Game 21: Phoenix Suns (12-8) @ New Orleans Pelicans (4-18) | Dic 5 | 6:00PM

[bwgood77]

I don't understand it...Booker has been right under the rim like 3 times tonight and passed it out. Now luckily at least once, maybe even twice, it resulted in a 3, but on that one, finish it! Maybe get a foul. The pass was off too. Damn. It's so weird he would keep giving up those. In general I like unselfishness, but not when you are there....having flashbacks of that Bender clip.

We are a dumb team. We play dumb basketball. Smarter than last year, which was the dumbest team in NBA history, but still amongst the worst in the league.

I liked the offense tonight, aside from when Book passed up those shots and Okogie took too many 3s. Overall still 39% from 3 on high volume, took it to the rim quite a bit, etc.

I don't feel like this was a bad loss at all....their team tonight has more talent than our team tonight did. We were missing 2 starters and Dunn. Sure they are missing Zion but they have a lot of good players that I previously mentioned.

It was a close road loss to a good team when they are mostly healthy. We shot 39%.

The turnovers were probably the difference, though they didn't score much off them for awhile.

This game isn't all that much different than the close wins we were pulling off earlier. Heck, they probably could have called a foul on Book's last 3 attempt. But it came down to the wire.

[KLEON]

Dumb loss but Pels get away with a lot of fouls. They should check Book's arm after the game, it must be filled with scratches

[sashaturiaf]

This team is very hard to watch let alone root for at the moment. Were barely net positive with KD in the lineup and easily a lottery team with him out and with no means to get better.

There's only so many times you can fire a coach

[bwgood77]

Don't even try with this bull. That is a garbage team that we gifted an entire quarter of wide open 3s by running an obscure trap while our stars half assed it on D. Turnovers galore on our end, while being so dumb we cannot even intentionally foul properly.

This is a dumb loss by a dumb team that only seems to focus or care if KD is playing. **** hideous basketball by a stupid team

I thought overall aside from our turnovers, we played well, but they played very well. We are missing KD, Dunn and Nurkic. We also shouldn't have left it up for Okogie to shoot those 3s when they did. Others could have taken shots earlier in the possession.

They have a horrible record because of all their injuries, but they recently got Murray back. He's missed 17 games, Herb Jones 18 games, CJ and Murphy both 13 games, Ingram 6 games. That's a lot of guys playing tonight that missed 55-80% of their games

A lineup with Murray, CJ, Jones, Ingram, Herb Jones, etc, is FAR from a bad team when healthy.

We gave up 130 points to the **** Pelicans. What part about our half assed defense that let Ingram and Murphy get wide open 3s the entire 3rd quarter, was "played very well" to you?

They got really hot from 3, hitting at least 7 3s in that quarter. Yes, you can blame it on the defense, but our defense was pretty active tonight. Sometimes teams just catch fire. It didn't look like lazy defense to me at all. They moved the ball well and caught fire. It was our turnovers and Book's poor shooting game that really was the difference. If you told me he went 6-20 and we were missing KD, Dunn, etc, and they had most all their players back, I definitely wouldn't have expected it to come down to the end.

I will complain about what I view as a terrible game, but I don't think this was bad considering we were missing KD, Dunn and Nurkic. While I don't know that Nurkic helps us much, this Pelicans team is a very good team when they have that healthy of a lineup.

This was a MUCH better game than a game like Brooklyn where we seemed disengaged and were healthy. Also better than the 2 losses to the Kings where we gave up 127, the game against the Knicks we gave up 138, etc.

When Book has an off night shooting going 6-20 and we are missing KD and playing on the road against a team with talent like that, we won't win much.

[AtheJ415]

I thought overall aside from our turnovers, we played well, but they played very well. We are missing KD, Dunn and Nurkic. We also shouldn't have left it up for Okogie to shoot those 3s when they did. Others could have taken shots earlier in the possession.

They have a horrible record because of all their injuries, but they recently got Murray back. He's missed 17 games, Herb Jones 18 games, CJ and Murphy both 13 games, Ingram 6 games. That's a lot of guys playing tonight that missed 55-80% of their games

A lineup with Murray, CJ, Jones, Ingram, Herb Jones, etc, is FAR from a bad team when healthy.

