Game 8: Toronto Raptors (1-5) @ Phoenix Suns (5-2) l Wednesday l 7:00pm l FSNAZ

[Mulhollanddrive]

We're currently on a 14 game win streak when we shoot over 35% from 3.

[Frank Lee]

Stats vrs eye test. The Ws are there, but theres a lot of tooth pulling. Guys are posting nice numbers, but it’s anything but smooth going. This isn’t bubble basketball.... there’s no flow. We just hammer it out on both ends. Looks like our D will keeep us in most games tho. But we go cold from three and it’s a long night. Check this at 20-25 games.Who knows, It might be our identity.

[dremill24]

Yeah its nice to get a win but we really didnt play that well besides hitting a million 3s, which is not something you can count on every night.

[sasquatchBob]

I think our offense will never look as good as it did with Rubio. He was the one who created the flow of the offense. With Rubio we were one of the fastest attacking teams in the league, now we're one of the slowest and I don't think much will change as the season progresses. I still like CP3 and we're probably better with him than Ricky, but at the same time game was more fun when Rubio was running the show.

[darealjuice]

I seem to be in the minority, but I don't think we played too bad on offense yesterday. We were getting wide open looks from 3 and penetration consistently. They stepped up the pressure a bit in the last 7-8 minutes and we got a bit cold, and even during that stretch Mikal got 3 consecutive wide open looks from 3 that didn't drop for us. We just need to stop playing to run out the clock when there's still 7-8 minutes left. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but you also can't expect your offense to be firing 100% of the time.

Defense was a little more concerning for me tonight. Raptors are better than their record, but we gave up a lot of penetration and points in the paint. Big, mobile, versatile 4s like Siakam are still trouble for us. Crowder does a pretty good job with his strength, but the size difference still hurts us. Ayton's definitely getting better at anchoring our defense, but we still give up too many lightly contested looks at the rim.

I'm happy with the win and where we're at right now. Considering the major changes that we had with minimal offseason time to acclimate, I did not expect us to come out of the gates this strong.

[carey]

oh and one more thing...hey CAM if you are reading this...... i love you!!!!!

Cam Johnson has been legitimately great. Catch that L draft twitter.

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

I seem to be in the minority, but I don't think we played too bad on offense yesterday. We were getting wide open looks from 3 and penetration consistently. They stepped up the pressure a bit in the last 7-8 minutes and we got a bit cold, and even during that stretch Mikal got 3 consecutive wide open looks from 3 that didn't drop for us. We just need to stop playing to run out the clock when there's still 7-8 minutes left. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but you also can't expect your offense to be firing 100% of the time.

Defense was a little more concerning for me tonight. Raptors are better than their record, but we gave up a lot of penetration and points in the paint. Big, mobile, versatile 4s like Siakam are still trouble for us. Crowder does a pretty good job with his strength, but the size difference still hurts us. Ayton's definitely getting better at anchoring our defense, but we still give up too many lightly contested looks at the rim.

I'm happy with the win and where we're at right now. Considering the major changes that we had with minimal offseason time to acclimate, I did not expect us to come out of the gates this strong.

Long, agile, dynamic 4s is why we drafted Jalen Smith. There aren't many guys in the league like Siakam but yeah, he was a problem for us last year, as well.

[Slim Charless]

I think our offense will never look as good as it did with Rubio. He was the one who created the flow of the offense. With Rubio we were one of the fastest attacking teams in the league, now we're one of the slowest and I don't think much will change as the season progresses. I still like CP3 and we're probably better with him than Ricky, but at the same time game was more fun when Rubio was running the show.

WTF????

Did you love those 40 losses too? Yeah those pre bubble Suns were a dynamo. Jesus Christ, some of you guys I swear are trolling.

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

I think our offense will never look as good as it did with Rubio. He was the one who created the flow of the offense. With Rubio we were one of the fastest attacking teams in the league, now we're one of the slowest and I don't think much will change as the season progresses. I still like CP3 and we're probably better with him than Ricky, but at the same time game was more fun when Rubio was running the show.

I might feel this way if we start losing games. But IMO the biggest problem so far with Paul hasn't been the pace, but the shooting. I swear that for years, Chris Paul never missed when he went one-on-one against our bigs on a switch. But he's really struggled so far from the field. They're the same shots, pretty easy by CP3 standards from what I recall.

He's also passing up a lot of shots that he would need to take and make for this team to be at its best. Presumably because he's been missing so much. Not overly worried at this juncture, though. It's early.

[Saberestar]

I think our offense will never look as good as it did with Rubio. He was the one who created the flow of the offense. With Rubio we were one of the fastest attacking teams in the league, now we're one of the slowest and I don't think much will change as the season progresses. I still like CP3 and we're probably better with him than Ricky, but at the same time game was more fun when Rubio was running the show.

