Game Day: Grizzlies (5-2) @ Suns (1-7), Sun 11/4/18

[Cap]

I wonder if not playing Anderson at all can work.

Holmes looked OK tonight. He may be an adequate backup C.

[carey]

i wonder if playing ryan anderson at backup smallball center can work?

Fuck no. Are you even watching? Dude can barely move out there.

[Flagrant Fowl]

Josh Jackson with a -15 in 13 minutes. Nobody else worse than -4 (Okobo).

I traded JJ and Crawford to Portland for Zach Collins and Seth Curry. If only we could be so lucky in real life.

[Cap]

Josh Jackson with a -15 in 13 minutes. Nobody else worse than -4 (Okobo).

I traded JJ and Crawford to Portland for Zach Collins and Seth Curry. If only we could be so lucky in real life.

Collins is having a really nice start to the season.

Code: Select all

                                                                                                                                  
Season    Age  Tm  Lg Pos  G GS   MP  FG FGA  FG%  3P 3PA  3P%  2P 2PA  2P% eFG%  FT FTA  FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV  PF  PTS
2017-18    20 POR NBA   C 66  1 15.8 1.7 4.4 .398 0.5 1.7 .310 1.2 2.7 .455 .458 0.4 0.6 .643 0.7 2.7 3.3 0.8 0.3 0.5 0.9 2.0  4.4
2018-19    21 POR NBA   C  9  0 20.9 4.0 6.8 .590 0.9 2.1 .421 3.1 4.7 .667 .656 1.9 2.4 .773 1.0 2.9 3.9 1.3 0.4 1.8 1.3 3.6 10.8
Career                NBA 75  1 16.4 2.0 4.7 .431 0.6 1.8 .326 1.4 2.9 .495 .493 0.6 0.9 .688 0.7 2.7 3.4 0.9 0.3 0.6 0.9 2.2  5.2

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/4/2018.

[Superbone]

Those are some true fans at the arena tonight

Yeah, got to give it up for them. As sparse as it looked, they made a lot of noise. I watched the fourth quarter a second time. This time from the Grizzlies broadcast.

[JeremyG]

I noticed Ayton was in great box out position for a game-winning putback at the buzzer if Booker missed. That was nice to see.

[Nodack]

I enjoyed watching that game. Even though they still turned it over too much I saw improvement. Booker and Ayton starting to develope some chemistry. Bridges got some open shots because the Ayton Booker combo draws so much attention.

Baby steps...

[Xylus]

Currently averaging 18.8 turnovers per game. Surprisingly, we don't rank last in that category (Hawks - 18.9).

[Indy]

Great to see a win! It has been nearly 3 weeks!

1) Bridges is so fun to watch, on both ends of the floor.
2) Nobody on our team played more minutes in the 1st quarter than Ryan Anderson--why?
3) WTF are we doing with Ayton? Get him the damn ball and make sure it isn't 23 feet from the hoop
4) Ariza is not a bad player when he can hit shots...
5) JJ was a net -32 +/-? Holy shit.
6) 76% of our made baskets were assisted. That is great.
7) How do you win a game with 24 TOs? I guess you hope the two stars on the other team go 5/29.
8) We should never have a game where 7 guys have a higher usage rate than Ayton (especially Holmes or JJ)

I know this really screws our bench unit, but we should be running a starting lineup of:

Canaan
Booker
Bridges
TJ
Ayton

Bench has JJ, Ariza, Crawford (depending on who brings it) as your 2/3 guys , Okobo at the 1, and Holmes at 5.

[azsportsfan]

I sorta disagree on Holmes. He may not be graceful, but when he plays with energy like he did he is so helpful to the team. He shouldn't play more than Ayton, necessarily, but his minutes last night were fine.

[O_Gardino]

So what do we think of Point Book? Is that our plan for the position going forward?

No. We just don't have anybody better yet. My hope is that Okobo can take more of that role as the season goes on, and that Canaan playing off the ball will eventually get a defender to at least look at him.

[In2ition]

It's going to take time for Okobo. You can see the talent and the improvement he's making, but it's going to take a year or two. He really does remind me of a young Dragic. Credit to whoever said that first.

Canaan hit his open shots for the most part. If he can stay focused and pick it up on defense, I'll be ok with him. I don't like that he can't get it to Ayton, and he's not the greatest penetrator or playmaker, but he's been serviceable from time to time.

[O_Gardino]

I only got to see a little bit of the game last night, but in the time I saw, Ayton looked really locked in on defense, and lost on offense. Kinda looked like he didn't want to mess up the rhythm the other guys had.

Canaan plays much better off the ball, and I hope he can start to draw some attention from defenses.

Booker needs about 10 healthy games in a row to really get his feel for the team. He'll be dangerous when that happens.

From the box score,

I'm thrilled to see that we closed the game with Bridges. I hope we have a decade of watching him close games for us in the playoffs.

Ayton / Booker combined for 8 turnovers in the first half and 1 in the second.

Those guys just have to keep working and it will come together for them.

Somebody please call Jay Triano and ask him how to get through to Jackson.

Anderson and Ariza continue to be the best 2 rebounders on the team outside the center position.

