Game 43: San Antonio Spurs (17-23) @ Phoenix Suns (18-24)

[grumpysaddle]

I don't know what Monty's play call was. I doubt it was that. You are right that if Booker didn't play in the second half we wouldn't have had a chance to win, but we probably are not so much down with his play in the first half.

He's a nice player, but I would like it if he trusted teammates in certain situations like that. You have to go for the best play. I guess it's kind of the LeBron vs Kobe argument. It's been proven LeBron is more clutch than Kobe anyway, but regardless he will always make the best play. Of course Booker isn't LeBron and wants to be Kobe, and he does a decent imitation of it on offense, though Kobe was an elite defensive player as well.

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Hmmmmmmmm given those considerations, ehhhh fair enough

I doubt they wanted THAT 3. They could have definitely got a better one with a better play drawn up.

[lilfishi22]

Read on Twitter

Hmmmmmmmm given those considerations, ehhhh fair enough

I doubt they wanted THAT 3. They could have definitely got a better one with a better play drawn up.

Maybe I'm wrong in this criticism but I thought Ayton's screen was pretty trash. Instead of actually setting a good solid screen to open up Booker for the 3, he half-arsed a slip screen which meant that 3 was defended pretty well.

If Ayton had set a proper screen (or even a proper slip screen), Booker would've had a fairly open long 3.

[bwgood77]

You probably skipped the entire 1st half. If he didn’t play like dog **** in the first half, the Suns would have had a 10-15 pt lead at half.

He didn’t even need to go off like he did in the 2nd half, just an average game itself and the Suns would’ve had a double digit lead at half and perhaps the Spurs would’ve tired out and gave up in the 3rd QTR being on the 2nd night of a back to back.

Take Booker out of the lineup for the rest of the season and see how we will do then.

I've thought a lot about this. If we were to replace Booker with, say, Dillon Brooks, would we be worse? Yes, there's a big drop off in scoring, but there's also a big uptick in defense.

I'm not saying I would trade Booker for Dillon Brooks - of course not. But would we be a better team, right now, if we replaced Booker with two-way players? I suspect we might. But of course, we won't trade Devin. For sure, we will try to collect all those two-way players we need in other ways - the draft, free agency, etc. But it seems pretty clear that for everything Devin gives you in terms of scoring, he costs you a lot, too, with his turnovers and poor defense.

His biggest problem is that he gives up wide open looks to shooters on the perimeter. You can say it's because he expends too much energy on offense, but it seems to me that his offense often comes at the cost of not getting other players involved. The advanced stats simply hate Devin, always have. It's easy to ignore all that when he's scoring so well, but I've been having a harder and harder time always blaming his teammates whenever we lose.

It matters not. We won't trade him. When he goes, whenever that is, it'll be via free agency.

Yeah, when I came across this post I thought "it would be an interesting exercise" but then thought "well, he'd have to be replaced by someone. It will be interesting if he is able to lead us to his first 4 game winning streak in a Suns uni this season or next. If not, we might have our answer, though of course it could be everyone else's fault but his.

[bwgood77]

The problem is Saric isn't a starter. He is very inconsistent, and has never been a good rebounder. We keep getting beat by outside shooting.

Ayton screwed us by ingesting an illegal substance. After that, injuries took a toll. We need to get back to the hunger we had at the start of the season. If a trade can spark something, then awesome. But overall we need to play players who will hustle every second they are in the game, keep guys off the three, and crash the boards. After that, I have confidence in Rubio to find the right guys, and get good baskets.

I don’t like Saric much but even he would benefit greatly from playing more with Bridges in the starting lineup than Oubre.

Look at Saric’s numbers in the games with Bridges starting and that says it all.

Saric is decent. He would be a nice glue 4 with the starters, but if you put hin on the bench with those guys, I don't think our bench does anything. You have a bench of Okobo/Oubre/Cam/Frank when he gets back/Baynes when he get back, that is much better.

For now it would be Okobo/Oubre/Cam/Diallo and probably one of the starters unless we had to play one of the other guys.

Oubre I think would prevent our bench from being destroyed. All of our starters play better with Bridges and Saric in there than Oubre and Saric. Hardwood showed the stats before. Booker and Ayton's #s are worse playing with Oubre. They are very high playing with each other, Rubio and Bridges.