We were 26W-39L before the bubble. There were a lot of tough moments last season and our team was mediocre...probably worse than mediocre. I know that Ayton was out for 25 games but even with him our team was not good, we needed an upgrade this season and we got it.

Then Bubble arrived and we played beautiful ball for 8 games, BUT the competition was soft. Obviously our game was more watchable, but some teams rested a lot of starters and we were just one of the few teams that played with heart every single game.

I value a lot the Bubble period because it gave us the opportunity to discover Cam Payne as a backup PG, Cam Johnson as a Oubre's replacement and Saric as a full-time backup C.

The Bubble put our name on the mind of a lot of basketball's people. Players and coaches respect a team that fights on every game and those 8 consecutive wins put us on the map.

[bwgood77]

Am I the only one that thinks Ayton's stats are meaningless? This is year 3 and I can safely say that he's had more bad games than good but somehow you check the stats and he always has a double-double( points and rebounds). He has one of the best PG in the history of the NBA and you would think he'll be more than willing to run a PnR and PnP but he doesn't do it. He's so frustrating to watch and if the Suns are serious about winning it all, at some point you have to trade him. Get KAT or Lauri Markkanen. Look at Wiseman,that dude has by far a better upside than Ayton

No, I think many ignore his great (almost becoming elite) defense that doesn't show up in the box score and just focuses on him and how much he tries to score, which he's said he's said is not a priority for him, as he wants to focus mostly on defense.

He has mostly been playing great on defense and they are not utilizing him too much on offense. There were a couple of bad passes to him early and I think he got it stripped once and maybe didn't catch a way too hard of pass to him, but overall he's been solid and if he was out and we had to start Saric our defense and rebounding would suffer a great deal and it wouldcostus games.

Markkanen sucks. KAT is always injured, never makes an impact enough to win, and is not particularly good on defense.Wiseman hasn't done jack **** yet.

[bwgood77]

Who would have thought in free agency we would upgrade our starting PF spot for under 10 million bucks.

You guys can hate on ayton all you want, the guy looked absolutely fantastic on defense tonight. There was a play where he got dragged out about 15 feet against pascal and he was moving his feet and staying in front of him ridiculously well.

I really doubted JJ but he put together a SQUAD. Cam Johnson was a great pick, and it makes me excited to see more of jalen smith.

Yeah, it's safe to say he's making slightly more impact than Oubre is for his team this year.

[bwgood77]

I seem to be in the minority, but I don't think we played too bad on offense yesterday. We were getting wide open looks from 3 and penetration consistently. They stepped up the pressure a bit in the last 7-8 minutes and we got a bit cold, and even during that stretch Mikal got 3 consecutive wide open looks from 3 that didn't drop for us. We just need to stop playing to run out the clock when there's still 7-8 minutes left. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but you also can't expect your offense to be firing 100% of the time.

Defense was a little more concerning for me tonight. Raptors are better than their record, but we gave up a lot of penetration and points in the paint. Big, mobile, versatile 4s like Siakam are still trouble for us. Crowder does a pretty good job with his strength, but the size difference still hurts us. Ayton's definitely getting better at anchoring our defense, but we still give up too many lightly contested looks at the rim.

I'm happy with the win and where we're at right now. Considering the major changes that we had with minimal offseason time to acclimate, I did not expect us to come out of the gates this strong.

This is probably the best defensive team we've faced, at least among their starters, except maybe the Clippers. Utah is tough defensively but that is mostly from the C position....the Raptors and Clips are very tough defensively among pretty much all their starters.

The benches are where they are weaker and where we can exploit more, especially with Toronto. I wouldn't take a win against Toronto that lightly (for the others that do). This is a better team, as you said, than their record....they likely our in that 4-8 seed range, given the east as a whole is tougher, but are still a pretty good team, just one lacking depth.

[bwgood77]

I think our offense will never look as good as it did with Rubio. He was the one who created the flow of the offense. With Rubio we were one of the fastest attacking teams in the league, now we're one of the slowest and I don't think much will change as the season progresses. I still like CP3 and we're probably better with him than Ricky, but at the same time game was more fun when Rubio was running the show.

We were 26W-39L before the bubble. There were a lot of tough moments last season and our team was mediocre...probably worse than mediocre. I know that Ayton was out for 25 games but even with him our team was not good, we needed an upgrade this season and we got it.

Then Bubble arrived and we played beautiful ball for 8 games, BUT the competition was soft. Obviously our game was more watchable, but some teams rested a lot of starters and we were just one of the few teams that played with heart every single game.

