SUNS NEWS: 2021 FINALS EDITION SUNS vs BUCKS

[Flagrant Fowl]

Tim Legler is probably the best NBA analyst on ESPN. I like that he's confident in picking the Suns.

[AmareIsGod]

Who is this woman? I like her.

Me too...

[pickle]

I posted this in the Game 1 Game Day thread, but it may be more of a series-wide topic, so I'll cross-post it here.

Am I crazy for being completely confident that we are going to beat the Bucks in this series? I just look at their team and feel strongly that we are better.

PG - Jrue vs CP3 - Point God is better, no contest.
SG - Connaughton vs Booker - LMAO c'mon.
SF - Middleton vs Bridges - Middleton is the much better offensive player, but Bridges is an all-NBA worthy defender and will slow him down.
PF - Tucker vs Crowder - Our rugged veteran 3&D PF is younger and shooting much better than theirs.
C - Lopez vs Ayton - Ayton will shut down any Lopez inside game and can also somewhat bother his outside shooting as needed.

Now, sure, if you put Giannis in the lineup Milwaukee gets much better. But you just put Ayton on Giannis and that will limit him about as well as you can hope for. There's our "Giannis stopper," or as close as you can get to having one. He's shot quite poorly vs Ayton in recent regular season matchups.

Bench - Payne/Johnson/Saric/Craig vs Portis/Teague/Forbes/T.Antetokounmpo - I think we win the bench battle easily. Bucks have pretty poor depth outside of their top 5-6 guys. We go 8-9 deep with guys you can actually play in a playoff game.

I really feel like this is a 4 or 5 game series. Am I looking at it wrong? Am I overconfident?

I think the point guard match up is not as easy as CP3 being better. He is better than Jrue, no question, but Jrue is one of my favorite defenders in the league, at 6'4 ~200 lbs, he's the right kind of physical, and a very disruptive defender. He will make CP3's life difficult, and in this series we'll likely need Payne to step up to take away some of the pressure on Paul.

Middleton will be a tough cookie to handle too. He can go hot and cold, and when he's cold I think we'll have an easy time, but he had two 20 point quarters in the last two games against Atlanta and he is one of the better tough shot makers when he's on, and as others have pointed out, Mikal hasn't been able to affect his shot that much.

I think we are right to be confident in this match up. Even with Giannis at full strength we should be slight favorites, and with Giannis hobbled, our chances should be even better.

Besides Jrue hounding the point of attack and Middleton going nuts, the other thing I worry about is rebounding. When they have Portis in the starting lineup, it'll be difficult for us to keep him and Lopez both off the offensive boards, so we'll need to do a much better job with gang rebounding.

[BigLewy]

I know it's extremely unlikely, but I would LOVE a Suns sweep. I leave for a trip to Antigua the day of game 5 and would rather not have to watch the games while on vacation on my resort. I'd love nothing more than a Suns in 4, so that I can cry tears of joy and get pants sh*ting drunk in my basement to celebrate and have a few days to recover before I go on vacation....and then continue celebrating.

It still doesn't even feel real that they are in the Finals.

[Superbone]

That’s great. I’m not familiar with Ashley from ESPN but I suddenly like here a lot!

[pickle]

I went back to re-watch the two Suns Bucks match ups yesterday to get my basketball fix ... and I watched every Bucks game since about game 5 of their Nets series. Some impressions...

1. The first game this season was without Holiday, and the rosters were quite different as Craig was still defending Booker for Milwaukee, so there's not that many take aways. Maybe the fact that Giannis shot over 80% ft on 20+ attempts was worth noting.

2. The second game, both teams had their bull complement of players. Rotations were obviously quite different. My main takeaway was that Giannis is quite hard to contain when he comes downhill, but as crunch time approached, either we tightened our interior defense, or Giannis tensed up, or a combination of both, but he definitely had a much harder time getting into the paint. Giannis also shot quite well from the line and had several competent top of the key jumpers. Given everything that's happened over the last few post-season games, I really don't see that aspect of his game becoming a factor.

3. Booker made some tough shots in those games, and I hope that he's back to that form after a few more days off, with this mask and broken nose clearly hampering his shot.

4. Booker defended Holiday in the second game, which seems reasonable. Holiday is a strong player, but he doesn't quite have that balance of setting up his teammates vs. getting his own offense. If we can somehow get him to focus more on his own scoring while limiting his three point percentage, we should be in decent shape.

5. Ayton might be one of the best in the league at containing Giannis one on one. If all our defenders can stay home on shooters, and Ayton isn't in early foul trouble, we have a leg up on the Bucks. Since the games I watched, I want to say that Ayton has improved significantly, and hopefully he has developed a reputation as a big who can play defense without fouling. That will go a long way towards our ability to close out this series earlier rather than later.

Impossible to make any predictions without knowing Giannis' status, but I'll be happy with Suns in six.