[Puff]

Isaiah
Canaan - Shooting 45% from three and handing out 6.9 assists in the G league

He would be a serious upgrade to who we currently are bringing off the bench to run the point. Okokbo is really frustrating to watch along with carter. I throw up in my mouth when Monty puts them in together. Happened again tonight.

I thought guards were a dime a dozen. Well none of our back ups are worth a penny.

James Jones, do your freaking job.

Stop it.

I am just using Canaan as an example to what we really could use. I peeked in on Lecque's stat and he has been horrible in the G-league which Canaan is one of the leaders. Some including me have wanted to see Lecques given a chance. He is shooting below 40 % from the field, below 25 % from 3 and 58 % from the line. This is playing against the like of Canaan. He is not going to contribute anything to the big club anytime soon.

I certainly do not have an answer but a player that could produce the same stats that Canaan is producing would be a great addition to the group. Where he is and how we can get him is James Jones job.

That is what I am trying to say.

[Frank Lee]

Hmmmmmmmm given those considerations, ehhhh fair enough

I doubt they wanted THAT 3. They could have definitely got a better one with a better play drawn up.

Maybe I'm wrong in this criticism but I thought Ayton's screen was pretty trash. Instead of actually setting a good solid screen to open up Booker for the 3, he half-arsed a slip screen which meant that 3 was defended pretty well.

If Ayton had set a proper screen (or even a proper slip screen), Booker would've had a fairly open long 3.

Video Clip that will never be made .... " DeAndre Ayton's Top 10 Screens'

[RunDogGun]

The problem is Saric isn't a starter. He is very inconsistent, and has never been a good rebounder. We keep getting beat by outside shooting.

Ayton screwed us by ingesting an illegal substance. After that, injuries took a toll. We need to get back to the hunger we had at the start of the season. If a trade can spark something, then awesome. But overall we need to play players who will hustle every second they are in the game, keep guys off the three, and crash the boards. After that, I have confidence in Rubio to find the right guys, and get good baskets.

I don’t like Saric much but even he would benefit greatly from playing more with Bridges in the starting lineup than Oubre.

Look at Saric’s numbers in the games with Bridges starting and that says it all.

Saric is decent. He would be a nice glue 4 with the starters, but if you put hin on the bench with those guys, I don't think our bench does anything. You have a bench of Okobo/Oubre/Cam/Frank when he gets back/Baynes when he get back, that is much better.

For now it would be Okobo/Oubre/Cam/Diallo and probably one of the starters unless we had to play one of the other guys.

Oubre I think would prevent our bench from being destroyed. All of our starters play better with Bridges and Saric in there than Oubre and Saric. Hardwood showed the stats before. Booker and Ayton's #s are worse playing with Oubre. They are very high playing with each other, Rubio and Bridges.

You guys keep acting like we play five guys, then sub a completely different five guys out there. That is just not the case. Moreover, we finish games with our best unit, which is Rubio, Booker, Bridges, Oubre, and Ayton. Why do we wait so long to put in our best unit? Start that unit, and stagger the rotations. It really isn't that complicated. We are getting destroyed by perimeter shooting. Allowing players to get hot early in games makes it tougher to stop later in the game. Saric doesn't provide anything better than what Oubre provides, other than three inches and 20 lb.

We should start the game with our best unit, and end games with our best unit. We do need a better bench, but lets not subtract it from our starting unit. Oubre provides an offensive threat, which in turn opens up room for Booker and Ayton.

[bwgood77]

I don’t like Saric much but even he would benefit greatly from playing more with Bridges in the starting lineup than Oubre.

Look at Saric’s numbers in the games with Bridges starting and that says it all.

Saric is decent. He would be a nice glue 4 with the starters, but if you put hin on the bench with those guys, I don't think our bench does anything. You have a bench of Okobo/Oubre/Cam/Frank when he gets back/Baynes when he get back, that is much better.

For now it would be Okobo/Oubre/Cam/Diallo and probably one of the starters unless we had to play one of the other guys.

Oubre I think would prevent our bench from being destroyed. All of our starters play better with Bridges and Saric in there than Oubre and Saric. Hardwood showed the stats before. Booker and Ayton's #s are worse playing with Oubre. They are very high playing with each other, Rubio and Bridges.

