Game Day: Heat (5-2) @ Suns (5-2), Thurs 11/7/19

[Flagrant Fowl]

I don't think anyone can say they're totally OK with how Saric and Kaminsky have played through eight games. But if we can give Dragan Bender 2+ years, we can certainly give the new guys a bit longer than 3 weeks.

[ShelC]

That's awesome Nodack. Saw you on the broadcast too. It did look like the guys kind of knew they might not have it in them. The Heat just played with a little more bounce and confidence and ironically, did to us what we've been doing to other teams: running crisp sets, moving the ball side to side, moving without the ball and playing tight defense. If Butler doesn't start off unconscious we definitely have a better shot. Seeing Butler get his in that offense tho makes me wonder why Book can't start off a little quicker or make an adjustment to look for his in that way. Felt like he hardly shot the ball in the 1st half.

Saric and Kaminsky have been flat lately but there's no way you can compare them to Bender.

Definitely spoiled by the start of the season because I'm down about us losing to the Heat but we had to take an L at some point. Just wanted to get this one before the Lakers game. And I totally put this on Sarver for being near the team prior to the game.

[3rdside]

Interesting about Tyler herro demanding to guard booker .. did a reasonable job of it as well it seems, and his booker’s turnovers at the end point towards a pretty evident flaw in his game.

Hard to believe but even though booker scores more points at a better eFG% than Donavan Mitchell and has more assists, mitchell’s PER (~28) is more than 7 full points higher than booker’s (20.5).

I thought it was an error at first, until I looked a bit closer and realised his assist : turnover ratio is one part of it, as is his lower rebounding rate and higher foul rate.

I’m still shocked the difference could be that big however, so once my computer is back up and running next week I’ll dive a little deeper into it.

[3rdside]

Relative flaw probably a better way to say it, and Mitchell’s PER has come down to 26.4. Still a big difference.

[ShelC]

Interesting about Tyler herro demanding to guard booker .. did a reasonable job of it as well it seems, and his booker’s turnovers at the end point towards a pretty evident flaw in his game.

Hard to believe but even though booker scores more points at a better eFG% than Donavan Mitchell and has more assists, mitchell’s PER (~28) is more than 7 full points higher than booker’s (20.5).

I thought it was an error at first, until I looked a bit closer and realised his assist : turnover ratio is one part of it, as is his lower rebounding rate and higher foul rate.

I’m still shocked the difference could be that big however, so once my computer is back up and running next week I’ll dive a little deeper into it.

I'm not stats/numbers guy but just looking at the advanced stats, Mitchell has a much better Assist to TO % and a better DPM which gives him a higher BPM so maybe those are factors?

[3rdside]

Interesting about Tyler herro demanding to guard booker .. did a reasonable job of it as well it seems, and his booker’s turnovers at the end point towards a pretty evident flaw in his game.

Hard to believe but even though booker scores more points at a better eFG% than Donavan Mitchell and has more assists, mitchell’s PER (~28) is more than 7 full points higher than booker’s (20.5).

I thought it was an error at first, until I looked a bit closer and realised his assist : turnover ratio is one part of it, as is his lower rebounding rate and higher foul rate.

I’m still shocked the difference could be that big however, so once my computer is back up and running next week I’ll dive a little deeper into it.

I'm not stats/numbers guy but just looking at the advanced stats, Mitchell has a much better Assist to TO % and a better DPM which gives him a higher BPM so maybe those are factors?

Yeah that’s them, it just seems there’s quite a lot that booker must be doing wrong to score more at a better clip and be that much lower in PER.

Turnovers are pretty heavily punished as I think they’re quantifiable into how many points the other team then scores at the cost of your own team not scoring, but it will be interesting to see how much each data point affects PER next week (assuming no problems crunching the numbers!).

[Cap]

Mitchell also gets to the line more and is seventh in the league in steals.

[3rdside]

For sure .. it’s the little things / rougher edges that could make a big difference to his game. I never wanted to admit any Mitchell superiority but we’re looking at it.


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[In2ition]

This was a really good game by the Heat on both ends of the floor.

• They got into a rhythm through crisp passing and spacing and just found their groove as a team knocking down their shots.

• Butler was unstoppable in the first half, than handed it off to Dragic in the second half.

• When the Suns needed to make that final push in the 4th, it was odd to see Cam out there.

• Booker just giving up live ball turnovers on 3 straight possessions was probably the worst 3 possessions we've seen from him, after having the best game of his career.

• This was the one game where you could see that the Suns really missed both Deandre and Ty out there. They missed the depth of having Baynes in the second unit and missed the shooting, ball handling and steady control and passing that Ty brings in the 2nd group.

• We've only seen it one game, but the Suns missed the shot blocking and shot changing defense in the middle that Ayton brings.

• They also missed that inside presence to score when the offense bogs down.

