Game 59: Phoenix Suns (42-16) @ Boston Celtics (31-27) l Thursday l 4:00pm l BSAZ

[lonea]

man... monty needs to put in Moore as CP's backup when Payne is struggling.

seems like Payne lost his bubble magic

[spanishninja]

I suppose things could been worse. We could have played like this yesterday too and be at 1-2 on the trip so far. Gotta figure things out next couple of days though. Brooklyn would run tonight's team out of the gym

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[bwgood77]

Terrible showing by the Suns outside of CP3. No one seemed like they wanted to be there. Should have played Frank cause Dario continues to suck. Played Galloway for like 3 entire minutes despite 3 point shooting being a definite problem, he didn't even get one up. Book with the throwaway performance of the night. Ayton with 10 points and 9 rebounds in a game he should have probably dominated considering no one on the Celtics should be able to stop him. All around, I feel stupid for wasting my time watching the game today. Onto the next one. A day game in Brooklyn. Probably gonna get the spanking in that one too, Suns never seem to play those east coast daytime games well.

Problem is if you are not hitting 3s they cheat more and they always had a couple guys on Ayton so no one could really get him the ball, or if he did get it, he often had two guys all over him and had to pass out to an open guy which isn't a bad play if our 3 pt shooters can hit it at a normal rate.

Excuses. Embiid wouldn't let that stop him.

Maybe not, but he is an MVP caliber player at this point. Everyone always talks about how he should dominate when he doesn't go up against a big name, but the point is, he typically at this point does well against a lot of the big names if they play him 1 on 1, but if he is doubled, he is rarely going to get a good shot unless he has room in the paint to do a hook shot or a fadeaway but he typically doesn't. He will go 1 on 1 with anyone. I mean the same goes for most Cs if they are doubled inside. They get open with teams spreading the floor if teams are hitting their shots....at least as open as they can with just 1 guy on them if everyone sticks to their guy defensively.

Seems like Ayton has a lot more gravity than many realize which is why we get so many open shots from 3.

He also didn't turn it over tonight while our starting guards turned it over 9x.

[irish22022]

We watched the thunder of last season tonight. No bench, no second player next to CP. We clawed back a bit but could never string together any stops.

Devin booker looks absolutely terrible lately. I know he's good. But superstars don't ever look like the weakest link of the starters.

Don't get me started on saric. Give his minutes to literally anyone else. Thank God we signed torrey. When crowder is back saric loses his minutes fully, I hope.

[Frank Lee]

We simply can't use Saric right now. It's too bad Crowder got hurt last night.

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More like too bad Jones sat on his hands and did nada nothing zilch

[sunskerr]

I didn't watch the game but even before the game I thought it would have been a nice rest game for everyone. CP3 playing 38 minutes and Mikal 44 on the 2nd night of a back to back is insanity. The best rest is preventative- in other words it's better to get rest and pace yourself before you actually get injured and/or worn down with general soreness.

The 1 seed is important...but being healthy, and staying healthy is way more important, particularly now that a lot of guys on other teams are coming down with little injuries and some teams have even had major ones (Lakers with LeBron and AD, Nuggets with Murray).

Those little things add up throughout the season. It's harder to play in the playoffs on even a sore knee or ankle when the pace ramps up. If you remember back in 2016 when Curry returned in the playoffs, he lacked a lot of his quickness to exploit bigs which cost them eventually.

We want to be the team rolling out a 100% CP3, Booker, and Ayton whilst other teams are rolling out their stars at 80-90%. We don't want CP3 or Booker to be "playing through a sore ankle".

[bwgood77]

We scored 13 more points than we did in the first half against OKC.

[King4Day]

I missed this one. Can someone give a quick recap of what happened?
Tired legs?

[suns12345]

I missed this one. Can someone give a quick recap of what happened?
Tired legs?

We just kinda sucked. Kept ourselves in it the whole way. Would have been better to just get blown out and rest our guys.

Played good D but couldn't get buckets when we needed them and they did.

Kemba killed us with his scoring and on D too. got a few steals and took three charges on D Book i think which got him in foul trouble.

[lilfishi22]

I didn't watch the game but even before the game I thought it would have been a nice rest game for everyone. CP3 playing 38 minutes and Mikal 44 on the 2nd night of a back to back is insanity. The best rest is preventative- in other words it's better to get rest and pace yourself before you actually get injured and/or worn down with general soreness.

The 1 seed is important...but being healthy, and staying healthy is way more important, particularly now that a lot of guys on other teams are coming down with little injuries and some teams have even had major ones (Lakers with LeBron and AD, Nuggets with Murray).

Those little things add up throughout the season. It's harder to play in the playoffs on even a sore knee or ankle when the pace ramps up. If you remember back in 2016 when Curry returned in the playoffs, he lacked a lot of his quickness to exploit bigs which cost them eventually.

We want to be the team rolling out a 100% CP3, Booker, and Ayton whilst other teams are rolling out their stars at 80-90%. We don't want CP3 or Booker to be "playing through a sore ankle".

