TOs. TOs. TOs. Props to Amare

[asubennett]

Two thoughts after the Portland game.

How does a team shoot 57% FG / 67% 3FG / 86% FT and still lose. Easy, I say. Extra possesions allowed to the opposition are literally KILLING our team.

FACTS:
Phoenix 16 TOs / Portland 6 TOs (10 extra Portland Possesions)
Phoenix 7 Offensive Boards / Portland 15 Offensive Boards (8 extra Portland Possesions)

Portland had 15 more FG attempts and 5 more 3FG attempts. And we only lost by 5.

Maybe I am the only one that sees this but we are so crazy effective on offense that if keep TOs in single digits every game and keep offensive boards neutral we would be insanely tough to beat.

The rebounding thing needs to get fixed now. When you are playing a 2-3 zone with Shaq and Amare there is no reason for offensive boards.


SIDE NOTE: I am proud of Amare. He has really expanded his game and seemed to not worry about scoring 30 every night. Check his stat line from tonight.

23 pts / 8 boards / 8 ASSISTS !!! / 2 BS / 1 Stl

Also, very interesting stat tonight. Nash with a + - of -19!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Barbosa with a + - of +15

Nash had a terrible game. Hope he rebounds on Saturday.

[pidi]

nash will get his game going - don´t worry about him.
amare seems to know what winning is about.
i also don´t understand that rebound minus. we got barnes, shaq and amare. we should get every single defenisve rebound in the game.

[mkot]

We're turning the ball over because the spacing is HORRIBLE. Guys aren't moving without the ball, our offense too often become stale because we're too predictable. Look at this:

26 HoustonRockets -0.96
27 IndianaPacers -1.16
28 OklahomaCityThunder -1.23
29 NYKnicks -1.40
30 PhoenixSuns -3.80

That's how horrible we are at the offensive end right now. And, we're giving up 110+ point over the past ten games. And we have a coach who has no sense what so ever on how to manage game and players. Maybe he has a rule in his book that says no sub in 3rd quarter, I don't know. But that's just ridiculous. No coach in the league play guys the entire quarter. Guys get tired and give up lead, then in order to make up ground he keeps playing our old guns. LB was great off the bench but he didn't even log 20 mins this game. 12 points 5 boards 3 assists on 5-7 shooting in 17 minutes. If Porter has any sense, he should be playing more minutes.

Porter, please, for the love of God, use your bench.

[WTFsunsFTW]

Two thoughts after the Portland game.

How does a team shoot 57% FG / 67% 3FG / 86% FT and still lose. Easy, I say. Extra possesions allowed to the opposition are literally KILLING our team.

No, no they're not.

You can't use the phrase "literally killing" and the situation NOT involve murder.

[Sun Scorched]

This was the same problem that the team had before the D'antoni/Porter/Marion/O'Neal/Bell/Diaw/Richardson regime change/hostile take over...

We shot crazy percentages and went down in a blaze of glory because teams were outrebounding us. The formula is simple though, and one hopes that Porter will at least try to figure it out. This was the one gripe against Mike.

Limit turnovers. Crash the boards. Win more games.

[nashill]

im impressed with amares numbers. he is going to be a big key for the suns success this year.

[|||-Abaddon-|||]

Porter is a terribly flawed coach, most teams with our level of talent would be at the top of the league. We just arent being coached well enough, and we dont have the defensive personel to win games like last night.

You give the Suns a Phil Jackson, who is coaching a mediocre and less talented team (c'mon, outside of Bryant and Gasol, most of these players were blasted for being sub-par, limited players), and he makes the Suns that much better.

He knows how teams should space floors.
He knows how to use post options and scoring guards.
He knows how to get the best out of his players.
He is coaching that Laker team to precision, focusing on ball movement, proper spacing and thus, open oppurtunities.

I am not saying we should pray for Phil Jackson, but I mean, there was a better selection of coaches outside of Porter. JVG would have done an amazing job with the amount of talent on this team, I believe, he is a very good defensive minded coach and knows how to use his players.

We need a coach who can use his players to give us a very balanced attack.

[lilfishi22]

TO's are a huge issue. With our slow pace and still terrible defense, we have given ourselves an extremely small margin of error, any easy possessions casused by our TO's just makes that margin even smaller.

We've already let Roy and Harris drop career highs on us and the list is gonna keep expanding if we don't play better defense.

In theory, our excellent FG% coupled with the slower pace should mean we have the upper hand because we should in theory be forcing the opposing team to play at our pace, where we are statistically at an advantage. However this only works if we can force the other team to play at our pace and that's what our defense should be doing. The fact that teams are shooting lower FG% but still beating us is due to the fact that our horrid defense is allowing them to take more shots quickly because they have so many open looks or open lanes to drive in. If we keep allowing them to come in or allow them to shoot open shots, they are going to keep taking them and keep taking them in high volumes. This is where we get beat. This just goes to show how useless our defense is when it comes to actually stopping the opponents from scoring.

We seem to waste a lot of time running down the shot clock trying to find a good shot but the time wasted hasn't necessarily produced better looks. All it has done is lower our possessions per game.