With all that said, idk if the Suns will beat the Heat in Miami, but I expect with a full squad that the game will be much better. I am wondering what the Suns are thinking though. Frank and Dario were a bit of duds. Not just last night, but it has happened enough to be a bit of concern. This is another area that may be fixed a bit when Deandre and Ty come back. With Deandre, Frank will be put back into his natural backup 4 roll, instead of the backup 5. It would help Cam go to playing off the bench as a 2-3 instead of a 3-4. With Ty, the ball movement will be better and it will elevate the shooting, especially from the 2nd unit. We saw some outlier shooting from Carter at the beginning of the season and now we are seeing a little bit more of what he brings on the offensive end right now. Hopefully that improves and changes, but he is a streaky shooter at this point.

[O_Gardino]

I'm not too mad about this game. We will see how the team responds, but it was just a down game for a lot of guys.

Oubre does not have the energy he started the season with. Even so, why didn't he get more burn?
Saric started the game very nicely, but he sure cooled off. Where's his confidence gone?
Rubio / Carter / Kaminsky are regressing to the mean on offense. And Carter made some big mistakes as well.
Bridges looks scared to shoot. What happened to that guy? I also find it interesting that we aren't using him more to lock down guys when they get hot. He had a bad game, but I would have liked to see him take Dragic in the second half.
Booker was really good until the last few minutes. But when Rubio is out there, they can send an extra guy to Devin every time. Let's see how Monty adjusts.

[Mori Chu]

I'm not too mad about this game. We will see how the team responds, but it was just a down game for a lot of guys.

Oubre does not have the energy he started the season with. Even so, why didn't he get more burn?
Saric started the game very nicely, but he sure cooled off. Where's his confidence gone?
Rubio / Carter / Kaminsky are regressing to the mean on offense. And Carter made some big mistakes as well.
Bridges looks scared to shoot. What happened to that guy? I also find it interesting that we aren't using him more to lock down guys when they get hot. He had a bad game, but I would have liked to see him take Dragic in the second half.
Booker was really good until the last few minutes. But when Rubio is out there, they can send an extra guy to Devin every time. Let's see how Monty adjusts.

I thought Oubre has been playing with a lot of energy, and that he's been playing well. His stats aren't too gaudy, but he is pretty consistently our 3rd scorer and seems to play hard and get a lot of fast break baskets and hustle points.

I really want Ty Jerome to get back. I think he's much more what we need out of our backup PG. Any news on the timetable for his return?

I'm worried about our PF rotation. I wish our FO would consider a trade of something like:

Tyler Johnson ($19.2m)
Dario Saric ($3.4m)
Elie Okobo ($1.4m)

for

Kevin Love ($28.9m)

Possibly throwing them a second-round pick or heavily protected future first. I think Love would be a huge asset for us and would be great in our offense. His rebounding would also be really helpful. Look at his stats this season:

18.9 ppg on 49.4 FG%, 39.1 3pt%
14.4 rpg
4.1 assists
33.7 min/game
22.5 PER

https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... eke01.html

[Indy]

That was early. I pulled off the Jersey soon after and had the Phx-Suns.Net logo on my T.Shirt the rest of the game. If you go back to the pregame show outside before the game at or near 7 I made an attempt to show off the logo and thought I was successful.

It was an awesome event even though freaking Dragic and Butler rained on my parade. Those tickets I found out gave me access to the tunnel and the free buffet and drinks the whole game. I got stuck there right before half time because they close the tunnel for the players. I set up shop Inside the buffet area and got video of them all walking past to the locker room.

My buddy thought I was a little creepy from the pictures I took but, so be it. It was so awesome being right there. I could hear their trash talk.

The Suns had that defeated look on their faces early. They just didn’t have it. Dragon and Herro really wanted this for obvious reasons.

Flush it.

thanks for representing, 'Dack! I was living through you every time your orange shirt would show up on the broadcast. There was a spot really early on in the 1st where I saw you take a self with the court in the background. You should post that.

[Mori Chu]

thanks for representing, 'Dack! I was living through you every time your orange shirt would show up on the broadcast. There was a spot really early on in the 1st where I saw you take a self with the court in the background. You should post that.

Would love to see it!

[O_Gardino]

I didn't mean to imply that Oubre is playing with low energy. He's not. But for the first few games, he played in another gear; there's no way he could keep that up for the whole season. He's gone "down" from Tasmanian Devil to a normal level of Oubre bounce. Tigger, maybe? That doesn't sound like a complimentary comparison.

Last night, he only played him 25 minutes, even though he was one of our best guys when he was out there. Maybe coach benched him after he let Dragic take a 3 basically uncontested. Or maybe the game was too far out of hand when Monty intended to put him back in. IDK

[bajanguy008]

Yea watching the game it was was a little frustrating at times when we made key mistakes after getting within a couple points but for me Dragic made more big shots than we made mistakes
I don't even think it was bad D, he will just always be extra motivated against us especially in PHX.....