Not to hate, but this is why I would trade Warren (for a good player or pick). We can win without him.

[carey]

I don't know that Ayton was lost on offense. I rewatched the 4th Q and I couldn't find one good pass to him. Every pass was off, most by a lot. We desperately need someone that can get him the ball reliably.

[O_Gardino]

I don't know that Ayton was lost on offense. I rewatched the 4th Q and I couldn't find one good pass to him. Every pass was off, most by a lot. We desperately need someone that can get him the ball reliably.

I don't mean lost like he is a lost cause, just that he didn't know how to get himself in scoring position. Possibly because he knows nobody on the team can pass him the ball.

In the 6ish minutes I saw, he only went into the paint once. Jackson immediately threw the ball straight to Ayton's defender. Ayton only caught the ball once in a position to score. He was wide open for an 18 ft jump shot tried to pass it first, then was surprised to realize he was open to shoot.

[In2ition]

I still think that Ayton needs to develop a drive to the basket move. I would like to see him get opposing centers in foul trouble, but he kind of just lets them be and bails them out with a mid range jump shot, pass or dho.

[n4th4n]

I still think that Ayton needs to develop a drive to the basket move. I would like to see him get opposing centers in foul trouble, but he kind of just lets them be and bails them out with a mid range jump shot, pass or dho.

Agreed. The way we are using him in the offense right now is not really enabling him either. He is running so many DHOs and he spends most of the game facing away from the basket, not at all primed to make an offensive move. I am okay with it for now, but I would like to see us run more sets that are designed to set HIM up to score once we get going a bit.

[In2ition]

I still think that Ayton needs to develop a drive to the basket move. I would like to see him get opposing centers in foul trouble, but he kind of just lets them be and bails them out with a mid range jump shot, pass or dho.

Agreed. The way we are using him in the offense right now is not really enabling him either. He is running so many DHOs and he spends most of the game facing away from the basket, not at all primed to make an offensive move. I am okay with it for now, but I would like to see us run more sets that are designed to set HIM up to score once we get going a bit.

I can understand if they are bringing him along slowly. It just seems there are times where it would be really nice to see him do it. They are using him like the Slovenian team used their center(Gasper), but the Suns don't have the initiators to get him the ball like they did in Dragic and Doncic.

He did have one drive he tried on JJJ, but went up underhanded and weak, and Jackson Jr. packed it.

[Superbone]

He's definitely a finesse guy rather than a power guy. There was one time he had the ball right under the basket and he could have powered through and dunked the ball but he passed back out. EJ mentioned it too.

[ShelC]

Glad we got the win, definitely a grind fest and an ugly game. A few things I noticed:

Point Booker is definitely a thing. He would either bring the ball up himself off a score or Okobo/Canaan would look for him and get him the ball right away to initiate the offense. Sometimes he looked OK, sometimes he looked like he was doing too much and it was taking him away from his own strengths. He's not great in PnR and still has trouble throwing the lob to Ayton. When he's focused on his own scoring and going at his man, he's damn near unstoppable.

I feel like we're sloppy with the little things - box outs, closeouts, our passes are soft/lazy, guys leaving their feet to pass. All correctable, but so far 10 games in (or whatever) we're making the same mistakes.

4 shots for Ayton is totally unacceptable. That falls on the coach. I don't care about Gasol or the gameplan. Right now, we drafted a generational big just to have him setting screens 25 ft from the basket. 4 shots. We're running offense for our perimeter players who just happen to be Canaan, Ariza, Anderson, Okobo, Jackson. We're not the Warriors or the Celtics. No reason to be running essentially a 4-round offense with those guys on the perimeter. Run that with Holmes in the game. Otherwise, Ayton needs to be fed in the post every time down, play inside-out and let him pass out to shooters who are best in catch and shoot situations rather than forcing them to create. 4 shots.

Some of our guys are doing too much offensively. Ariza was signed to shoot 3s, not put the ball on the floor. Same with Anderson. Maybe the offense is calling for penetration and kickouts? Never saw Ariza pass up 3s to dribble-drive like that. Even Josh Jackson- he's clearly not a shooter and is better dribbling into the lane, but he's passing up open shots for tougher ones.

I love Holmes and his energy. He's a Lou Amundson type who can really change the momentum with his energy, hustle, rebounding inside. 12-15 minutes are fine for him.

The more I watch the games, the more I'm questioning Igor. It feels like we're running fancy sets just to run them. We pass the ball 7 times just to have Canaan or Anderson take a bad 3pt shot or put the ball on the floor. We're still getting beat in transition, teams seem to know our sets already and are overplaying or are right on our guys when they get the ball.

We're still giving too much time to Anderson and Ariza. I get they're veterans and we need to give them time just so we don't kill their value, but Bridges is proving more effective than Ariza and Anderson is legitimately unplayable. I also don't think Igor is playing to guys' strengths unfortunately and is more about his sets and system working than doing things that put our guys in positions to be effective and successful.

Okobo brings a different speed than Canaan and I love the potential there. He's got NBA quickness and was trying hard on defense. His decision making has a long way to go tho and he's still playing off the ball next to Booker.