Game 8: Phoenix Suns at Washington Wizards, November 1st, 4:00 PM, PT

[Son of Ra]

My God, this was fun. I haven't handed out this many +1s in a game thread since the Hornacek surprise season.

[Mulhollanddrive]

Get Bender on Porzingis it'll be unicorn sex.

[NavLDO]

JJ should be starting over TJ ... forgot about people hollering all the time for that one too.

Exactly. He's a rookie and needs time for cryin's out loud. That and "TJ will make a great 6th man for us..." Why is it so wrong to expect JJ to take a year to develop into a starter?

Plus, once JJ develops, I'm still not sure why we can't play both of them together. People are making too much of the fact that they are both SFs. Warren can play some PF; JJ is athletic enough to guard some 2s...whatever. There's no reason NOT to put 2 of our best players on the floor at the same time in a 'positionless' NBA.

[King4Day]

Crazy how Warren is becoming our go-to guy now. He's looking like Melo-light without the range

[King4Day]

Wow that was one of the most satisfying wins we've had in years, loved watching us come back from down 20+ to win in Washington. Definitely didn't think we'd get a win when I saw we were down like 20 once I was able to turn the game on, but that just shows how this team fights. Wonder if we'll be able to keep this level of play going? I don't see us making a run for a playoff spot or anything yet with how strong the West is and how young we are (bar something very unexpected), but we should definitely break 30 wins this year.

I think it'll hold up for now. After teams start seeing film of how we're playing, they'll likely begin to catch up.
The problem is, we're still giving up a ton of points. If they start defending correctly, we're going to lose a lot of games.

The positive is, we aren't winning by jump shooting. The ball movement is fantastic and it makes it more difficult to defend since it can become unpredictable for defenses.

[Revived]

We really need a really good perimeter defender that we can just throw at some of the elite level players to make them work harder.

Jackson's defense hasn't been as great as advertised but he's only a rookie.

Would love to see if we can acquire a somewhat young and good defender and see if this level of success can perhaps be sustainable then.

[jcsunsfan]

Wow that was one of the most satisfying wins we've had in years, loved watching us come back from down 20+ to win in Washington. Definitely didn't think we'd get a win when I saw we were down like 20 once I was able to turn the game on, but that just shows how this team fights. Wonder if we'll be able to keep this level of play going? I don't see us making a run for a playoff spot or anything yet with how strong the West is and how young we are (bar something very unexpected), but we should definitely break 30 wins this year.

I think it'll hold up for now. After teams start seeing film of how we're playing, they'll likely begin to catch up.
The problem is, we're still giving up a ton of points. If they start defending correctly, we're going to lose a lot of games.

The positive is, we aren't winning by jump shooting. The ball movement is fantastic and it makes it more difficult to defend since it can become unpredictable for defenses.

That fast break with the baseball pass to Booker followed by the touch pass to Warren was just a thing of beauty. There were a lot of good passes in this game. Even Chriss had a couple.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

[jcsunsfan]

We really need a really good perimeter defender that we can just throw at some of the elite level players to make them work harder.

Jackson's defense hasn't been as great as advertised but he's only a rookie.

Would love to see if we can acquire a somewhat young and good defender and see if this level of success can perhaps be sustainable then.

Jackson is the guy. I am not sure anyone in the league has more potential to be that lock down perimeter defender than him. But Warren is developing for the moment. So it takes time to get it to all work together. I would not mind giving Jackson a couple games in the g league just to blow out the cob webs.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

[sunsfever68]

Amazing how bad Watson and Bledsoe were for the flow of this team.

Triano is a very very early coach of the year candidate so far.

I still hope we can package the right assets to get a top 5 pick this draft because we need one more elite young star to finalize the core to compete next decade.

Until then, I really am going to enjoy watching Jackson/Bender/Chriss/Warren/Ulis progress. It'll be interesting to me to see it all play out and I'm very curious if they can actually win long term with a backcourt of James/Ulis.

McD wants to extend James which I think is premature, but if Doncic is on the board when we have a pick (through moving assets and maybe a player) I would take him or Ayton or Bagley and finalize this core.

[gaspar]

Next game should be a lot of fun. Chriss and Bender will have a big assignment against Porzingis.

Or maybe not

Read on Twitter

[bwoolf2]

I would like to see them create a specialty role for DJJ when someone like Beal goes off like he did, bring DJJ for 7-10 minutes a game to come in and just shut someone down ala Bruce Bowen back in the day. Get under his skin get him out of his game and then back to the bench.

[NavLDO]

We really need a really good perimeter defender that we can just throw at some of the elite level players to make them work harder.

Jackson's defense hasn't been as great as advertised but he's only a rookie.

Would love to see if we can acquire a somewhat young and good defender and see if this level of success can perhaps be sustainable then.

