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Okay I only watched the 3rd quarter of the game but I did notice that they really weren't giving Nash a lot of space to work with and doing a good job of taking away the passing angles so that Nash couldn't pass it off easily.
That probably contributed to the TO's that Steve had in which the passes were a lot more difficult to make compared to usual.

I guess the fact that we couldn't hit a bucket also contributed a lot because that meant Shaq and co could body up inside without worrying too much about Frye or Amare hitting from deep since they were missing a great deal of shots.
So pretty much the fact that there was not much of a outside threat meant they could concentrate primarily on the inside and they did a real good job of clogging the lanes and making it difficult to score inside.

Here's a quote from Amare "Both teams [Knicks and Cavs] did a lot of switching. They switched out on Steve (Nash) , put a big guy on Steve and made him dribble and put the ball on the floor. That seems to be what teams are doing now, switch and try to take me out of the game. That’s what I have noticed so far."

Anyone else have any comments into our recent woes?

If Nash was an MVP caliber player he would find ways to win without excuses. After all, the ball is in his hands for 30-35 minutes of the game, it's his job to find open guys, it's his job to make plays and decisions, etc...

MaryvalesFinest wrote:If Nash was an MVP caliber player he would find ways to win without excuses. After all, the ball is in his hands for 30-35 minutes of the game, it's his job to find open guys, it's his job to make plays and decisions, etc...

Seriously, who gave you a keyboard?

garrick wrote:Anyone else have any comments into our recent woes?

Combination of the Suns just being in a bit of a funk and "the book" has been written or somewhat written on how to defeat these new fangled Suns. The triple A hitting wonder is now getting figured out by the "pitchers" ...gonna have to adjust. And! Get out of this funk.

They'll fight back and have more stretches of great success, but in the words of Denny Green- "They are who we thought they were!!!" ...well? Still probably a little better than we thought they were.

50-54 win team/6 or 7...maybe even 5 seed and will fight like hell in the playoffs.

I'll take it!

Suns need new tricks cuz teams have figured them out.

D'Antoni knew what to do, he did the same thing last year - swarming Nash with bigger players - hence what Dallas used to do with him with Josh Howard. Cavs ran Varejao, Moon etc at him and he couldn't get free

The Cavs always switch alot. That's how they play defense. The problem was the Nash was unable to take advantage of the mismatches.

TheOUTLAW wrote:The Cavs always switch alot. That's how they play defense. The problem was the Nash was unable to take advantage of the mismatches.

Yeah, I counted a few times where Varejao switched out on him and he didn't make enough of an effort to find the uncovered big - good point.

I guess the only solution to this is to shoot the ball better from outside?

Here's some insight: Frye went for 22 points with Shaq Guarding him... Awesome defense from the big fella... haha

MaryvalesFinest wrote:If Nash was an MVP caliber player he would find ways to win without excuses. After all, the ball is in his hands for 30-35 minutes of the game, it's his job to find open guys, it's his job to make plays and decisions, etc...

oh Mary


this is a little different from our old dantoni team cuz we had the pieces like marion, thomas and bell but teams had figured us out back then too but we just ran like hell and shot 3's and kept scoring.. the insight on these last 2 games is that we have scored like we're capable of.

It seems to me that the Suns have gotten lazy as far as adapting is concerned. Earlier in the season, it seemed like the coaching staff and the players were much more in-tune with how the opponent's defense was working, and they changed their method to exploit mismatches, whether it was Grant and JRich posting up smaller guards, or Amare banging inside against smaller players, or our guards driving against big men, etc.

Lately, they seem to be stubbornly trying to stick to the same game plan, regardless of whether or not it's working. Also, as has been said in other places, working on a new rotation that includes Lopez but doesn't include Barbosa isn't helping matters.

It is not just Nash not being able to take advantage of the mismatch, he normally does find the open man or just takes them off the dribble and shoots over them. Problem is they are all wore out from the road heavy schedule that has finally caught up to them. Nobody is moving without the ball to give Nash passing lanes or cutting into the post, and his shooting has been off too. Defensively, the energy and hustle is nowhere to be found right now, not even from Dudley and Lou.

realsunsfan wrote:It is not just Nash not being able to take advantage of the mismatch, he normally does find the open man or just takes them off the dribble and shoots over them. Problem is they are all wore out from the road heavy schedule that has finally caught up to them. Nobody is moving without the ball to give Nash passing lanes or cutting into the post, and his shooting has been off too. Defensively, the energy and hustle is nowhere to be found right now, not even from Dudley and Lou.

this is a good point too a solid home stand against some decent teams would be nice, bring the fans in hopefully motivate the players.
it makes a difference when you get subbed in and the crowd is screaming LOUUUUUUUUUUU to dead silence when you come in on an away game haha

I'm not a stats guy but even without looking it up I think we can qll agree that we shot horribly in both games. This team, bad shooting nights it's going to be hard to win games. Just what it is - something for the team and coaching staff top work on.

The goo d thing was that at least in CLE our bench fought back and nearly got us in to the game. I'm at a loss as to what's behind the malaise of our starters. Just worn out from all this travel?
I hope that two bad beatings doesn't undermine the guy's - this team has great chemistry and hopefully they suck it up and work on fixing things. Defense was pretty sad all around until the subs went in.

I really worry about Amar'e -

We're gonna lose the Cavs game no matter what. The Knicks game however we thought could just coast thru half assed and still win.