We gave up 130 points to the **** Pelicans. What part about our half assed defense that let Ingram and Murphy get wide open 3s the entire 3rd quarter, was "played very well" to you?

They got really hot from 3, hitting at least 7 3s in that quarter. Yes, you can blame it on the defense, but our defense was pretty active tonight. Sometimes teams just catch fire. It didn't look like lazy defense to me at all. They moved the ball well and caught fire. It was our turnovers and Book's poor shooting game that really was the difference. If you told me he went 6-20 and we were missing KD, Dunn, etc, and they had most all their players back, I definitely wouldn't have expected it to come down to the end.

I will complain about what I view as a terrible game, but I don't think this was bad considering we were missing KD, Dunn and Nurkic. While I don't know that Nurkic helps us much, this Pelicans team is a very good team when they have that healthy of a lineup.

This was a MUCH better game than a game like Brooklyn where we seemed disengaged and were healthy. Also better than the 2 losses to the Kings where we gave up 127, the game against the Knicks we gave up 138, etc.

When Book has an off night shooting going 6-20 and we are missing KD and playing on the road against a team with talent like that, we won't win much.

They left the 2 best 3 point shooters on the other team wide open the entire 3rd quarter

Also stop pretending like missing Nurk is a negative when it's clearly a good thing for us.

[lilfishi22]

I don't understand it...Booker has been right under the rim like 3 times tonight and passed it out. Now luckily at least once, maybe even twice, it resulted in a 3, but on that one, finish it! Maybe get a foul. The pass was off too. Damn. It's so weird he would keep giving up those. In general I like unselfishness, but not when you are there....having flashbacks of that Bender clip.

We are a dumb team. We play dumb basketball. Smarter than last year, which was the dumbest team in NBA history, but still amongst the worst in the league.

I liked the offense tonight, aside from when Book passed up those shots and Okogie took too many 3s. Overall still 39% from 3 on high volume, took it to the rim quite a bit, etc.

I don't feel like this was a bad loss at all....their team tonight has more talent than our team tonight did. We were missing 2 starters and Dunn. Sure they are missing Zion but they have a lot of good players that I previously mentioned.

It was a close road loss to a good team when they are mostly healthy. We shot 39%.

The turnovers were probably the difference, though they didn't score much off them for awhile.

This game isn't all that much different than the close wins we were pulling off earlier. Heck, they probably could have called a foul on Book's last 3 attempt. But it came down to the wire.

It's a bad loss only in the context that the Pels have been injury ravaged, coming in with 9 L's in a row and 15 of the last 16 games but aside from characterising the L being bad because of that, I thought we played about average. Should also mention they beat the Nuggets in their lone W in the past 16 too.

CJ had a solid game, Ingram had a solid game, they had fantastic game out of Murphy off the bench and ultimately played really good defense on us in the last possession. Wish we could've won it but it's what it is

This is also why I don't post much on the game threads now. Besides having less time due to life stuff but it's now dominated by the hottest of takes that I quite frankly just laugh at because they don't warrant a response.

[sunsbg]

Other than MIN game when didn't Book have an off night with KD out ? Beal with 7TO when we have Jones and Morris as others said...

[Saberestar]

Tough loss but it wasn't unexpected with they having Ingram and Herb Jones back in their starting lineup.

Our problem wasn't the offense, we scored 124 **** points. We couldn't contain their good dribble penetration from CJ McCollum, Murray and Ingram and that created easy paint shots or open threes.

With KD, Nurkic and Dunn out you expect more losses but we need to win some game here or there. The Magic in Orlando on a back-to-back is already a loss in my mind so we need to try HARD to win @ Miami next Saturday.

[grumpysaddle]

Terrible loss. Some absolutely awful officiating IMO, missing obvious travels and allowing the pelicans to manhandle us all game, but at the end of the day, the suns should have still been better. What a bummer.

[grumpysaddle]

We are a dumb team. We play dumb basketball. Smarter than last year, which was the dumbest team in NBA history, but still amongst the worst in the league.

I liked the offense tonight, aside from when Book passed up those shots and Okogie took too many 3s. Overall still 39% from 3 on high volume, took it to the rim quite a bit, etc.

