Game 17: Washington Wizards (5-10) @ Phoenix Suns (8-8), Wed, Nov 27, 7PM, MST

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

This is the type of L that will come back to bite us in the end. Defense was nonexistent. Fun game, though. Sigh.

Okobo looking really good and confident, huge leap from last season. Nice to see Cam and Diallo stepping up.

Agreed. Those three looked very good - Okobo and Diallo especially.

I thought the rotations last night were very interesting. Cam, then Diallo and Okobo, were the main guys off the bench. Bridges as the 9th man. Tyler as the 10th, though he played his way into more minutes down the stretch. No way I would have believed at the beginning of the season that Okobo would leapfrog not only Carter, but Tyler Johnson and Mikal Bridges in the rotation!

... Also didn't think Diallo would show more offensive touch than Kaminsky! Gotta acknowledge that Cheick can be pretty slow to react on defense, though his hands are quite good. But on both sides of the ball, Cheick seems to have the edge on Frank at this point. Might be time to shove Frank out of the rotation.

Personally I'd like to see Monty come up with more for Book to do especially when needing a clutch basket. PnR, post up, running off multiple screens, back door cuts. The most I'm seeing from your best player is ISOs and hand offs past the 3 point line.

We do see too much iso Booker, but Monty drew up a few plays down the stretch in a row where the goal was to get Booker in the post, where he's lethal. Booker's obviously not the greatest iso player from the perimeter. He can be a deadly weapon in a system, I think. He isn't Jordan, Harden or Kobe, though he seems to think he is..... If he wants to be that guy, then he's got to make his primary weapon the pull up 3, and he's got to hit it at a higher rate.

[ATTL]

How have they not given a timetable for baynes? Ive never seen a team not give an estimate for injuries.

[bwgood77]

This is the type of L that will come back to bite us in the end. Defense was nonexistent. Fun game, though. Sigh.

Okobo looking really good and confident, huge leap from last season. Nice to see Cam and Diallo stepping up.

We mainly have to win games against teams that we might compete for playoffs against, like the TWolves, Pelicans, Spurs, Blazers, Kings and Mavs. I don't know if the Grizzlies and Thunder can stay within distance but they are within 3 games of the 8th seed.

We've now played the 4th toughest schedule, and the Blazers and Mavs have played the 21st and 22nd toughest schedules, and the Spurs tied for 26th. http://www.espn.com/nba/stats/rpi/_/sort/SOS

[bwgood77]

Also, we didn't seem to make a big deal about missing Ayton while Baynes was starting because he was a beast, but with an injury, which Baynes can't help, it really makes you pissed about Ayton cheating and missing over 30% of the season, probably costing us the playoffs.

[Revived]

Booker isn’t a max player and he’s never taking games over down the stretch on a consistent basis. He’s a soft streaky volume scorer. At some point the valley will stop pretending and be better off with realistic expectations.

Booker was 8th in the league in 4th quarter scoring last season, 14th the season before and 19th in his second season.

Booker was also 6th in the league in clutch scoring last season and 11th so far this season.

It has to start being a concern that Booker starts off games so poorly. He gets paid for a full game, not just the 4th quarter.

A big part of the reason why the Suns aren’t able to build legitimate leads in the first quarter or first half of games is because they get close to nothing from Booker.

Sure he’s still the Suns best player and all that but the guy deserves his share of the blame for the recent awful stretch of play from the Suns in addition to the absences of players we’ve had.

[Revived]

You can't expect to win many games when you give up 140 pts in regulation.

Yeah well wait to see what a pissed off Dallas team coming off a loss to the Clippers is about to do to us on Friday.

[cberry78]

Booker isn’t a max player and he’s never taking games over down the stretch on a consistent basis. He’s a soft streaky volume scorer. At some point the valley will stop pretending and be better off with realistic expectations.

Booker was 8th in the league in 4th quarter scoring last season, 14th the season before and 19th in his second season.

Booker was also 6th in the league in clutch scoring last season and 11th so far this season.

It has to start being a concern that Booker starts off games so poorly. He gets paid for a full game, not just the 4th quarter.

A big part of the reason why the Suns aren’t able to build legitimate leads in the first quarter or first half of games is because they get close to nothing from Booker.

