Game 13: Phoenix Suns (7-5) @ New Orleans Pelicans (3-11)

[Matt1979]

Can't be a co-incidence that the games Markieff was out we played great stuff and WON!

He comes back and we play badly and LOSE.

Come on Jeff.... We can all see it.....

[bwgood77]

Archie Goodwin on Twitter, "locked in a cage."

I hate that guy.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

Why?
Thats a dig to Hornacek, and rightfully so judging by the records of the last 2 games.

The two games he played tiny to no minutes the Suns have lost.

The two games he has played 20 plus minutes he has averaged 12ppg 5rpg 2apg and the team looked better. Not to mention Knight has been on fire.

Those games were against banged up or bad teams on the second night of a b2b. It's best to keep Archie locked in a cage.

[TeamTragic]

Archie Goodwin on Twitter, "locked in a cage."

I hate that guy.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

Why?
Thats a dig to Hornacek, and rightfully so judging by the records of the last 2 games.

The two games he played tiny to no minutes the Suns have lost.

The two games he has played 20 plus minutes he has averaged 12ppg 5rpg 2apg and the team looked better. Not to mention Knight has been on fire.

I just don't think Hornacek is a versatile coach. He cannot adjust on the fly and make changes when we need them immediately. Thus why Archie is on the bench. Against a 2-11 team. That we lost to last night

[Christine-In-AZ]

Can't be a co-incidence that the games Markieff was out we played great stuff and WON!

He comes back and we play badly and LOSE.

Come on Jeff.... We can all see it.....

I think the Suns have actually played fairly well over the last three games.

Loss to very good Bulls team really came down to just a few missed shots versus some super clutch late shooting from Butler. Suns played well and came up a little short.

Denver win was quite impressive to me. Suns didn't give up and kicked butt in the second half.

Loss to NO was frustrating. Suns were right there, but couldn't get any stops down the stretch. New Orleans is not a bad team. Close but no cigar.

Markieff's game and overall effort is still well below where it should be, but in the last two games his energy level wasn't bad at all. I thought he played a pretty good game against the Pels ...was clearly putting in good defensive effort. Don't see how he should take the blame for that loss.

I posted a few days back that I thought he would start coming out of it whatever that it is ...and I think he is or at least he's now trying. Anybody second that thought? (expecting silence or slams)

[bwgood77]

Archie Goodwin on Twitter, "locked in a cage."

I hate that guy.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

Why?
Thats a dig to Hornacek, and rightfully so judging by the records of the last 2 games.

The two games he played tiny to no minutes the Suns have lost.

The two games he has played 20 plus minutes he has averaged 12ppg 5rpg 2apg and the team looked better. Not to mention Knight has been on fire.

I just don't think Hornacek is a versatile coach. He cannot adjust on the fly and make changes when we need them immediately. Thus why Archie is on the bench. Against a 2-11 team. That we lost to last night

Would you rather play Archie than Bledsoe, Knight or Booker?

[bwgood77]

Can't be a co-incidence that the games Markieff was out we played great stuff and WON!

He comes back and we play badly and LOSE.

Come on Jeff.... We can all see it.....

I think the Suns have actually played fairly well over the last three games.

Loss to very good Bulls team really came down to just a few missed shots versus some super clutch late shooting from Butler. Suns played well and came up a little short.

Denver win was quite impressive to me. Suns didn't give up and kicked butt in the second half.

Loss to NO was frustrating. Suns were right there, but couldn't get any stops down the stretch. New Orleans is not a bad team. Close but no cigar.

Markieff's game and overall effort is still well below where it should be, but in the last two games his energy level wasn't bad at all. I thought he played a pretty good game against the Pels ...was clearly putting in good defensive effort. Don't see how he should take the blame for that loss.

I posted a few days back that I thought he would start coming out of it whatever that it is ...and I think he is or at least he's now trying. Anybody second that thought? (expecting silence or slams)

There have been flashes of him looking like he is really trying. Even in the game before he got injured. Last night at times. I don't mind a close loss against a playoff team that just got mostly healthy and had just gotten out of their funk beating the Spurs easily. Hopefully we beat them at home though.

[Cutter]

I am a big Markieff critic, but to be completely fair I thought he played well tonight. He played very good man on man defense against Anthony Davis, but didn't seem to play particularly good team defense. He had a stat line of 17/8/3 in 36 minutes, but fairly low shooting efficiency of 40%, and shot 25% on 3 point attempts.

