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I dont understand this team at all. Whenever you have a 15-20 point lead in the first half why is it hard to slowthe ball down and keep the lead for a longer period of time? Suns always gvie up big leads that they worked hard to get and it's becoming embarassing lately. I bet you anything if San Antonio had a 8 point lead in the first quarter it would take the other team like 30 minutes to make a comeback. But it's a different story for our Suns and they need to figure out how to control a lead and not give it up in less then 3 minutes.

That's the DA habit. It's also a sign of no confidence to maintain the lead and grind out the win, because you need to concentrate on defense to get it done. But over the years, this strategy has backfired more than it worked.

It's the mentality of the Suns. They figure it's break time being up by this much, when really this is the time you need to work harder to maintain that lead. Teams won't try all game to catch up, they'll give up after a few attempts of cutting down the deficit they face. After that, it'll become a shooting fest.

Well luckily large leads won't be a concern for us in the playoffs

Even in the games they have won they have blown huge leads, 20 to the Kings, 16 to the Rockets, to the Spurs and Magic on their home court it's ridiculous I don't think any team in NBA history has blown that many leads. That's what happens with the Nash mentality though, have fun on the basketball court and don't be concerned about it because expectations should be lower.

The Suns have been blowing leads FAR longer than Nash or D'Antoni or anyone else involved in the current era, but I guess you guys don't remember that.

Qwigglez wrote:It's the mentality of the Suns. They figure it's break time being up by this much, when really this is the time you need to work harder to maintain that lead. Teams won't try all game to catch up, they'll give up after a few attempts of cutting down the deficit they face. After that, it'll become a shooting fest.

Well i have watched something like 15 suns games this year, and i can tell you its not that.

Its really easy actually, suns are up by lets say 18 points, the other team scores a fast bucket in the 16+sec of the offense, and instead of running a set play the suns try to hit them with a fast break right away which is always a terrible idea, because the player who finishes it is usually up against 2 or 3 defenders, he bricks it, which makes it easier for the other team to intern run a successful fast break on the suns going on a 4 or 5 - 0 run, then the suns try with a fast break again and again it doesn't work because its a 2 on 4 or 1 on 3 situation and the other team runs a slow play goes on a 7 or 8 - 0 run and the lead is gone in 1 or 2 minutes.
The other team cuts the lead from 18 to 10 or even 9 in 1 minute and a half usually, which makes it a lot easier to come back and picks the other teams moral up like a mofo.

And its always the same, it always starts with the suns trying to get a fast break after the opponents quick bucket which almost never works and puf the lead is cut in half in a minute.

Then all it takes to make it a tide game is a few stops on defense, they don't have to be consecutive and the other team ends the Q tide with the suns, where as they were down double digits.

You don't have to take my word for it, just keep an eye out for the situation i described, the opposing team scores an easy 2 or a quick 3 and the suns try stupidly to hit them with a fast break...

until suns finds another go to guy, they will blow up big leads... nash cant do it in 48 minutes.

nashill wrote:until suns finds another go to guy, they will blow up big leads... nash cant do it in 48 minutes.

Until Suns start playing cool and colected when they have a big lead they will blow them...

Once you are up big there is no need for a fast break every other offense you have.

Alyosha12 wrote:

nashill wrote:until suns finds another go to guy, they will blow up big leads... nash cant do it in 48 minutes.

Until Suns start playing cool and colected when they have a big lead they will blow them...

Once you are up big there is no need for a fast break every other offense you have.

Agreed. Our defense will not hold up to a 15point lead, but we have to pick and choose when to make a scoring run. Unfortunately, our offense relies on hot shooting and slowing it down may affect the rythem of the players.

But I will agree with nashill also. Until we have another guy that can create his own scoring opportunities, we are going to have to rely solely on Nash to create and score for us.

Well thats really a moot point because every team could use another scorer who could create his won shot, but thats not the reason why PHX blows huge leads, thats the reason PHX doesn't have more of them.

