Game Day: Nuggets (11-16) @ Suns (12-18), Wed 12/23/15

[EDC]

Our beacon of hope is a 32 year old on vet minimum. Things are looking up guys!

[Furlanfufi]

https://twitter.com/YouSoStupids/status/679876842174590977

[Furlanfufi]

https://twitter.com/YouSoStupids/status/679876925016256512

[carey]

The Suns are not even an average basketball team.

[Wally_West]

Hornacek needs to get fired and Morris needs to be traded. I don't care which happens first and I don't think it really matters either. Both need to happen.

[Furlanfufi]

I'm with Wally on that. If that kinda thing is happening, Coach lost'em a long time ago.

[specialsauce]

is it 2016-2017 yet?

[Wally_West]

I'm with Wally on that. If that kinda thing is happening, Coach lost'em a long time ago.

Yep.

[EDC]

So Kieff threw a towel at Coach?

[Danimal]

So Kieff threw a towel at Coach?

They were probably discussing catering for their joint farewell party.

Will you guys not join me in a big thank you to the Denver Nuggets for not letting us cover up our issues by beating average teams

[Mori Chu]

We lost! And we let Randy Foye get a career high 31 on us. Seems like par for the course at this point.

Positives? Price, Knight, and Leuer all had good games. I guess.

[Mori Chu]

Also, umm, can we please never ever play Markieff ever again? He freaking Horry'ed our coach and threw a towel at him! That is it. Get him out.

[LazarusLong]

Scored some free tickets in the upper row of the lower bowl.

Here's what I saw:
Price had a career game.
Leuer is a solid player.
Teletovic had a terrible game, couldn't make easy shots and couldn't guard a one legged mannequin.
Bledsoe dribbles a lot. If there was an award for achievementless activity, Bledsoe would get it for this game.
Chandler plays as if he's either still hurting or is in terrible shape.
Len was never involved in the game.
Goodwin played well in an eight-minute stretch. Hornaceck strategically forgot about him for the rest of the game.
Who ever is responsible for the defensive schemes should be beaten into pemmican. Clueless at times. Seriously, the defensive miscues are sometimes comical.
Tucker plays hard, but sometimes flails aobut. His barking at the refs wins him no fans among the zebra community.
Bledsoe and Knight jump in the air too much when making passes. Opponents are hearing about this and forcing them into turnovers.

[Shabazz]

This has to be the nadir, right?

[Indy]

This has to be the nadir, right?

If we are lucky.

[Indy]

People were saying this is Malaise 2.0. But this is way worse. During the original malaise, we were a 50 team every year and making the playoffs every year. We haven't done either in (soon to be) 6 years. My son has never seen a playoffs Suns team. And the last time my daughter saw one she was still potty training. It is crazy. And sad. And frustrating. And infuriating.

[carey]

So Kieff threw a towel at Coach?

https://twitter.com/paulcoro/status/679885856383975424 https://twitter.com/paulcoro/status/679886319070232576 https://twitter.com/paulcoro/status/679887030747172864

[Nodack]

Fugly game again. Denver on a back to back missing half the starters and still win. Emotions starting to run high.

I feel some changes coming soon.

[EDC]

Some more post game comments.

http://arizonasports.com/story/498849/m ... oach-suns/

The Nuggets went at Phoenix with a small-ball lineup with forward Kenneth Faried playing center. Phoenix didn’t settle in until Hornacek countered by putting small forward P.J. Tucker on the aggressive rebounder.

“Put P.J. on him and look what happened? We got back in the game. We need more of those guys who play like that,” Hornacek said, before later adding, “We got to get tougher guys.

[Shabazz]

A few thoughts:

- Even if we would have won this game, it would have been a loss. If we need to rely on heavy doses of PJ Tucker, Ronnie Price and the 3 PG lineup to win, while our free agent prize, emerging young center and stud rookie play a combined 19 minutes and take 1 shot, then what have we gained?

- The 3 PG lineup is ass. You can count on a game like this from Ronnie Price once in a blue moon and it leaves us with one crap offensive player and one crap defensive player in the group at all times. Better teams will exploit it badly. Denver's ravaged lineup presented an opportunity for us to use it, but I'm worried its success this game will have Hornacek going to it too often. It's really a gimmick that is destined to fail more often than not.

- Possibly my least favorite thing about this season are the 6 or 7 possessions per game where Brandon Knight spends the first 14 seconds of the shot clock dribbling before getting a pick and launching a semi contested 3 or long 2. They're just awful basketball. You can see why Knight is so bad at the pick and roll: He handles it in 1 of two ways. 1- he turns the corner to attack, but when he does he always puts his head down so he can never see the floor, or 2 - he keeps his head up but thinks shot the entire way. He doesn't see the play like a PG should.

- Nearly every time Archie plays he does something well. His reward is always splinters.

- Biggest disappointment of the season, part 1: Echoing Laz, it's been the complete lack of defensive gameplan and overall strategy. Or if the strategy and gameplan exist, it's the complete lack of execution. Knight's an embarrassingly bad defender, but other than that, almost everyone on the team is capable. To have such an atrocious defense is the coaching staff's biggest failure.

- Biggest disappointment of the season, part 2: McDonough underestimated the fart cloud that is the Markieff situation. It's stunk up the entire season. From early chemistry issues partially due to Markieff not joining involuntary workouts to him not losing time despite dogging it early on, to this weird stretch where he's in and out of the rotation while we wait for an opportunity to trade him, I really believe this situation has sabotaged the entire season.