I value a lot the Bubble period because it gave us the opportunity to discover Cam Payne as a backup PG, Cam Johnson as a Oubre's replacement and Saric as a full-time backup C.

The Bubble put our name on the mind of a lot of basketball's people. Players and coaches respect a team that fights on every game and those 8 consecutive wins put us on the map.

I agree with all of this. The things we discovered about our team, the Cams, Saric's role, the way we can play, etc, was special, but the wins were probably not something we could have done had the regular season played out normally. Thankfully (aside from COVID being the reason), we did get that break, sign Cam Payne, and have the bubble experience.

More than half of the teams we beat, as you said, didn't play their starters or were missing all stars with injuries, but we typically beat those teams handily, and played beautifully....so it was something that gave us a glimpse into the roles some players can play and also gave our players confidence coming into the season.

[DroughtsOverPHX]

Something I never thought I would say is that Saric is way better than Baynes as a backup center. Dario has been solid and fits in great with the pests on our bench.

[Qwigglez]

I seem to be in the minority, but I don't think we played too bad on offense yesterday. We were getting wide open looks from 3 and penetration consistently. They stepped up the pressure a bit in the last 7-8 minutes and we got a bit cold, and even during that stretch Mikal got 3 consecutive wide open looks from 3 that didn't drop for us. We just need to stop playing to run out the clock when there's still 7-8 minutes left. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but you also can't expect your offense to be firing 100% of the time.

Defense was a little more concerning for me tonight. Raptors are better than their record, but we gave up a lot of penetration and points in the paint. Big, mobile, versatile 4s like Siakam are still trouble for us. Crowder does a pretty good job with his strength, but the size difference still hurts us. Ayton's definitely getting better at anchoring our defense, but we still give up too many lightly contested looks at the rim.

I'm happy with the win and where we're at right now. Considering the major changes that we had with minimal offseason time to acclimate, I did not expect us to come out of the gates this strong.

I'm trying to figure out what game everyone else watched because I agree with what you said. The open looks 3's, Booker, Paul, even Cam Payne all got in the paint, Saric got several easy buckets in the paint too. The defense was a bit bad stopping the Raptors from getting in the paint but I think early foul trouble for Bridges contributed to that. Really though, it's such a welcoming thought that any game we have someone different step it up offensively, this game was Cam and Saric off the bench.

[Stark]

We are 6-2 while playing great team basketball. Kings game was close and Clippers game, coming back from a 30 points deficit was pretty promising. Team manage to do that while our best player played poorly most of the time. Last year team was fun i agree but right now we're better. As a basketball fan i will always prefer watching Rubio instead of Paul. My favorite players are guys like Nash,J-Will, Rondo,Rubio. Flashy pass first guys that pushes the tempo and creates high octane offense. At this time in his career CP3 is not that but he is an amazing fit for the rest of the squad on and off the court as long as he is healthy. His ability to create his own shot unlocked another level for the team. If we had Rubio instead of Paul whenever Book is playing poor we would be in huge trouble and defending the team would be way easier. He punishes the mismatches, bullies bad defenders, gets a charge at the best time. I also want us to push the pace more especially after a stop (as we are a solid defensive team at the moment) we should try convert those to fast breaks more often but i can live with this kind of style.

Offense looks ugly sometimes and of course there are stuff that i also don't like but i won't say we are winning just because our shooters are on fire at the moment. One of the biggest problems for the last year was team not being able to create 3 pointers. We didn't shoot many three pointers and couldn't get a lot of open shots. Right now because of ball movement, more unselfish Book,gravity of Paul/Ayton pick and roll, additions and improvement of Bridges and Cam, we get so many open shots and nail them it is an absolute beauty to watch. We don't look like a team that chucks 3s all day without a game plan i actually see a lot of last year's Heat and some old school Spurs from this roster.

I'm sorry this was more of a general chatter for the team and not for the game but Raptors played one of their best game yesterday. Lowry, FVV and Siakam played great and we still managed the beat them. Great W. Next game will be a huge test for the fellas not because Detroit is a great team of course but let's see how they will play against an opponent worse then them. Games like these what separates great teams from good teams. It was another problem we had last year hopefully it won't be an issue this year.

ps: Can we stop the Ayton hatred please. His defense is f—king insane this year.

[sasquatchBob]

I think our offense will never look as good as it did with Rubio. He was the one who created the flow of the offense. With Rubio we were one of the fastest attacking teams in the league, now we're one of the slowest and I don't think much will change as the season progresses. I still like CP3 and we're probably better with him than Ricky, but at the same time game was more fun when Rubio was running the show.