Actually, Bender can defend the perimeter, if used right. I know, doesn't sound right, but he can. I saw a play a week back where he matched a guard stride for stride from the 3 Pt line to the basket and denied the shot. Plus, JJ will settle in once he gets comfortable; I'm not worried about it. Ulis is actually pretty 'feisty' defensively, but he's not getting the minutes, plus his size is just a limitation he won't be able to ever completely overcome.

Point is, we could be a lot worse off defensively than we are, IMO. And I'll...



...but if Triano would just be willing to start Len, play him 28-30 mpg, a lot of good things would potentially come from this defensively. I really have ZERO idea why we continue to start Chandler; even if McD is wanting to trade him, he's killing his trade value, since Chandler is doing noting but showing the world that he is D-U-N, done.

In the 127 games that Len has started vs the 146 games he has not, here are some for the differences (granted,he played longer minutes...3186 vs 2230, which is almost exactly a 70% ratio.

DRB: 723 to 463 or 64%
Pts: 9.1 to 5.1 or 56%
TRB: 8.1 to 4.7 or 58%
Blks: 173 to 114 or 66%
Asst: 127 to 56 or 44%
DRtg: 106 to 107

Now, his shooting %s were lower as a starter, so it's no all roses, of course. You take the good with the bad, but considering the benefits...more Pts/TRB/BLKs/Assts, etc...I'll take those, since shooting isn't what we really NEED out of Len anyway.

[tgtm_24]

I think it'll hold up for now. After teams start seeing film of how we're playing, they'll likely begin to catch up.
The problem is, we're still giving up a ton of points. If they start defending correctly, we're going to lose a lot of games.

The positive is, we aren't winning by jump shooting. The ball movement is fantastic and it makes it more difficult to defend since it can become unpredictable for defenses.[/quote]

I think the points conceded has been inflated somewhat the last two games but playing high pace teams. Brooklyn had 114 points but it took 113 possessions. I'd take that ratio for the rest of the year. We kept Utah (who has owned us in recent seasons) to 88.

Whilst I agree teams will adjust to our offensie schemes, I think the guys will improve defensively as the season goes on.

[garrick]

We really need a really good perimeter defender that we can just throw at some of the elite level players to make them work harder.

Jackson's defense hasn't been as great as advertised but he's only a rookie.

Would love to see if we can acquire a somewhat young and good defender and see if this level of success can perhaps be sustainable then.

We had that in PJ Tucker...

[denial]

Towards the end of the game game booker was near top of key on left side of floor. Dribbling a lot and the defense was closing in on him. I thought, "here we go... Book is gonna chuck it.. He is becoming a little big headed!"...
But then... Right as he drew the entire defense towards himself, he made the perfect feed to the wide open corner shooter. It was awesome, simple, and perfect.

What's most awesome to me is that, despite being a bunch of kids with no ties to the suns history and legacy, this team is playing SUNS style basketball, straight up.
I cringed at people trying to make us Cleveland. I hate the idea people have of getting LeBron here (which obviously wouldn't happen but i wouldn't want it even if we could).

Hero ball, besides being ultimately ineffective, is boring as hell to watch.

This is suns basketball.

I told a few people before this season that i thought we could sneak in the last playoff slot. We have the talent. We have been drafting first rounder's for a minute. I never understood how so many young players would go to places like okc and sa and blossom. But here they were always not quote ready and couldn't get minutes and when they did just didn't look good. We have the players. We just needed a system and a coach.

I think we are a bubble playoff team right now. Several of these kids have been together now for three years. It's time to bring it all together. I don't believe we even need a great FA to get us there. Just some pieces is all we need.
We have several potential all stars on our hands.
This is so fun

[denial]

Judging defense by points scored is silly.
It's all relative.

Dantoni said something i really liked when his defense was being criticized. Something like: We outscore our opponents, all thirty teams, by an average of ten points. So afaic our defense is better than all them.

If a team scores 150 against you, but you score 160 against them, who's defense performed worse?

if the other team has less points than you, your defense did a better job than theirs did.

[denial]

I've liked jj so far not sure what everyone beef is. He is a rookie impacting games at the beginning of the season, despite all sorts of drama and distractions. Wtf else you want from the kid?

[denial]

People judge defense on steals and blocks don't understand basketball. That's icing.

Defense is about forcing bad shots (or no shot) and getting the rebound. Don't believe the hype.

[jcsunsfan]

What I enjoyed was the ball movement. It was very good for the most part. It was great to see Marquese Chriss looking up and passing the ball, or Booker touch passing to TJ on the break.

Hero ball is so boring. Ball movement is just a thing of beauty.

[AtheJ415]

Bender isn't Porzingis. They are entirely different types of players. Bender is a longer/taller Kirilinko. Potentially Kirilinko 2.0 as his offense rounds out. And that is awesome on its own, but he's never going to be an offense-first guy like Porzingis.