I will give you the hot shooting though, however its either slow the tempo down and risk loosing the hot shooters, or keep an up tempo game and risk loosing the lead.
IMO it is better to slow it down, play the pnr with Stat and feed him in the paint the problem is he is the only low post threat the Suns have and if he is in foul trouble the running game is the only thing left. Also Stat is a really, really, really, really... bad defender, i was very surprised how bad he really is this year as i watched more PHX games, also when he is in foul trouble it is just brutal having him in the game because he literally just lets the other team score.
Instead of a good guard who can make is own shot the Suns really need a C with solid defense and who they can feed in the paint, a Dalembert type of player who can score some, rebound and run the floor a bit.

OT: is there a chance to get dalembert and tmac next year?

dalembert
amare
dudley
tmac
nash

thats a great lineup.

Alyosha12 wrote:Well thats really a moot point because every team could use another scorer who could create his won shot, but thats not the reason why PHX blows huge leads, thats the reason PHX doesn't have more of them.

I will give you the hot shooting though, however its either slow the tempo down and risk loosing the hot shooters, or keep an up tempo game and risk loosing the lead.
IMO it is better to slow it down, play the pnr with Stat and feed him in the paint the problem is he is the only low post threat the Suns have and if he is in foul trouble the running game is the only thing left. Also Stat is a really, really, really, really... bad defender, i was very surprised how bad he really is this year as i watched more PHX games, also when he is in foul trouble it is just brutal having him in the game because he literally just lets the other team score.
Instead of a good guard who can make is own shot the Suns really need a C with solid defense and who they can feed in the paint, a Dalembert type of player who can score some, rebound and run the floor a bit.

I disagree. If it's between slowing the tempo down and relying on defense or keep the up tempo game, I'd easily go with keeping the up tempo game. It's been our thing since D'Antoni instilled his SSOL system into the Suns. We make the other team run and gun for 48min, which is what we want them to do.

We don't have nearly as good defense as some of the better teams in the league that we could rely on defense to keep a lead. Ideally we'd go with a slowed down half court game, but it just isn't what we're good at. When we play slow, the opponents will post Amare and Frye and either score on them or get them into foul trouble. Once that happens, we're screwed when we need a run again.

If we have a defense big who can anchor our defense, then we'd be much better at keeping leads since that way we can slow down our game without getting abused in the post.

I think the Suns 2. unit defense is very underrated, they can get 4 or 5 stops in a row, Dragic, Duds, Hill(Barbosa), is a great back court defensive team, the paint area is still a bit problematic but not as much as people believe. The problem now is that even the Second unit has started playing too fast IMO.
Also once you are up 20 and play slow, even if you are bad at defense the other team will still have a hell of a lot harder time getting back in the game, then they would if you play run and gun.

Run and gun is great at creating big leads, especially at the beginning of the game, because the other team is not really ready for it, but once you got the lead you have to stop and play smart and not keep running because no team can keep shooting well for 48 minutes in most games, the Suns are no exception, and if you keep running even when you shot is not falling, you are killing your self more then you are helping.

we talking about the cardinals in this thread too after being up 20+ today?

Larry's been attending too many suns games

The problem is we can't change our team to fit the situation. The other problem is that certain players from the other teams like to run and gun, and that is why we see players with huge percentages against us from time to time. So we see us going from shooting super hot, to the other team shooting super hot. Hence the score changes dramatically. We see this often when we play young athletic teams, which have always given us problems. They like to run, and we give them just what they want. It doesn't help that many of our main guys are not good defenders, and our good defenders are not great scorers.

We have to find a balance between bench and starters, to give us the right mix of offense and defense to slow things down. There will be many growth spurts and awkwardness for this team.

Okay - Alvin handed out a stats sheet to the media that details teh blown leads problem, or so we're told. The problem is alleged to be a 2nd quarter letdown - we score big in the 1st and then let teams back in in the second when our scoring cools off.

I looked it over and that's not what I saw - 4 0r 5 times, yeah, but at least as many where we scored considerably more in the 2nd. The bulk of the 2nd quarters that were negative saw only a small drop-off, less than 10 points.

Have a look

http://blogs.suns.com/2010/01/4130/