I don't feel like this was a bad loss at all....their team tonight has more talent than our team tonight did. We were missing 2 starters and Dunn. Sure they are missing Zion but they have a lot of good players that I previously mentioned.

It was a close road loss to a good team when they are mostly healthy. We shot 39%.

The turnovers were probably the difference, though they didn't score much off them for awhile.

This game isn't all that much different than the close wins we were pulling off earlier. Heck, they probably could have called a foul on Book's last 3 attempt. But it came down to the wire.

It's a bad loss only in the context that the Pels have been injury ravaged, coming in with 9 L's in a row and 15 of the last 16 games but aside from characterising the L being bad because of that, I thought we played about average. Should also mention they beat the Nuggets in their lone W in the past 16 too.

CJ had a solid game, Ingram had a solid game, they had fantastic game out of Murphy off the bench and ultimately played really good defense on us in the last possession. Wish we could've won it but it's what it is

This is also why I don't post much on the game threads now. Besides having less time due to life stuff but it's now dominated by the hottest of takes that I quite frankly just laugh at because they don't warrant a response.

Yeah, not even gonna read through the thread cause I already know what the posts were at this point.

[sashaturiaf]

Other than MIN game when didn't Book have an off night with KD out ? Beal with 7TO when we have Jones and Morris as others said...

Books development has been disappointing since the finals run. He's still an all NBA level player but he's failed to differentiate himself as the undisputed best SG in the league. There have been glimpses like his otherworldly series against the Nuggets, but he's failed to take his game to the next level by improving on his relative weaknesses like 3 point shooting and dealing with double teams.

We shouldn't be so reliant on a 36 yo KD when Booker is in his prime and I'm sure that wasn't KDs plan when he requested the trade to Phoenix, but here we are..

[SunsRback4Good]

I liked the offense tonight, aside from when Book passed up those shots and Okogie took too many 3s. Overall still 39% from 3 on high volume, took it to the rim quite a bit, etc.

I don't feel like this was a bad loss at all....their team tonight has more talent than our team tonight did. We were missing 2 starters and Dunn. Sure they are missing Zion but they have a lot of good players that I previously mentioned.

It was a close road loss to a good team when they are mostly healthy. We shot 39%.

The turnovers were probably the difference, though they didn't score much off them for awhile.

This game isn't all that much different than the close wins we were pulling off earlier. Heck, they probably could have called a foul on Book's last 3 attempt. But it came down to the wire.

It's a bad loss only in the context that the Pels have been injury ravaged, coming in with 9 L's in a row and 15 of the last 16 games but aside from characterising the L being bad because of that, I thought we played about average. Should also mention they beat the Nuggets in their lone W in the past 16 too.

CJ had a solid game, Ingram had a solid game, they had fantastic game out of Murphy off the bench and ultimately played really good defense on us in the last possession. Wish we could've won it but it's what it is

This is also why I don't post much on the game threads now. Besides having less time due to life stuff but it's now dominated by the hottest of takes that I quite frankly just laugh at because they don't warrant a response.

Yeah, not even gonna read through the thread cause I already know what the posts were at this point.

Oh yeah, because it’s so much better hearing you complain 24/7 about the refs then others complain about our actual team being a dumpster fire.

[AtheJ415]

Other than MIN game when didn't Book have an off night with KD out ? Beal with 7TO when we have Jones and Morris as others said...

Just like last year, our stars don't give enough of a **** to make sure they are moving the ball to an open player. Undisciplined, idiotic basketball. They then leave the game blaming the refs after spending the entire game flopping all over the place. No accountability.

[AtheJ415]

We are a dumb team. We play dumb basketball. Smarter than last year, which was the dumbest team in NBA history, but still amongst the worst in the league.

I liked the offense tonight, aside from when Book passed up those shots and Okogie took too many 3s. Overall still 39% from 3 on high volume, took it to the rim quite a bit, etc.

I don't feel like this was a bad loss at all....their team tonight has more talent than our team tonight did. We were missing 2 starters and Dunn. Sure they are missing Zion but they have a lot of good players that I previously mentioned.