[Superbone]

The Suns just didn't have it this night while the Heat had something to prove after getting blown out the game before. It happens. But hopefully, it will provide some teaching moments to improve our team as a whole. It's amazing we're doing as well as we have without our franchise center.

[Indy]

The Suns just didn't have it this night while the Heat had something to prove after getting blown out the game before. It happens. But hopefully, it will provide some teaching moments to improve our team as a whole. It's amazing we're doing as well as we have without our franchise center.

He is playing the most minutes per game of his career, has an unheard of 69% eFG while taking over 4 threes a game, and sets screens that can get anyone open. Our franchise center is doing fine.

[Split T]

I'm not too mad about this game. We will see how the team responds, but it was just a down game for a lot of guys.

Oubre does not have the energy he started the season with. Even so, why didn't he get more burn?
Saric started the game very nicely, but he sure cooled off. Where's his confidence gone?
Rubio / Carter / Kaminsky are regressing to the mean on offense. And Carter made some big mistakes as well.
Bridges looks scared to shoot. What happened to that guy? I also find it interesting that we aren't using him more to lock down guys when they get hot. He had a bad game, but I would have liked to see him take Dragic in the second half.
Booker was really good until the last few minutes. But when Rubio is out there, they can send an extra guy to Devin every time. Let's see how Monty adjusts.

I thought Oubre has been playing with a lot of energy, and that he's been playing well. His stats aren't too gaudy, but he is pretty consistently our 3rd scorer and seems to play hard and get a lot of fast break baskets and hustle points.

I really want Ty Jerome to get back. I think he's much more what we need out of our backup PG. Any news on the timetable for his return?

I'm worried about our PF rotation. I wish our FO would consider a trade of something like:

Tyler Johnson ($19.2m)
Dario Saric ($3.4m)
Elie Okobo ($1.4m)

for

Kevin Love ($28.9m)

Possibly throwing them a second-round pick or heavily protected future first. I think Love would be a huge asset for us and would be great in our offense. His rebounding would also be really helpful. Look at his stats this season:

18.9 ppg on 49.4 FG%, 39.1 3pt%
14.4 rpg
4.1 assists
33.7 min/game
22.5 PER

https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... eke01.html

Love’s contract would be a tough swallow. I think Gallo would be the PF I’d target in a trade. He doesn’t provide the rebounding of Love, but he’s very good offensively and probably a better shooter than Love. I could get behind an Aaron Gordon Trade as well...depending on the cost.

[Indy]

I'm not too mad about this game. We will see how the team responds, but it was just a down game for a lot of guys.

Oubre does not have the energy he started the season with. Even so, why didn't he get more burn?
Saric started the game very nicely, but he sure cooled off. Where's his confidence gone?
Rubio / Carter / Kaminsky are regressing to the mean on offense. And Carter made some big mistakes as well.
Bridges looks scared to shoot. What happened to that guy? I also find it interesting that we aren't using him more to lock down guys when they get hot. He had a bad game, but I would have liked to see him take Dragic in the second half.
Booker was really good until the last few minutes. But when Rubio is out there, they can send an extra guy to Devin every time. Let's see how Monty adjusts.

I thought Oubre has been playing with a lot of energy, and that he's been playing well. His stats aren't too gaudy, but he is pretty consistently our 3rd scorer and seems to play hard and get a lot of fast break baskets and hustle points.

I really want Ty Jerome to get back. I think he's much more what we need out of our backup PG. Any news on the timetable for his return?

I'm worried about our PF rotation. I wish our FO would consider a trade of something like:

Tyler Johnson ($19.2m)
Dario Saric ($3.4m)
Elie Okobo ($1.4m)

for

Kevin Love ($28.9m)

Possibly throwing them a second-round pick or heavily protected future first. I think Love would be a huge asset for us and would be great in our offense. His rebounding would also be really helpful. Look at his stats this season:

18.9 ppg on 49.4 FG%, 39.1 3pt%
14.4 rpg
4.1 assists
33.7 min/game
22.5 PER

https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... eke01.html

Love’s contract would be a tough swallow. I think Gallo would be the PF I’d target in a trade. He doesn’t provide the rebounding of Love, but he’s very good offensively and probably a better shooter than Love. I could get behind an Aaron Gordon Trade as well...depending on the cost.

I think our team would be better after that trade for this season, but it really does hamstring us going forward. We have to be really sure that we can just add small, cheap, undrafted/castoffs to the core we have, and not plan on re-signing Kelly or extending Bridges.

[Nodack]

thanks for representing, 'Dack! I was living through you every time your orange shirt would show up on the broadcast. There was a spot really early on in the 1st where I saw you take a self with the court in the background. You should post that.

Would love to see it!

I need to remember how to post pictures. They have to be on the web first don’t they? You post them to some site and then link them.

I took probably a hundred pictures and some video.

I think the Heat took control from the beginning. They scored super easy layups on their first several baskets and got into a great rhythm. That can’t happen.