Game 1: Phoenix Suns @ LA Clippers | Wednesday, 23 Oct | 7:00PM

[sunskerr]

good work nurk. frustrating as he is, he tends to get the job done in the regular season. 14 minutes is too much for plumlee who is really hard to watch at this age. Beal did really well too. KD was painful to watch chuck away.

[Book1Nation]

Can't go 82-0 without going 1-0

Lots to work on before the Lakers game on Friday.

Initial thoughts are way less KD initiating and way more Tyus on the ball. Get the ball to KD in his spots and let him shoot 20x a game, but he has no business handling it at the top of the key. All it leads to are turnovers and inefficient offense.

Beal played really well. Nurk was good in his minutes minus the turnovers. Need Booker to be way more aggressive looking for his.

Was impressed by the bench. Morris, O'Neale, Oso, Dunn, Allen, even Plumlee was fine.

[Mulhollanddrive]

Jones and Morris 10 assists, 0 turnovers
Others 15 assists, 22 turnovers

[sunsbg]

[u][/u]Can't complain much after coming with a win in OT on away court to start the season, but the team looks quite the same as last season other than end Q1/start Q2 with a lot of ball movement and 3s. Apart from that a C who doesn't offer much defensively, at least he was clutch from FT line at the end. Jones' 8/0 was negated by KD's 0/7. Stepping out of bounds, backcourt violation on b2b plays type of stupid TOs from our stars, etc. Beal looked good offensively with both 2nd unit at end of 3rd and with the starters. The rooks played which is another positive.

[SlovenianDragon]

This team needs booker to be aggressive...we went and got a PG..Booker needs to look to score first...

[lilfishi22]

Even without Kawhi, LA are a tough well coached team. Have been since Lue became head coach.

I don't think we played well in this game but Lue's teams have always found a way to mess with other teams, it's what they are good at. But even with KD's 7 turnovers and ZERO assists, Book fouling out late in the 4th, we still won on the road against a tough team with a pretty damn good reason to get a W in their first game at the new arena. Like let's clean up our dirty turnovers, let's run more through our PG's and let's improve.

[lilfishi22]

No team is a final product in game 1 of the season. We too 38 threes which is a decent amount but would've liked 40+. But last season we only hit this 38 attempt mark 18 times all season

[Book1Nation]

No team is a final product in game 1 of the season. We too 38 threes which is a decent amount but would've liked 40+. But last season we only hit this 38 attempt mark 18 times all season

We had 23 at halftime I think and only 15 in the 2nd half and OT. Definitely prefer the first half pace but yeah.

[AtheJ415]

No team is a final product in game 1 of the season. We too 38 threes which is a decent amount but would've liked 40+. But last season we only hit this 38 attempt mark 18 times all season

We had 23 at halftime I think and only 15 in the 2nd half and OT. Definitely prefer the first half pace but yeah.

2nd half Book and KD decided it was me time and turned it over left and right

[Mr Puddles]

No team is a final product in game 1 of the season. We too 38 threes which is a decent amount but would've liked 40+. But last season we only hit this 38 attempt mark 18 times all season

We had 23 at halftime I think and only 15 in the 2nd half and OT. Definitely prefer the first half pace but yeah.

2nd half Book and KD decided it was me time and turned it over left and right

I'll give the guys the benefit of the doubt for now as they're trying to figure out how to play with a PG.

Tyus and Monte were both great IMO. Zero turnovers between the two, these guys know how to take care of the basketball. Since we're likely going to lose a lot of rebound battles, we need to make up the difference by 'creating possessions' through committing fewer turnovers than our opponents.

Moving forward, hopefully more offense through our PGs setting it up and less hero ball.

Phycial teams still frustrate our suns it seems, and the clippers aren't even that 'big', but were bullying us on the glass.

[darealjuice]

Still far too many turnovers, our stars need to value possessions more. 0 assists to 7 turnovers for KD is brutal. There will be an adjustment period having a PG on the roster again though.

Hopefully we can keep Durant, Booker, and Beal all fed consistently, there’s only 1 ball to go around and Tyus will be handling it a fair bit unlike last year.

[garrick]

We had 23 at halftime I think and only 15 in the 2nd half and OT. Definitely prefer the first half pace but yeah.

2nd half Book and KD decided it was me time and turned it over left and right

I'll give the guys the benefit of the doubt for now as they're trying to figure out how to play with a PG.

Tyus and Monte were both great IMO. Zero turnovers between the two, these guys know how to take care of the basketball. Since we're likely going to lose a lot of rebound battles, we need to make up the difference by 'creating possessions' through committing fewer turnovers than our opponents.

Moving forward, hopefully more offense through our PGs setting it up and less hero ball.

Phycial teams still frustrate our suns it seems, and the clippers aren't even that 'big', but were bullying us on the glass.

The same problems from last season like not taking care of the ball and lack of rebounding and poor defense all showed itself tonight.

