Game Day (In-Season Tournament): Lakers (3-5) @ Suns (4-4), Fri 11/10/23

[Democritus]

Man this is so hard to watch sometimes, to have unfulfilled expectations hurts so much more

[Split T]

Spurs, Bulls and now the Lakers twice. This 4th quarter shit is officially a trend.

It’s really not that hard to not throw dumb lazy passes.

The turnovers are our biggest issue. Booker will help but everyone needs to be better.

Hate to be a broken record but...

We need a point guard.

We do need Booker, I agree

[Split T]

I’m part of it too, but a lot of overreacting going on…this isn’t the end of the season. It’s one game where the worst 3pt shooting team in the league hit 7 in a row. I’m upset we didn’t put them away when we had the chance, but this was a bit flukey. Reddish was 2-16 coming in..he’s a 31% career 3pt shooter. This is like Okogie going 5-8 from 3. Anyways, gonna sleep it off. Goodnight all

[MightyMoog]

7 straight 3s made from the Lakers is ridiculous…they are the worst 3 point shooting team in the league. Reddish hit 3 of them

They were wide open though. Suns just seemed lackadaisical throughout. They got what they deserved. They’re not very good.

We're the anit-heat. We have no dog in our fight. Too happy to just go through the motions.

But why is it that it seems like we're always that way? No matter who our owner, GM, coach, or players are?

I disagree, when we had Mikal, the Cams and Booker, we had that fight. We might've not had enough talent, but we had fight.

[Flagrant Fowl]

Nah, the difference is Chris Paul. Not a chance in hell he’d let them turn the ball over like this.

[JeremyG]

7 straight 3s made from the Lakers is ridiculous…they are the worst 3 point shooting team in the league. Reddish hit 3 of them

They were wide open though. Suns just seemed lackadaisical throughout. They got what they deserved. They’re not very good.

We're the anit-heat. We have no dog in our fight. Too happy to just go through the motions.

But why is it that it seems like we're always that way? No matter who our owner, GM, coach, or players are?

I disagree, when we had Mikal, the Cams and Booker, we had that fight. We might've not had enough talent, but we had fight.

Maybe 2020-2021 but not after that. And just in general we haven’t had that type of team most years.

Vogel said he wanted a “scrappy,” outworking the opponent type of hard-working team. Hopefully that can still come to fruition.

[virtual9mm]

Nah, the difference is Chris Paul. Not a chance in hell he’d let them turn the ball over like this.

Forgetting the epic collapses under Chris Paul?

[England Sun]

Every damn televised game of the Suns in the UK so far this season has been an L!!!
Sort out your 4th quarter mess and start putting teams away when you’ve got a lead!
Infuriating at times.
We need DBook asap.

[Flagrant Fowl]

Nah, the difference is Chris Paul. Not a chance in hell he’d let them turn the ball over like this.

Forgetting the epic collapses under Chris Paul?

No. But I’m sure as hell remembering the Suns ridiculous clutch rating the past 3 seasons.

[England Sun]

I think someone said we are -46 in the 4th quarter this season!!
Will be interesting to see that number ‘when’ and ‘if’ we get the big 3 playing together. But it doesn’t bode well if one of them goes down towards the end of the season.

[Superbone]

Hopefully the team feels as rotten about this game as we do. Hopefully worse.

[ShelC]

Postgame Quotes and Videos

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[ShelC]

Really disappointing to lose that game and this is becoming a thing early in the season. Won't overreact but at the same time, it can't be "Well we don't have Book yet". Shouldn't need Book to close out that Lakers team. We had control the entire game and couldn't get a stop or a rebound when we needed to. We're giving up major runs during games and can't keep to stop them. The fear of the offense becoming stagnant and reliant on one guy for stretches has been a reality so far.

We let their roleplayers like Reddish and Reaves kill us. In Chicago it was Caruso. In Philly it was Oubre. In Detroit it was Sasser. Guys are going to score and have good games, but something's missing in the prep work there IMO.

Vogel and his staff need to be better - better offense and better adjustments in-game. Yuta shouldn't have seen minutes late, Okogie can't be on the floor if he's a zero on offense. Get someone else in there. KD with 38 minutes and averaging 36 on the season which askin for trouble. He and team just look gassed in the 4th and he probably played Beal too much in his second game back.

[Mori Chu]

Ugh. Super frustrating loss on multiple levels. Our offense is just shit. We give the ball to KD or Beal and just stand around and watch them. It's too easy to defend us and shut us down. They need much more ball movement, more screens, more passing, more player movement, something. It's painful watching KD come up the court, dribble dribble dribble, tough fadeaway jumper over a defender.

For all the talk about Vogel and his being a defensive coach, we don't seem to be defending very well, either. Other teams keep getting wide open 3s against us over and over. We seem to over-focus on the stars and on the guy with the ball, so that if the other team just does basic things like swing the ball around the perimeter, they'll consistently get a wide open corner 3 against us. These guys like Caruso or Vassell or Reddish are having career nights on all these open shots.

And to top it off, I hate how every game against the Lakers in Phoenix we basically have no home court advantage. I will never stop being mad about that. Hearing Lebron and AD get about the same level of cheers as our own guys is shameful and pathetic. Be better, Phoenix NBA fans.

Getting Booker back soon will help a lot. But this team has a lot of work to do.

[Kryptonic]

I’d be sounding the alarms if we had our full roster and some hold over from last season but the vast majority of this team are still trying to figure out how to gel. Hard to do when 2 out of the 3 key players are out…. Let’s just hope these losses help refine our product for the latter part of the season.

[Split T]

We are 12th in defense…that’s good enough if our offense is elite like it should be. We will be limited defensively based on our personnel. We chose to give up Reddish 3s instead of LeBron layups…I’ll live with that.

I also don’t have a problem with our offense. It’s not just Beal and KD taking turns isolating…it’ll shift to that at times because you want them taking shots when it matters, but we have a lot of ball movement. I really think this offense is going be pretty lethal once Book is back and Beal gets going. Also we had a 119.8 ORTG yesterday…offense wasn’t the problem yesterday.

[JeremyG]

For all the talk about Vogel and his being a defensive coach, we don't seem to be defending very well, either.

There's only so much a coach can do when you trade away almost all of your good defenders.

[JeremyG]

We are 12th in defense…

By what measurement? It sure doesn't feel like it.

[Split T]

Points per 100 possessions allowed. We are 16th in offense

[Superbone]

I do not like multiple players counting on Book's return. That's a bad look. Take responsibility for the team without him. They are good enough to win these games. They got complacent in the 4th quarter. Again. They are getting paid too much not to hustle their asses off the entire game and they are obviously not good enough not to.