

personally - once again, a defensive strategy IS more safe for sure, but with the players we have, dantoni is using the right system which maximises their talents and minimizes their deficiencies. you just have to enjoy the wins when we are on, and suck up the losses when we are not and hope we have more of the former in the playoffs

WTFsunsFTW wrote:stuck in the middle of a street gang war? shoot better, run faster

WTFsunsFTW wrote:Um, alright, I'll just come out and ask the obvious:

Why do you have guys running down the floor if you didn't get the rebound?

It's also the system. Again, you run for every chance you get for 48 minutes. That's their philosophy, and they're trying to run even more this year. So there's really no surprise that they're dead last in offensive rebounding so far this season. I definitely think they can improve in this area while still keep their running game going, they just need to make some adjustments (their worse rebounding diff. rate during the Nash era was -4.08 during the 05-06 season where we had Boris at the 5 spot for half the season. We are now at -5.2, that's under-achieving IMO, I do expect it to go back up a bit.).

^ agreed

for the record, i do think the suns need to work on rebounding more for sure

but for the people who think getting a player, ie ben wallace and starting him to fix our rebounding issues then making us a champion, dont seem to realise the negative affect that starting a big to fix our rebounding would have on our offense

somewhere there is a fine line, and i truly believe it lies in the rebounding we get from amare, must be 10+, diaw must be 5+ and bell must be 4+

if we can get that, we can definately survive with our small ball lineup

one thing i HATE is when a team gets an offensive board (which happens alot obviously) and then on the broken play they draw a foul on amare when they go for the putback and he is out of position or loses concentration, that is something that massively hurts us

last years playoff vs the spurs, rebounding wasn really much of a problem probably because kurt and amare played more minutes together. However, with the suns current rebounding problem, we might need to average above 50 percent on FG to beat them if that is Dantoni's gameplan..


PHX SAS
100.5 PPG 100.0
40.0 RPG 41.6
20.3 APG 18.5
0.474 FG% 0.457
0.797 FT% 0.739
0.416 3P% 0.361

i still belive that this team has improved playing half court compared to pasts seasons and suns should be flexible enough to play half court and run and gun style. There will be games where suns will be slowed down just what the spurs did last year. If we are talking about maximizing this team's strength which is running, why dont they maximize their potential on other fields. They have the tools to be a defensive team (marion, bell, hill, banks, amare and skinner) and they have talents to play half court and play simple basketball by feeding amare and attract a double team then they have 4 shooters (bell, nash, marion and hill) that will spread the floor making it easy for amare to post up.

there are some things that must be taken into consideration regarding that series though

amare missing a game, as well as james jones shooting like an absolute dog and barbosa struggling with an elbow injury and having a shocking shooting series

this year amare plays every game, hill replaces james jones and hopefully barbs is healthy, should mean there is no reason we cant average a better field goal % to offset the lesser rebounds because we dont have kurt

dunno, definately gonna be tough for sure

todays game vs Clippers

rebounds as of 8 minute 4th quarter...phoenix 27 vs LA 37. But looking at the FG attempt, phoenix 28-67 vs LA 34-65..This shows that even if opponents out rebounding the suns, suns still has more FG attempt. This shows that Dantoni has a point. If suns shot well, rebounding could be close. However, if we can improve on other areas, why be one dimensional and just focus on offense?

also in this game it proved something i said too

it can and has worked in the past, its just a case of live by the offense die by the offense

when our offense isnt clicking, we will lose, simple as that, thats us in a teacup

case and point

its not often we will lose when we ARE clicking, but when its not, we virtually have no chance

more proof of that is how few (only 1 IIRC) games we have won scoring less than 100 points

if the offense can't "work" against the clippers...it's supposed to work against the spurs in the playoffs?

i understand bad shooting nights, but just think about the defense of the system your perpetuating. we need something to relieve the pressure the offense faces. and the only thing playing good team defense will do is create more scoring opportunities.

^ i know what youre saying re the clippers and the spurs, but i just put this down to a bad shooting night, it certainly wasnt the clippers defense

and yes, it is supposed to work against the spurs, we have shown in the past it can

last year it did, if it werent for a few things going against us we could well have beaten them and this team >> last years team