It was a close road loss to a good team when they are mostly healthy. We shot 39%.

The turnovers were probably the difference, though they didn't score much off them for awhile.

This game isn't all that much different than the close wins we were pulling off earlier. Heck, they probably could have called a foul on Book's last 3 attempt. But it came down to the wire.

It's a bad loss only in the context that the Pels have been injury ravaged, coming in with 9 L's in a row and 15 of the last 16 games but aside from characterising the L being bad because of that, I thought we played about average. Should also mention they beat the Nuggets in their lone W in the past 16 too.

CJ had a solid game, Ingram had a solid game, they had fantastic game out of Murphy off the bench and ultimately played really good defense on us in the last possession. Wish we could've won it but it's what it is

This is also why I don't post much on the game threads now. Besides having less time due to life stuff but it's now dominated by the hottest of takes that I quite frankly just laugh at because they don't warrant a response.

It's a bad loss in the context of we are a better team with a wide margin of error that we still **** up. We were missing our best player? So was NO. 7 turnovers from Beal. Book shot like 30% from the field. The entire 3rd quarter was lazy BS where we sat there pointing at others to cover 3 point shooters, leaving guys wide open, and if they missed they crashed and got the rebound 2 on 5 because our guys refused to box out and then kicked it back out for more open 3s. It was a hideous **** and NO getting Ingram back doesn't somehow excuse how stupid of a game we played.

[grumpysaddle]

It's a bad loss only in the context that the Pels have been injury ravaged, coming in with 9 L's in a row and 15 of the last 16 games but aside from characterising the L being bad because of that, I thought we played about average. Should also mention they beat the Nuggets in their lone W in the past 16 too.

CJ had a solid game, Ingram had a solid game, they had fantastic game out of Murphy off the bench and ultimately played really good defense on us in the last possession. Wish we could've won it but it's what it is

This is also why I don't post much on the game threads now. Besides having less time due to life stuff but it's now dominated by the hottest of takes that I quite frankly just laugh at because they don't warrant a response.

Yeah, not even gonna read through the thread cause I already know what the posts were at this point.

Oh yeah, because it’s so much better hearing you complain 24/7 about the refs then others complain about our actual team being a dumpster fire.

[garrick]

Other than MIN game when didn't Book have an off night with KD out ? Beal with 7TO when we have Jones and Morris as others said...

Books development has been disappointing since the finals run. He's still an all NBA level player but he's failed to differentiate himself as the undisputed best SG in the league. There have been glimpses like his otherworldly series against the Nuggets, but he's failed to take his game to the next level by improving on his relative weaknesses like 3 point shooting and dealing with double teams.

We shouldn't be so reliant on a 36 yo KD when Booker is in his prime and I'm sure that wasn't KDs plan when he requested the trade to Phoenix, but here we are..

Yeah something looks different.

Is he tired or have teams figured him out? Even though his stats are good it just seems like his offensive performances are just kind of very inconsistent recently.

[Frank Lee]

This is going to end up as a winnable loss that showcased just how poor our team construction is and how we have no means to improve it.

This is the root of the problem.
Wishbia’s gift
This is not a team on the rise

[bwgood77]

We are a dumb team. We play dumb basketball. Smarter than last year, which was the dumbest team in NBA history, but still amongst the worst in the league.

I liked the offense tonight, aside from when Book passed up those shots and Okogie took too many 3s. Overall still 39% from 3 on high volume, took it to the rim quite a bit, etc.

I don't feel like this was a bad loss at all....their team tonight has more talent than our team tonight did. We were missing 2 starters and Dunn. Sure they are missing Zion but they have a lot of good players that I previously mentioned.

It was a close road loss to a good team when they are mostly healthy. We shot 39%.

The turnovers were probably the difference, though they didn't score much off them for awhile.

This game isn't all that much different than the close wins we were pulling off earlier. Heck, they probably could have called a foul on Book's last 3 attempt. But it came down to the wire.

It's a bad loss only in the context that the Pels have been injury ravaged, coming in with 9 L's in a row and 15 of the last 16 games but aside from characterising the L being bad because of that, I thought we played about average. Should also mention they beat the Nuggets in their lone W in the past 16 too.