We were 26W-39L before the bubble. There were a lot of tough moments last season and our team was mediocre...probably worse than mediocre. I know that Ayton was out for 25 games but even with him our team was not good, we needed an upgrade this season and we got it.

Then Bubble arrived and we played beautiful ball for 8 games, BUT the competition was soft. Obviously our game was more watchable, but some teams rested a lot of starters and we were just one of the few teams that played with heart every single game.

I value a lot the Bubble period because it gave us the opportunity to discover Cam Payne as a backup PG, Cam Johnson as a Oubre's replacement and Saric as a full-time backup C.

The Bubble put our name on the mind of a lot of basketball's people. Players and coaches respect a team that fights on every game and those 8 consecutive wins put us on the map.

It's not only the bubble tho. We started last season with 7-4 if I'm not mistaken and then Ayton f*cked it all up with the suspension. When he got back we slowly started getting back to where we were heading but at that point the season was already lost. If it wasn't for Ayton's suspension I'm pretty sure we would have made the play-offs.

At the end of the day I think we have a stronger team now but that was not the point I was trying to make.

[bwgood77]

I think our offense will never look as good as it did with Rubio. He was the one who created the flow of the offense. With Rubio we were one of the fastest attacking teams in the league, now we're one of the slowest and I don't think much will change as the season progresses. I still like CP3 and we're probably better with him than Ricky, but at the same time game was more fun when Rubio was running the show.

We were 26W-39L before the bubble. There were a lot of tough moments last season and our team was mediocre...probably worse than mediocre. I know that Ayton was out for 25 games but even with him our team was not good, we needed an upgrade this season and we got it.

Then Bubble arrived and we played beautiful ball for 8 games, BUT the competition was soft. Obviously our game was more watchable, but some teams rested a lot of starters and we were just one of the few teams that played with heart every single game.

I value a lot the Bubble period because it gave us the opportunity to discover Cam Payne as a backup PG, Cam Johnson as a Oubre's replacement and Saric as a full-time backup C.

The Bubble put our name on the mind of a lot of basketball's people. Players and coaches respect a team that fights on every game and those 8 consecutive wins put us on the map.

It's not only the bubble tho. We started last season with 7-4 if I'm not mistaken and then Ayton f*cked it all up with the suspension. When he got back we slowly started getting back to where we were heading but at that point the season was already lost. If it wasn't for Ayton's suspension I'm pretty sure we would have made the play-offs.

At the end of the day I think we have a stronger team now but that was not the point I was trying to make.

Yes, despite the suspension we played great starting Baynes at 7-4 but then he got injured against Boston and never really was the same. Even if Baynes stayed healthy the entire year the results would have been different.

But losing BOTH of them for those 15 games and having a hampered Baynes, and an Ayton that had to get back up to speed, hurt us for the rest of the season.

This is when Saric had to start, which he wasn't suited for, and then even he got injured for some time and Frank had to start.

[WeekapaugGroove]

We were 26W-39L before the bubble. There were a lot of tough moments last season and our team was mediocre...probably worse than mediocre. I know that Ayton was out for 25 games but even with him our team was not good, we needed an upgrade this season and we got it.

Then Bubble arrived and we played beautiful ball for 8 games, BUT the competition was soft. Obviously our game was more watchable, but some teams rested a lot of starters and we were just one of the few teams that played with heart every single game.

I value a lot the Bubble period because it gave us the opportunity to discover Cam Payne as a backup PG, Cam Johnson as a Oubre's replacement and Saric as a full-time backup C.

The Bubble put our name on the mind of a lot of basketball's people. Players and coaches respect a team that fights on every game and those 8 consecutive wins put us on the map.

It's not only the bubble tho. We started last season with 7-4 if I'm not mistaken and then Ayton f*cked it all up with the suspension. When he got back we slowly started getting back to where we were heading but at that point the season was already lost. If it wasn't for Ayton's suspension I'm pretty sure we would have made the play-offs.

At the end of the day I think we have a stronger team now but that was not the point I was trying to make.

Yes, despite the suspension we played great starting Baynes at 7-4 but then he got injured against Boston and never really was the same. Even if Baynes stayed healthy the entire year the results would have been different.

But losing BOTH of them for those 15 games and having a hampered Baynes, and an Ayton that had to get back up to speed, hurt us for the rest of the season.

This is when Saric had to start, which he wasn't suited for, and then even he got injured for some time and Frank had to start.

Rubio also got banged up around that time and wasn't quite the same when he came back. He then looked great again in the bubble after his body healed. Oh and the bench was bad for most of the season, where as this year the bench has been phenomenal.

This year's team feels much more sustainable. I do expect the bench to come back to earth some but I also expect the starting unit to improve as the get more comfortable together so hopefully that all balances out.

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