I'm sure as we run the offense from the point guards we can cut down on turnovers but the defense and rebounding are much more of a concern for me, Oso grabbed 8 rebounds in limited minutes so maybe giving him more minutes would help?

[Mr Puddles]

2nd half Book and KD decided it was me time and turned it over left and right

I'll give the guys the benefit of the doubt for now as they're trying to figure out how to play with a PG.

Tyus and Monte were both great IMO. Zero turnovers between the two, these guys know how to take care of the basketball. Since we're likely going to lose a lot of rebound battles, we need to make up the difference by 'creating possessions' through committing fewer turnovers than our opponents.

Moving forward, hopefully more offense through our PGs setting it up and less hero ball.

Phycial teams still frustrate our suns it seems, and the clippers aren't even that 'big', but were bullying us on the glass.

The same problems from last season like not taking care of the ball and lack of rebounding and poor defense all showed itself tonight.

I'm sure as we run the offense from the point guards we can cut down on turnovers but the defense and rebounding are much more of a concern for me, Oso grabbed 8 rebounds in limited minutes so maybe giving him more minutes would help?

Oso looked great, but we does kind of kill our spacing which makes him difficult to play in a two big line-up. Maybe he can help extend that push shot to the three point line so he can play as our primary backup PF.

Only half kidding.

[Puff]

I do not know if it is Bud or Tyus, but I can understand why Tyus never turns it over. He seems to dribble the ball up the court hand it off to KD, Book or Nurk and let them create the offense.

This guy is no CP3 or Nash. I can see why he did not demand big bucks on the open market.

The sooner the point guard position is turned over to Gillespie the better.

Why did we cut Frank?

[Saberestar]

Just ended watching this first game and...wow...my heart had some tough moments in this one and it was just the **** first game.

Well, first and foremost A WIN ON THE ROAD. I love it. I know that the Clippers (without Khawi) aren't a contender or anything like that but it was his day view of their new arena and for sure was an special game for them.

KD had some bad TOs but man, what a CLUTCH shot he made with just 18 seconds on the clock. Good game from him defending great (on Harden and 3 steals/1 block) ad scoring his usual 25 points.

Props to Nurkic for scoring all those FTs. He showed that he deserves to he on the court to finish games.

Beal's efficiency was outstanding and he can build on this game. Tough break at the end with that small ankle sprain, hopefully he is good to go for the next one.

Book with foul trouble when he was playing his best minutes. It was a shame.

11 man rotation from Budenholzer, I didn't see that coming but he really wanted to play Oso and Dunn. Both played decent games and they scored their first NBA points.

I love what I saw from Royce O'Neale. His boxscore is meh but he played very well his role and allowed us to play small and make a run at the end of the game. Without him we lose the game IMO.

It wasn't a pretty game but 1-0 with a rested Booker. Good.

[Mr Puddles]

I do not know if it is Bud or Tyus, but I can understand why Tyus never turns it over. He seems to dribble the ball up the court hand it off to KD, Book or Nurk and let them create the offense.

This guy is no CP3 or Nash. I can see why he did not demand big bucks on the open market.

The sooner the point guard position is turned over to Gillespie the better.

Why did we cut Frank?

This is not at all how he played in Memphis lol. I'm assuming the same goes for Washington, but I didn't really watch their games. It's more our offense at the moment, because he's playing next to three volume scorers, it will take some time to figure out how to best utilize all four, not at the expense of eachother.

Also, nobody is claiming he's on the same level as Nash or CP3.

[Saberestar]

Read on Twitter

I noticed that.

The Clippers tried to win the game playing hard/close to the foul/fouling on every possession. Mann and Zubac fouled out and Batum was called for numerous grabbing fouls.

[sunsbg]

After spoiling Harden and Balmer new arena party, do the same to Father & son party next.

[Revived]

Nice to get the win especially on a big stage for the Clippers new fancy stadium and all.

But I don’t understand how our offense is still running the same boring stale “give it to KD and force him take a tough shot” at the end of the 4th qtr. The last few minutes of the 4th and all of OT was just iso-ball again.

And KD turned it over few times then and almost turned it but passed and led to a very difficult shot for Grayson Allen on another possession.

Imagine if the Suns offense flowed like the Atlanta Hawks did when Budenholzer was the HC for the Hawks. The ball just always moved around and eventually found a shooter.

Tyus Jones wanted to run a regular offense and get people involved but KD was trying to be “big bro” and just kept asking for isolation to take terrible shots again. I don’t get how KD doesn’t realize after getting his ass swept last season in the most humiliating fashion where opposing players mimicked doing “bad shots” on him, he still hasn’t realized that maybe complete iso-ball at the end of games isn’t the answer. Move the damn ball!

[Revived]

Initial thoughts are way less KD initiating and way more Tyus on the ball. Get the ball to KD in his spots and let him shoot 20x a game, but he has no business handling it at the top of the key. All it leads to are turnovers and inefficient offense.

Very well said.