Sure he’s still the Suns best player and all that but the guy deserves his share of the blame for the recent awful stretch of play from the Suns in addition to the absences of players we’ve had.

I think at least part of this can be explained by Book trying to get his teammates involved in the offense. He's shown time and time again that he can turn it on almost at the drop of a hat when he needs to, and it's a big sign of his growing maturity that he's trying to get the rest of the team going in the offense before he has to go and "get his".

[grumpysaddle]

All I need is no more Frank Kaminski, call someone from GLeague or whatever.
Is fu*k*ng my ingame experience.
Right now is a hole in both sides.
About the game, we didnt defend well thats for sure, but the level of hotness of Washington was surreal.
I think we will come with a chip in the shoulder after this one.

[lilfishi22]

Booker isn’t a max player and he’s never taking games over down the stretch on a consistent basis. He’s a soft streaky volume scorer. At some point the valley will stop pretending and be better off with realistic expectations.

Booker was 8th in the league in 4th quarter scoring last season, 14th the season before and 19th in his second season.

Booker was also 6th in the league in clutch scoring last season and 11th so far this season.

It has to start being a concern that Booker starts off games so poorly. He gets paid for a full game, not just the 4th quarter.

A big part of the reason why the Suns aren’t able to build legitimate leads in the first quarter or first half of games is because they get close to nothing from Booker.

Sure he’s still the Suns best player and all that but the guy deserves his share of the blame for the recent awful stretch of play from the Suns in addition to the absences of players we’ve had.

I don't think he has that many bad starts. He has SLOW starts where he's playing more within the offense and getting others involved rather than looking for his own shot but I don't think it's necessarily bad. I think to say we get nothing from Booker would suggests his *only* contribution is scoring but we both know he does way more than that. He moves the ball, he draws defenders with his gravity and not holding up offensive flow. The last few years of Iso-Book, we saw lazy ball movement if any, we saw tempo slow down to a grind because it's just stand and watch Booker isolate and we saw a ton of Booker's gravity not being utilized because he's just standing outside the arc waiting for the ball to go back to him.

No, we haven't yet found the perfect balance of Booker's scoring contribution and being part of the offense but we're also less than a quarter of the way through the season with Ayton having only played 1 game and Baynes/Rubio (our two bigger contributors to early success) having missed time. I'm not really concerned yet about Booker even though his max salary how just now hit the books because he's still, empirically and from the eye test, playing his best basketball in his young career. He's gotten more efficient, become a better passer and become a better overall basketball player each and every year. And this year, we've seen some of the biggest change to the team in terms of addition of experience, coaching, competitiveness and that's coinciding with him playing his best basketball. Early in the season I told myself that I would give this team at least 20 games before really judging it, we're getting close to that mark now and I'm still feeling alright about where we are.

Things aren't perfect, we haven't found balance yet but we're (and Booker) are playing the best basketball in recent history with our #1 pick from last season having missed all but 1 game. This might not be the best attitude to have but I feel like we're playing with house money right now so I think we need to lose a bit more and in more 2016-2019 Suns kind of way for me to start being seriously concerned.

[lilfishi22]

Booker was 8th in the league in 4th quarter scoring last season, 14th the season before and 19th in his second season.

Booker was also 6th in the league in clutch scoring last season and 11th so far this season.

It has to start being a concern that Booker starts off games so poorly. He gets paid for a full game, not just the 4th quarter.

A big part of the reason why the Suns aren’t able to build legitimate leads in the first quarter or first half of games is because they get close to nothing from Booker.

Sure he’s still the Suns best player and all that but the guy deserves his share of the blame for the recent awful stretch of play from the Suns in addition to the absences of players we’ve had.

I think at least part of this can be explained by Book trying to get his teammates involved in the offense. He's shown time and time again that he can turn it on almost at the drop of a hat when he needs to, and it's a big sign of his growing maturity that he's trying to get the rest of the team going in the offense before he has to go and "get his".

+1

In large, we pay a premium for Booker's ability to turn it on and take it to another level when games gets close. He's not 100% there yet but he's pretty close. Also agree about his growing maturity and understanding that team offense is what win games, not individual numbers. I think we all thought it was a real possibility that Booker would just ignore Rubio and just do what he's been doing so to see him not only play well with Rubio but being a creator for others as well (in the fold of the offense), that's him becoming a better, more mature basketball player