Overall, a big improvement from where he has been recently, but has has a long way to go to dig out of the hole he is currently in.

I hope he can find his shovel.

[RaisingArizona]

This one wasn't on Kieff. He didn't play great but he hit some shots in the 4th to keep us alive.

[Cutter]

Disappointed in Hornacek in this one. Understood his strategy of playing 5 shooters (e.g. no Len/ Chandler, running with Mirza/ Leuer/ Keef at C) in an attempt to drag Davis out of the key defensively so Bled and BK (our hot hands lately) can get to the rim, however:

1) You roll the dice on offense if BK/ Bled aren't on/ slashing (BK was off the first half), OR our bigs aren't being respected on the perimeter (which was the case early).

2) Anything you do gain on offense, you give up defensively in the paint without Chandler/ Len. We gave up way too many layups and second chance points. No way NOLA should drop 122 points on you and i'm convinced that wouldn't have been the case with a rim protector.

2A) Case in point, Ish Smith driving the length of the court with 4.4 seconds left after a break in play - how can you not put a big man under the rim in that scenario??

3) This is a young team that is still trying to find consistency. You get that through repetition - coaching and playing the same way, running the same sets and developing what works for you. We're not yet equipped to adjust on the fly - case in point, when Bled was out and the rotation changed, we lost our groove. We need to embed our style of play in our young guys even if it means losing a game here and there, if we do it playing our game.

3A) You don't change your rotation/ style of play and try to get creative against a 2-11 team. You have faith in your coaching style and force the 2-11 team to adjust to your game.

In my opinion, Horny turned this one into a shootout by playing small. We went away from what has worked for us (our top 10 defense) with the intent of boosting our offensive game. It wasn't necessary and we opened the door for a dangerous team to steal a win, which they did.

Hopefully we take that away from this one and we see our own style more the next time we play them.

Best post of the night. Sums up very well my thoughts on what happened which allowed the Pelicans to score 122 points on us. I'm not sure a small ball lineup that doesn't have either Chandler or Len at the C for defense is going to be sufficient to win against good teams.

[bwgood77]

Disappointed in Hornacek in this one. Understood his strategy of playing 5 shooters (e.g. no Len/ Chandler, running with Mirza/ Leuer/ Keef at C) in an attempt to drag Davis out of the key defensively so Bled and BK (our hot hands lately) can get to the rim, however:

1) You roll the dice on offense if BK/ Bled aren't on/ slashing (BK was off the first half), OR our bigs aren't being respected on the perimeter (which was the case early).

2) Anything you do gain on offense, you give up defensively in the paint without Chandler/ Len. We gave up way too many layups and second chance points. No way NOLA should drop 122 points on you and i'm convinced that wouldn't have been the case with a rim protector.

2A) Case in point, Ish Smith driving the length of the court with 4.4 seconds left after a break in play - how can you not put a big man under the rim in that scenario??

3) This is a young team that is still trying to find consistency. You get that through repetition - coaching and playing the same way, running the same sets and developing what works for you. We're not yet equipped to adjust on the fly - case in point, when Bled was out and the rotation changed, we lost our groove. We need to embed our style of play in our young guys even if it means losing a game here and there, if we do it playing our game.

3A) You don't change your rotation/ style of play and try to get creative against a 2-11 team. You have faith in your coaching style and force the 2-11 team to adjust to your game.

In my opinion, Horny turned this one into a shootout by playing small. We went away from what has worked for us (our top 10 defense) with the intent of boosting our offensive game. It wasn't necessary and we opened the door for a dangerous team to steal a win, which they did.

Hopefully we take that away from this one and we see our own style more the next time we play them.

Best post of the night. Sums up very well my thoughts on what happened which allowed the Pelicans to score 122 points on us. I'm not sure a small ball lineup that doesn't have either Chandler or Len at the C for defense is going to be sufficient to win against good teams.[/quote

The problem with this argument, though, is that we kept getting down big in the 1st qtr WITH Tyson in there. We got it close when we DID go small ball, spread the floor and started sinking more shots.

Len was in the game for 2 minutes and we were outscored by 8. I'm not sure if something was wrong with him though.

