Suns News: October

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carey
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Suns News: October

Post by carey »

I'll start weekly threads the last week of October when the season starts.

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SDC
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by SDC »

ryan mcdo looks uncomfortable. and he is losing his hair.

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SDC
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by SDC »

suns core 2nd unit: IT, Zoran, Green (SF), Marcus, Len

1st unit: bleds, dragic, tucker, markieff, plumlee

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Superbone
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by Superbone »

http://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/n ... /16571349/
Suns coach Jeff Hornacek: Players need to pick up the pace

Paul Coro, azcentral sports 9:37 p.m. MST October 1, 2014

FLAGSTAFF – The Suns played last season at their fastest pace in five seasons.

To which coach Jeff Hornacek says: Faster, please.

The Suns shot up from 14th to first in fast-break points over a year but they ranked eighth in the NBA in pace, trailing three playoff teams — Houston, Golden State and the Los Angeles Clippers.

"We want to pick that up," Hornacek said. "We want to be one, two or three. Really try to get the ball out of bounds and go with it. Put pressure on the other teams. We have a deep team so we feel we can do that. Again, that's us pushing these guys to get in the kind of shape you need to be to do that."

...
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Mori Chu
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by Mori Chu »

Horny's like, "I came up with this totally new idea for our offense. I call it, 'Six Seconds or Less...' "

Phoenix219
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by Phoenix219 »

:lol: :D

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carey
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by carey »

I was a huge fan of 7SOL. I bought McCallum's book and everything (a fun read if you haven't read it.) I would not be opposed to seeing a return to that. You need guys that can run at every position, and at least on paper we seem to have that. Although Markieff isn't athletic as I'd like at the 4 spot for that offense. The problem, as we are all well aware of, is that that particular style of offense does not win in the playoffs when things slow down. You face the same team every 2 to 3 days for 2 weeks. It got to the point where they just couldn't execute the offense. It was far too easy to negate by roughing up on the engine that made the thing go. Maybe having 3 PGs that can all push the pace and pass the ball would work better than 1. Having 3 Audis is better than one Ferrari if the Ferrari can't let loose.
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Ring_Wanted
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by Ring_Wanted »

7SOL wasn't the problem, in my opinion. It was depth, injuries and inherent flaws to our big three. Nash couldn't defend one on one, Amare couldn't protect the rim to save his life and was a weak rebounder, and Marion basically couldn't do anything with the ball but finishing and shooting wide open.

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Re: Suns News: October

Post by jkalldaway »

That's BS. "That particular style does not win in the playoffs." Really? Really? During the 7sol era, the Suns saw their season end in the following rounds:

2004-05: Western Conference Finals
2005-06: Western Conference Finals
2006-07: Western Conference Semis (suspension-gate)
2007-08: 1st Round (Shaq)
2009-10: Western Conference Finals (Gentry)

So while running that offense, the Suns reached the Western Conference Finals three times. Do you not consider winning two rounds of the playoffs to be winning?

Further, San Antonio has flat out admitted to copying many of the Suns' sets from that offense. As their Big 3 (Duncan, Ginobili, Parker) grow older, the focus has shifted to more passing and corner threes than they have ever utilized before. The 7sol offense is extremely successful and does in fact win in the playoffs. The problem for the D'Antoni led team was the defensive end.

McD simply wanted to outscore teams while Jeff has a different philosophy. Last season, the Suns ranked 13th in defensive field goal percentage and 2nd in defensive three-point field goal percentage. As long as Jeff continues the defensive improvement, I don't think the offensive strategy will be an issue come playoff time.

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carey
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by carey »

jkalldaway wrote:So while running that offense, the Suns reached the Western Conference Finals three times. Do you not consider winning two rounds of the playoffs to be winning?
I could amend my post to say that it is not conducive to reaching the ultimate destination, a championship if it would make you feel better. Our best effort with an absolutely stacked team (2-time MVP and 3 All-Stars) was the WCF. So we won 2 playoff series three times. So yes, I don't consider it that successful in context. And it's basically because teams played extremely physical with Nash and were allowed to get away with it negated our entire offense. Especially down the stretch of tight games.