CJ had a solid game, Ingram had a solid game, they had fantastic game out of Murphy off the bench and ultimately played really good defense on us in the last possession. Wish we could've won it but it's what it is

This is also why I don't post much on the game threads now. Besides having less time due to life stuff but it's now dominated by the hottest of takes that I quite frankly just laugh at because they don't warrant a response.

Yeah, I don't usually post during games anymore. It's 90% negativity last year so I just post afterwards. I didn't catch up until the 4th qtr last night so posted. You didn't mention Herb Jones. He came up with some amazing steals off passes across court. Ones that few players would get.

We shot well, moved the ball well, and despite the points we gave up, I thought we were active on defense, but teams will shoot open from 3. When Ingram gets so hot you have to double some, and that will leave a shooter open and everyone was hitting them.

But we were shorthanded, missing our best player, best defender and starting C (even though I like the other bigs better). Book had a terrible shooting game too...which is rare, especially if we have at least another threat. Beal was getting to the rim nicely.

Some bad turnovers and a bad game from our best player on the court last night (well not last night but most would say best of who was there normally, even if you could argue Beal has played overall better this year)....on both sides, outside of distributing.

[bwgood77]

This is going to end up as a winnable loss that showcased just how poor our team construction is and how we have no means to improve it.

This is the root of the problem.
Wishbia’s gift
This is not a team on the rise

Well, the oldest team in the NBA is never on the rise. However, one plus is we got two solid rooks, which we never do. Now, on the downside, we are injury prone and Tyus and Monte are on minimums. Not sure we can rely on that much longer.

Would love to do that 3 way trade Allen for Timelord, but it would only work if he could stay healthy. But even if he could play most games, Plumlee and Oso are playing pretty well.

I did not like the direction our team took with the initial KD trade...however, what we have done since then, I am happy with. Turning worthless Paul/Shamet contracts into Beal. I know some would simply rather not have him and his contract, but remove him and we still have no cap space. We would not be in the second apron, but I don't think we have good enough trade assets where that really impacts us anyway, unless we were to trade KD or Book, which won't happen.

Then the trade for Royce, signings of Tyus and Monte, and our draft picks....ALL solid moves.

[bwgood77]

We gave up 130 points to the **** Pelicans. What part about our half assed defense that let Ingram and Murphy get wide open 3s the entire 3rd quarter, was "played very well" to you?

They got really hot from 3, hitting at least 7 3s in that quarter. Yes, you can blame it on the defense, but our defense was pretty active tonight. Sometimes teams just catch fire. It didn't look like lazy defense to me at all. They moved the ball well and caught fire. It was our turnovers and Book's poor shooting game that really was the difference. If you told me he went 6-20 and we were missing KD, Dunn, etc, and they had most all their players back, I definitely wouldn't have expected it to come down to the end.

I will complain about what I view as a terrible game, but I don't think this was bad considering we were missing KD, Dunn and Nurkic. While I don't know that Nurkic helps us much, this Pelicans team is a very good team when they have that healthy of a lineup.

This was a MUCH better game than a game like Brooklyn where we seemed disengaged and were healthy. Also better than the 2 losses to the Kings where we gave up 127, the game against the Knicks we gave up 138, etc.

When Book has an off night shooting going 6-20 and we are missing KD and playing on the road against a team with talent like that, we won't win much.

They left the 2 best 3 point shooters on the other team wide open the entire 3rd quarter

Also stop pretending like missing Nurk is a negative when it's clearly a good thing for us.

Teams that move the ball well can almost always find an open shot. And sometimes teams catch fire. We shot over 50% from 3 in the previous game. They were cold early. Yes, it ultimately was one bad quarter defensively for us. But we knew defense wasn't our strength. And given we were missing Dunn, it hurts.

Also, Nurk is a net negative, but defensively, he helps some with post D inside and rebounding. Missi got 6 offensive boards. That wouldn't happen if Nurk was there. The game was tight. These little things make a difference. This was one of the best teams when healthy last year. They are just rarely healthy. And we happen to catch them when they are....and they have a solid lineup even without Zion.

You don't seem to be too aware of their players and how good they are but they are better than you seem to think.