Game Day: Suns (18-40) @ Jazz (29-28), Wed 2/14/18

[O_Gardino]

O'Neale is a pretty good player and he has been playing well for a while now - I live in this market and "get" to hear about him and Mitchell and illegal-screen-Gobert all the time. Last night was not an aberration from him.

He's an undrafted rookie averaging 5 points per game. In Feb he is averaging 10. And last night was his career high.

I get that he may be better than those stats show, but our back court has been giving up big games to opposing back courts all season. We make it easy on opponents.

[Wormwood]

Jackson is officially over the Golden State game.

Just like after the 0/13 game, showing again the ability to quickly bounce back

Jackson hasn't had b2b bad games since mid December. And his bad shooting games are now usually tempered by good rebounding or passing.

Code: Select all

4 games     3 games     6 games     2 games     5 games     2 games     6 games     2 games     27 games (current streak)
12.5 pts    7.3 pts     9.8 pts     4.0 pts     9.8 pts     2.5 pts     11.0 pts    4.5 pts     13.7 pts
44.7%       27.3%       47.1%       16.7%       46.3%       15.4%       44.2%       14.3%       43.1%

According to the TPA metric, Jackson and Ulis are the two worst players in the NBA.

https://nbamath.com/2017-18-nba-tpa/

[Cap]

Jackson is officially over the Golden State game.

Just like after the 0/13 game, showing again the ability to quickly bounce back

Jackson hasn't had b2b bad games since mid December. And his bad shooting games are now usually tempered by good rebounding or passing.

Code: Select all

4 games     3 games     6 games     2 games     5 games     2 games     6 games     2 games     27 games (current streak)
12.5 pts    7.3 pts     9.8 pts     4.0 pts     9.8 pts     2.5 pts     11.0 pts    4.5 pts     13.7 pts
44.7%       27.3%       47.1%       16.7%       46.3%       15.4%       44.2%       14.3%       43.1%

According to the TPA metric, Jackson and Ulis are the two worst players in the NBA.

https://nbamath.com/2017-18-nba-tpa/

Dragan Bender chimes in at #11, and future Sun Avery Bradley is at #6.

At least Jackson, Ulis and Bender have youth a similar an excuse. Bradley is (by TPA) the worst prime-age player in the league.

[The Bobster]

Well, Jackson was plenty bad until recently. Bender too.

Ulis still is.

[Superbone]

My boy TJ playing like crap tonight.

We might have won the game if we could have gotten anything out of TJ last night.

[Superbone]

Payton's been playing like garbage too tbh.

Yeah, triple doubles suck!

[Superbone]

Man they are letting the Jazz push and grab under the basket on every possession. Now they are calling us for barely touching them down there.

Glad it wasn't just me. I started wondering if the refs were in on our tank.

[Superbone]

Booker n this kid O'neale is having quite the duel

So nice to have Booker back.

[Mori Chu]

Now this is close to the perfect game for this season. Close game, several Suns players have strong showings, but we lose and get them ping-pong balls.

Triple double for Payton! J.Jackson had a great line, too. His game the other night against GSW was rough, but that seems to have been a one-game blip, and it's forgivable against the defending champs.

Random other thoughts: I liked seeing Len get so many minutes. I don't care if he's probably leaving; he's our best center, and he should start and play more. I wish Bender had shown more (6pts, 4reb); his is the first line I look to in the box score every game. Warren also put up a pretty meh game.

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400975609

[Superbone]

When they pan through the crowd it's like where's Waldo trying to find any non white people

What blew me away was during one of the timeouts with the Kiss Cam stuff they played Bob Marley

I mean... they are named the Jazz. A team name taken from a majority african american city. They should have renamed decades ago.

The Smooth Jazz. The Elevator Musics. The Muzaks.

[Superbone]

At least the Jazz fans are really classy. I loved how they booed Booker when Jinglin' Joe raked him across the eyes. I wanted to reach out and punch someone.

[Split T]

Jazz fans are interesting. I live in Utah so I experience them first hand. They are very defensive and think the NBA is out to see them fail. One of their favorite things is to hate on Booker and claim Mitchell is already better than him. It's almost impossible to even give their team a compliment. And don't try to tell them that John Stockton was anything other than the 2nd best PG of all time.

I was actually at the jazz-spurs game on Monday. Two interesting things: the fans boo every call, often even when they don't realize the call was in their favor. This was actually quite funny and happened 2 or 3 times. And they were giving Mitchell the MVP chant during the 4th quarter. Jazz fans think he's Michael Jordan. I love the kid but being around jazz fans makes it hard to root for him. But I guess maybe we're like that a bit with Booker as well.

[iLLmatic]

Payton's been playing like garbage too tbh.

Yeah, triple doubles suck!

I'm a fan of your post game comments.

[The Bobster]

Jazz fans are interesting. I live in Utah so I experience them first hand. They are very defensive and think the NBA is out to see them fail. One of their favorite things is to hate on Booker and claim Mitchell is already better than him. It's almost impossible to even give their team a compliment. And don't try to tell them that John Stockton was anything other than the 2nd best PG of all time.

I was actually at the jazz-spurs game on Monday. Two interesting things: the fans boo every call, often even when they don't realize the call was in their favor. This was actually quite funny and happened 2 or 3 times. And they were giving Mitchell the MVP chant during the 4th quarter. Jazz fans think he's Michael Jordan. I love the kid but being around jazz fans makes it hard to root for him. But I guess maybe we're like that a bit with Booker as well.

They might be the least knowledgeable fans in the league in that they were raised on Hot Rod Hundley and the Jazz were the only team in town and working under the disadvantage of being a white community where black players wouldn't want to play long-term. So naturally they cultivated an "us-against-them" attitude and it's worked well for the team as they have very loyal and passionate fans.

And to be fair, Booker and Mitchell aren't really that far apart when you look at their per 36 minute stats.

[Split T]

Ya they're close. Mitchell is 22/4/4, Booker is 26/5/5. Booker has better shooting splits but he also has more NBA experience. He's also younger than Mitchell, by a couple months, and has to shoulder more workload.

So it's possible Mitchell ends up a better player, but hard to make an argument that he's already better.

[Superbone]

Payton's been playing like garbage too tbh.

Yeah, triple doubles suck!

I'm a fan of your post game comments.

Heh. I'm glad you're a good sport. I tend to cherry pick for fun. He didn't have the best start in this one but I'm really liking his demeanor and consistency so far.

[iLLmatic]

Payton's been playing like garbage too tbh.

Yeah, triple doubles suck!

I'm a fan of your post game comments.

Heh. I'm glad you're a good sport. I tend to cherry pick for fun. He didn't have the best start in this one but I'm really liking his demeanor and consistency so far.

Me too. He's the best distributor we've had since Nash.

[djy2j]

Way better effort from most tonight. I like what Josh Jackson is becoming. Which is a bad MF. His play is making Warren more expendable. Haven't really seen them coexist much yet.

I'd still look to aggressively package Chriss and Bender on draft night. Not saying we HAVE to do it but I'm just not seeing the value here with those 2.

I'd give Len 8 mil this summer. That'd be my highest I'd go. I could see the Bulls paying more if they whiff on whoever they're targeting. Their loss though. He's not worth any more.

Love seeing Booker's trash talk to Mitch after he hit a few threes in the second half. Love it!

[Mori Chu]

8 mil is not even the mid-level. That's an insulting offer.

[carey]

8 mil is not even the mid-level. That's an insulting offer.

That's about the max I would pay Payton and certainly the max I would give Alex Len.