If you asked me now, I of course would give about anything to have the Suns back in the WCF. Different expectations for different teams though. We didn't have a single All-Star last year.
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Ring_Wanted
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by Ring_Wanted »

carey wrote:Our best effort with an absolutely stacked team (2-time MVP and 3 All-Stars) was the WCF.
Those days, DAL-SAS-PHX was the finals. Whoever survived was heavily favored to win it all, and rightfully so. Of course, games are not played on paper, that's why Miami won in 2006. I also believe that without injuries to KT and Bell we beat the Mavs and destroy the Heat.
carey wrote:And it's basically because teams played extremely physical with Nash and were allowed to get away with it negated our entire offense. Especially down the stretch of tight games.
I believe Amare had more to do than Nash as I think perimeter defense is way less important than rim protection and rebounding. Then you have Marion, who was a beast everywhere but in the creation area, and if you focused on it, he was relatively easy to stop. Nash' lack of defense doesn't come close to those two problems.

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Superbone
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by Superbone »

I call bullshit. The Celtics had a dynasty with a fastbreaking offense. The Showtime Lakers were also a fastbreaking team. Just because the D'Antoni teams didn't win it all doesn't mean they couldn't have with the right tweaks and breaks.
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jkalldaway
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by jkalldaway »

Carey, you gave absolutely no credit to my defensive points. 7sol does not have to mean zero defense and clearly Jeff agrees. That offense with a solid defensive rating is a solid strategy.

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Ring_Wanted
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by Ring_Wanted »

That offense with KT, Bell, Marion, Diaw and little else (available or needed) on D was a joy to watch in 2006. Best Suns basketball I have watched, and it is mortifying that the Spurs have advanced to two finals and won one title using a similar brand of offense.

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carey
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Re: Suns News: October

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jkalldaway wrote:Carey, you gave absolutely no credit to my defensive points. 7sol does not have to mean zero defense and clearly Jeff agrees. That offense with a solid defensive rating is a solid strategy.
That's because we all know DA didn't care about defense and that we were abysmal in that area. That can't be debated. I was speaking mainly about the offense. That was our calling card and that was how we were going to win. You guys make great points though. We were some breaks away from being at least finalists.
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In2ition
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by In2ition »

The problem wasn't the often parrotted "That style can't win in the playoffs", because SA just did it pretty convincingly. The problem was that D'Antoni suffered from his own stubbornness, lack of a quality backup pg to keep the style going, lack of other depth at the other positions, letting JJ go, and inability to find a capable rim protector and rebounder (ala Tyson Chandler, who was available several times). Even with those problems, they MAY have won it all if JJ and Raja didn't get hurt, and the suspensions didn't happen.
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carey
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by carey »

In2ition wrote:The problem wasn't the often parrotted "That style can't win in the playoffs", because SA just did it pretty convincingly.
SA did beat Miami by spreading them out and going small. DIaw played C for long stretches at times and that was the big Pop adjustment that cost Miami the series. I don't think they were really close to a 7SOL push it even on made baskets offense though. That's just my opinion.
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Mori Chu
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by Mori Chu »

I blame $arver, D'Antoni, and to some extent the natural flaws of the players. Bobby Saver wouldn't keep any of our draft picks, and he and D'A made some dumb FA decisions, so the team was never deep enough. This plus the intensity of the 7SOL playing style prematurely wore out the players. Popovich, sadly, is the one who figured out how to do 7SOL correctly. He pushes the pace, BUT, he also heavily emphasizes defense, and (crucially) he carefully limits the minutes of the players and rests guys on back-to-backs and things of this nature so as not to break them down. Mike D never learned that kind of balance or moderation when he was here.

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Re: Suns News: October

Post by The Bobster »

Superbone wrote:I call bullshit. The Celtics had a dynasty with a fastbreaking offense. The Showtime Lakers were also a fastbreaking team. Just because the D'Antoni teams didn't win it all doesn't mean they couldn't have with the right tweaks and breaks.
You just can't do it without playing any defense and the Suns had some huge defensive holes in Amare and Nash.
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carey
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Re: Suns News: October

Post by carey »

SA may be running up tempo more than in years past, but it's not 7SOL. So I don't think it's fair to say "he figured out 7SOL" by any stretch. That was an ideology where you never ever stopped running. Pushing the pace during every second of play. That isn't the Spurs right now. In fact, the Spurs are this weird chameleon of teams that can play in a number of ways depending on the matchup.
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