You guys keep acting like we play five guys, then sub a completely different five guys out there. That is just not the case. Moreover, we finish games with our best unit, which is Rubio, Booker, Bridges, Oubre, and Ayton. Why do we wait so long to put in our best unit? Start that unit, and stagger the rotations. It really isn't that complicated. We are getting destroyed by perimeter shooting. Allowing players to get hot early in games makes it tougher to stop later in the game. Saric doesn't provide anything better than what Oubre provides, other than three inches and 20 lb.

We should start the game with our best unit, and end games with our best unit. We do need a better bench, but lets not subtract it from our starting unit. Oubre provides an offensive threat, which in turn opens up room for Booker and Ayton.

I've said before I would start Rubio/Booker/Bridges/Saric/Ayton possibly and then just use Oubre/Cam/Diallo off the bench with two starters and integrate Baynes and Frank when they return.

It's been shown that Oubre doesn't play well with Booker compared to the other guys. To start the last game the whole starting unit had very bad +/- stats with that lineup and Oubre's got better when he stayed with more bench guys and then Booker instead of Oubre with bench guys helped too to improve their overall +/- numbers.

[Years90Suns]

I believe Saric offers more than it seems. Obviously he need the game to be played under certains circumstances to be effective. He is not athletic, but he is intelligent, tough, knows how to get advantages and post up...

But I agree that we need to increase the level of our bench.

For me, the first thing to do would be to do would be to play Johnson, who at leats provides points, instead of Okobo or Carter, who are really terrifying (for the Suns) together out there. Just a bunch of low quality plays and bad decisions.

Then, if Oubre makes Booker and Saric both play worse, why not insert Bridges, as proposed, or Cam, into the SL?

Ricky
Booker
Johnson
Saric
Ayton
-----------------
Okobo
Bridges
Oubre
Kaminsky
Baynes

A different option could be play Diallo along Ayton, but I believe we would lack shooting. May be Kaminsky as a starter and then Baynes and Diallo, but the fact is that only Saric, amonh Saric, Kaminsky, Diallo and Baynes, has the level to face starting PFs in the league.

RR
Booker
Bridges
Johnson
Ayton
------------------
Okobo
Johnson
Oubre
Kaminsky
Baynes

Maybe we could trade one of our bigs, together with Johnson or Okobo or both, to get a better bench PG.

[lilfishi22]

Isaiah
Canaan - Shooting 45% from three and handing out 6.9 assists in the G league

He would be a serious upgrade to who we currently are bringing off the bench to run the point. Okokbo is really frustrating to watch along with carter. I throw up in my mouth when Monty puts them in together. Happened again tonight.

I thought guards were a dime a dozen. Well none of our back ups are worth a penny.

James Jones, do your freaking job.

Stop it.

I am just using Canaan as an example to what we really could use. I peeked in on Lecque's stat and he has been horrible in the G-league which Canaan is one of the leaders. Some including me have wanted to see Lecques given a chance. He is shooting below 40 % from the field, below 25 % from 3 and 58 % from the line. This is playing against the like of Canaan. He is not going to contribute anything to the big club anytime soon.

I certainly do not have an answer but a player that could produce the same stats that Canaan is producing would be a great addition to the group. Where he is and how we can get him is James Jones job.

That is what I am trying to say.

I honestly don't think Canaan is much better than what we have. Guards are dime a dozen, decent PG's aren't. Canaan is really no better than what we have (collectively). Our bench issue won't be solved by adding slightly better PG because the rest of that unit isn't very good offensively.

The problem is that no one can pass at a high level and no one can really score well on their own in that 2nd unit. So we basically have a bunch of warm bodies in that bench unit without a single focus point of offense. The issue can be mitigated with the addition of Oubre into that unit because while he's not a good passer, he can at least be a focal point of an (bench) offense. With a focal point of offense, we have more options now on offense because the defense is no longer looking at single coverage of our weak bench squad but they need to be more keyed in on Oubre. This has the potential to create more space for the other guys to score.

[SlovenianDragon]

what would you guys think if the last play of the game was an open 3 from Ayton and still missed?

[lilfishi22]

what would you guys think if the last play of the game was an open 3 from Ayton and still missed?

Monty would get even more heat