[Mori Chu]

FiveThirtyEight seems to like the Suns in their predictions:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ca ... al-season/

[JeremyG]

So, they have Tucker who used to be a Sun and we have Craig who used to be a Buck. This will be interesting to see how it develops. The Suns let Tucker go when we were bad and did him a favor. I think Craig has a much bigger revenge factor due to the Bucks letting him go for cash considerations in order to pick up Tucker.

Last time we played a former team of Craig, it went very well.

Let's hope for a repeat! Can you imagine a dominant 4 game Finals sweep for our Suns?! I can. (But not counting on it. I could also see a grueling 7 game series depending on Giannis' health. I mean we won 2 games by 1 point each this season against them. Seems pretty evenly matched.)

Giannis shot 84% from the free throw line in those games, though. So that gave them some extra points. I wouldn't count on that happening again.

Speaking of counting on things, you KNOW our crowd will be doing the ol' Atlanta Quick Count while Giannis is shooting FTs.

You’re right, but I don’t know if I like it. It seemed to help him get in a rhythm in Brooklyn.

[JeremyG]

[Superbone]

What do the Bucks and Suns have in common? They both dumped Eric Bledsoe and now they’re in the Finals.

[Flagrant Fowl]

[rhylek]

No

[ShelC]

Paywall on this one unfortunately

[Mori Chu]

I don't think the Bucks will be able to stop both CP3 and Book. Jrue is an awesome defender, but if you put him on Paul, Booker will roast you. Pick your poison.

[Mori Chu]

Here's what the Ringer analysts predict from the series:

Who wins and in how many games?
Uggetti: Suns in seven and Jake from State Farm gets a shout-out during Chris Paul’s MVP speech.

Sohi: Suns in four. Psych! Suns in six; seven if Giannis can be 90 percent. Mike Budenholzer has become a more malleable coach, but the Bucks still prefer to protect the paint over 3-pointers, mostly because that plan has largely worked. But the Suns are practically designed in a lab to beat this strategy, with multiple ball handlers who can beat drop coverages, punish switches, and stop short of the rim. Paul and Booker can smell it, and there’s a formula to victory that they can repeat over and over again.

Murdock: Suns in six.

Devine: Suns in six.

Dollinger: Bucks in seven. But if anyone bigger than me in a Phoenix jersey asks, Suns in four.

Kram: At full strength, these two teams are frighteningly even: Both regular-season meetings were decided by a single point. But the Bucks are not at full strength, and that unfortunate reflection of the 2020-21 postseason makes this pick easy. If Giannis plays, Suns in seven. If he doesn’t, Suns in five.

[specialsauce]

“PJ TUCKER HAS BEATEN.”

Lol. Give me a break.

A team that PJ Tucker is on has beaten his former teammates.

[Cap]

It’s been 11 years since we’ve won in the playoffs against a team with no Morris. Oh no!

[JeremyG]

Did those Ringer analysts even watch the Suns before this postseason? What's garbage like this doing in there?

Murdock: Deandre Ayton. Entering the postseason, the 7-footer’s maligned defense raised questions about whether the Suns could even get past the first round. Since then, he’s contained Anthony Davis, pestered Nikola Jokic, and dominated the Clippers’ hobbled front line. He’s proved legit, but he’ll face perhaps his biggest test in Giannis.

Uggetti: Deandre Ayton. I tried to think hard (but not too hard) about a more clever answer, but the reality is that whether Ayton continues to break out or wilts under the pressure of guarding Giannis and/or Brook Lopez will go a long way toward determining this series. Ayton has been awesome, and three months ago we wouldn’t have demanded this much from him, but it speaks to his growth that he’s now pivotal to the Suns’ chances.

He's shut down Giannis ever since he was a rookie.

[Superbone]

Did NOT like reading this in the Ringer article:

Who is the biggest X factor in the Finals?

Dollinger: Scott Foster. Jrue Holiday is a hell of a defender, but something tells me Chris Paul is a lot more worried about his longtime archnemesis, Scott Foster, in this series. As CP3 noted earlier this postseason, he’s lost 11 straight playoff games that Foster has officiated. And that really doesn’t even do the rivalry—and maybe the bitterness toward one another—justice. The referee assignments haven’t been announced yet, but Foster’s career is arguably as decorated as Paul’s. This will be Foster’s 14th Finals compared to Paul’s first. I absolutely expect him to get the call. And I absolutely expect Chris Paul to get no calls.

[Superbone]

What a horrible reason for picking the Bucks in this series:

https://www.nba.com/news/nba-finals-pre ... -paul-suns

The pick:

Purely from an accomplishment standpoint, the Bucks have the most to lose here. They had the best record in the league the previous two years, then fizzled in the playoffs. Coach Mike Budenholzer has been “fired” multiple times by social media, and he now goes against Monty Williams, a good tactician and motivator. Also, Giannis has those pair of MVP awards and no rings. This should be enough motivation by the Bucks to finally deliver, for the first time since 1971. Again, we are assuming Giannis will be 100 percent. Milwaukee is the better defensive team, brings the best player and the individual matchups are mainly in the Bucks’ favor. Bucks in six.