I agree 100%

I really don't understand Monty's aversion to playing other guys on the roster. If he doesn't want to "load manage" anyone by giving them a day off then play them fewer minutes and play other guys more. I won't read too much into the loss but it's honestly baffling to me that we have CP3 playing 38min tonight after logging 34 the night before. Bridges is on a 3 game run of 37+mpg.

[Saberestar]

I missed this one. Can someone give a quick recap of what happened?
Tired legs?

Three tough games in four nights on the road.

CP3 played great, but the rest of team (except Craig) looked tired. They could not stop Kemba and we were always in the back seat on the scoreboard.

Not a big deal. The effort was there, but tired legs affects to 3p shooting, and we shot a terrible percentage.

I think we will play much better against the Nets in a couple days.

[Revived]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

This was a schedule loss so not really worried about it at all. That being said, Ayton needs to pick it back up. Slow game yesterday(5 rebounds in almost 30 mins of playing) was understandable because it’s against Embiid. But Boston is a team with zero even half decent bugs, Ayton should’ve feasted inside.

On a night when the 3s aren’t falling, he shouldn’t be kicking it out instead of just attacking the rim himself imo.

Booker is on a rough patch right now after averaging like 27 ppl on absurd efficiency for a stretch. Hope he picks it back up as well.

I hope the Crowder injury isn’t the start of getting the injury bug (like every other team’s already had this season). Would be awful timing if it is.

Monty’s time management is something else. Bridges plays 44 mins on the 2nd night of a back to back...I get it that Crowder is out but still guys like Galloway on the team who can hit 3s. And 36 yr old CP3 playing 38 mins on the 2nd night of a back to back. Very unnecessary imo.

[Bogyo]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

This was a schedule loss so not really worried about it at all. That being said, Ayton needs to pick it back up. Slow game yesterday(5 rebounds in almost 30 mins of playing) was understandable because it’s against Embiid. But Boston is a team with zero even half decent bugs, Ayton should’ve feasted inside.

On a night when the 3s aren’t falling, he shouldn’t be kicking it out instead of just attacking the rim himself imo.

Booker is on a rough patch right now after averaging like 27 ppl on absurd efficiency for a stretch. Hope he picks it back up as well.

I hope the Crowder injury isn’t the start of getting the injury bug (like every other team’s already had this season). Would be awful timing if it is.

This, 100%. Don't really care about this loss, like at all.

However, since I do follow the team for 30years now, a couple comments on how to make these losses better - if there is such thing.
Play the bench more. Pretty much everyone and my grandmother knew we were going to lose this. 4 road games in 5 nights against the elite of the conference will get you tired. So why not play guys more who are not tired? Maybe shooting wouldn't have been so absymal if Galloway and Moore played tonite? Generally, do not play your starters 35+ minutes on the second night of a b2b, in a pretty meaningless game altogether. Get DA more shots - or tell him to not pass it up when he got it in the paint. So yeah, coaching.

Other than this, the usual shenanigans. FT disparity, not engaged on the rebounds, Books head up his butt (or Kendalls - can't blame him if this is the case ) but nothing surprising really.

Bring on Brooklyn sunday, I'm eager to see that. I wasn't even watching this to be honest, kinda knew this would be the case here.

[sunsbg]

Yeah, kinda strange to play someone as a starter for a stretch of games and then not give him any minutes, especially when the player he should replace sucks right now. Monty finally lost respect for Galloway and played him full 3 mins, still too much respect for Moore.

Feeding Ayton in the post should be a game strategy vs 90% of the teams, not a matter of in-game play calls.

[bwgood77]

Feeding Ayton in the post should be a game strategy vs 90% of the teams, not a matter of in-game play calls.

Yeah, they really doubled him and Tatum/Thompson were pushing him in the paint together, so it was tough to get him good looks, but they should have run more pick and roll to get him those looks.

Even with that, him and Paul are the only guys who played fairly well...Paul did have some bad turnovers. Ayton had great defense, decent rebounding despite being boxed out by Thompson or Tatum while the other grabbed a board, and shot fairly efficiently despite the double teams...and made good passes to 3 pt shooters who couldn't knock them down.

A few other guys played solid D like Payne, Craig, Bridges, etc, but the whole rest of the team played poorly on offense.

[Jdiddy701]

Yeah, kinda strange to play someone as a starter for a stretch of games and then not give him any minutes, especially when the player he should replace sucks right now. Monty finally lost respect for Galloway and played him full 3 mins, still too much respect for Moore.

Feeding Ayton in the post should be a game strategy vs 90% of the teams, not a matter of in-game play calls.

Honestly, I don’t think Ayton is fully ready to have consistent touches. He can do it against certain teams that lack size and physicality but against Thompson, don’t think it would have worked out well. Ayton doesn’t seem that he wants to be THAT guy yet either, effort was low yesterday and against Phila (I’ll give him a pass going against Embiid).


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[Frank Lee]

He is content to defer, even when he has a clear mismatch.

I’d make him do a thousand dunks per practice. It just isn’t in his thought process.

[Fo-Real]

If Crowder is injured and out, Frank should start. Cam or Saric starting throws our rotation and flow COMPLETELY OFF!!!