[TeamTragic]

Disappointed in Hornacek in this one. Understood his strategy of playing 5 shooters (e.g. no Len/ Chandler, running with Mirza/ Leuer/ Keef at C) in an attempt to drag Davis out of the key defensively so Bled and BK (our hot hands lately) can get to the rim, however:

1) You roll the dice on offense if BK/ Bled aren't on/ slashing (BK was off the first half), OR our bigs aren't being respected on the perimeter (which was the case early).

2) Anything you do gain on offense, you give up defensively in the paint without Chandler/ Len. We gave up way too many layups and second chance points. No way NOLA should drop 122 points on you and i'm convinced that wouldn't have been the case with a rim protector.

2A) Case in point, Ish Smith driving the length of the court with 4.4 seconds left after a break in play - how can you not put a big man under the rim in that scenario??

3) This is a young team that is still trying to find consistency. You get that through repetition - coaching and playing the same way, running the same sets and developing what works for you. We're not yet equipped to adjust on the fly - case in point, when Bled was out and the rotation changed, we lost our groove. We need to embed our style of play in our young guys even if it means losing a game here and there, if we do it playing our game.

3A) You don't change your rotation/ style of play and try to get creative against a 2-11 team. You have faith in your coaching style and force the 2-11 team to adjust to your game.

In my opinion, Horny turned this one into a shootout by playing small. We went away from what has worked for us (our top 10 defense) with the intent of boosting our offensive game. It wasn't necessary and we opened the door for a dangerous team to steal a win, which they did.

Hopefully we take that away from this one and we see our own style more the next time we play them.

Best post of the night. Sums up very well my thoughts on what happened which allowed the Pelicans to score 122 points on us. I'm not sure a small ball lineup that doesn't have either Chandler or Len at the C for defense is going to be sufficient to win against good teams.[/quote

The problem with this argument, though, is that we kept getting down big in the 1st qtr WITH Tyson in there. We got it close when we DID go small ball, spread the floor and started sinking more shots.

Len was in the game for 2 minutes and we were outscored by 8. I'm not sure if something was wrong with him though.

I guess what you are saying is that Hornacek's defensive and offensive rotation **** sucks balls. In which case we would have lost either way. The above comments are pretty much basketball fundamentals. Our coach still hasn't learned them yet?

[Saberestar]

Disappointed in Hornacek in this one. Understood his strategy of playing 5 shooters (e.g. no Len/ Chandler, running with Mirza/ Leuer/ Keef at C) in an attempt to drag Davis out of the key defensively so Bled and BK (our hot hands lately) can get to the rim, however:

1) You roll the dice on offense if BK/ Bled aren't on/ slashing (BK was off the first half), OR our bigs aren't being respected on the perimeter (which was the case early).

2) Anything you do gain on offense, you give up defensively in the paint without Chandler/ Len. We gave up way too many layups and second chance points. No way NOLA should drop 122 points on you and i'm convinced that wouldn't have been the case with a rim protector.

2A) Case in point, Ish Smith driving the length of the court with 4.4 seconds left after a break in play - how can you not put a big man under the rim in that scenario??

3) This is a young team that is still trying to find consistency. You get that through repetition - coaching and playing the same way, running the same sets and developing what works for you. We're not yet equipped to adjust on the fly - case in point, when Bled was out and the rotation changed, we lost our groove. We need to embed our style of play in our young guys even if it means losing a game here and there, if we do it playing our game.

3A) You don't change your rotation/ style of play and try to get creative against a 2-11 team. You have faith in your coaching style and force the 2-11 team to adjust to your game.

In my opinion, Horny turned this one into a shootout by playing small. We went away from what has worked for us (our top 10 defense) with the intent of boosting our offensive game. It wasn't necessary and we opened the door for a dangerous team to steal a win, which they did.

Hopefully we take that away from this one and we see our own style more the next time we play them.

Best post of the night. Sums up very well my thoughts on what happened which allowed the Pelicans to score 122 points on us. I'm not sure a small ball lineup that doesn't have either Chandler or Len at the C for defense is going to be sufficient to win against good teams.

The problem with this argument, though, is that we kept getting down big in the 1st qtr WITH Tyson in there. We got it close when we DID go small ball, spread the floor and started sinking more shots.

Len was in the game for 2 minutes and we were outscored by 8. I'm not sure if something was wrong with him though.

Hornacek said yesterday that he will play his bigs more minutes because playing small ball did not work in the last two games. In this game I think Chandler is gonna defend Davis a lot of minutes, Tucker with Anderson and Markieff with Gee or whoever.