Phx-Suns.Net

Week 5 is squadoosh'd. The Suns are still giving up a lot of points. They're now bottom 10 in the league defensively. The good news is they did win one of their 4 games last week. Woot!

Last Week's Games

@ San Antonio Spurs LOSS 98-84
vs. New Orleans Pelicans LOSS 120-114
vs. Golden State Warriors LOSS 135-116
@ Toronto Raptors WIN 107-102

This Week's Games

Tuesday, December 1st @ Brooklyn Nets 7:30PM EST
Wednesday, December 2nd @ Detroit Pistons 7:30PM EST
Friday, December 4th @ Washington Wizards 7:00PM EST
Sunday, December 6th @ Memphis Grizzlies 3:30PM EST

Suns Stories

TJ Warren takes home player of the week for Suns: LINK
Suns put together complete effort to end Raptors win streak: LINK
Suns gave free agency look at DeMarre Carroll: LINK

Spotlight: Brandon Knight

LINK

Markieff Morris is playing like a guy that doesn't want to play: LINK

After that awful week, I know it's hard to see any bright side. But this week we could very well go undefeated, or likely 3-for-4. The opposition is a lot more reasonable this time around.

Frankly speaking, I was never in the Suns-for-playoffs camp, so the early season wins didn't really get my hopes up, nor did this series of losses particularly dishearten me any more than I already was before the season began. Of course even with that macro-level view of the team I can still nitpick on a micro level, and wish that we were better able to pull off close games and make adjustments on points of weakness -- two straight losses to the Pelicans by basically the same score due to same inability to defend the Brow stings (I didn't get to see the second game, it was the only one from that night that wasn't made available to the Chinese internet, so these comments are more based on box score than actual game viewing). The inability for the team to find a proper role for its big men stings, which is exacerbated by the fact that our two backup 4s are playing major minutes for their floor stretching upside while basically giving a free path to the basket on defense.

The roster is what it is and I'm not sure that we can make a lot of moves in-season that don't hurt us in the future, so I don't have heightened expectations for our overall record. However, I do hope to see minor adjustments on a 5 game to 5 game basis. It's probably too much to ask for game-by-game improvements, but I hope we can work on little things and get our younger players ready to play a bigger role in the next few seasons.

I just want to mention, I finished this whole post and then realized I didn't capitalize again and went back to re-do the whole thing. Old habits die hard.

(edited for typos)

pickle wrote: Of course even with that macro-level view of the team I can still nitpick on a micro level, and wish that we were better able to pull off close games and make adjustments on points of weakness -- two straight losses to the Pelicans by basically the same score due to same inability to defend the Bow stings (I didn't get to see the second game, it was the only one from that night that wasn't made available to the Chinese internet, so these comments are more based on box score than actual game viewing).

In the second game Hornacek went small. With no Chandler or Len on the court, Davis got 2 offensive rebounds and on his 3rd attempt he was able to put the ball in the hoop to put the Pelicans up 2 in the final minute.

pickle wrote:I just want to mention, I finished this whole post and then realized I didn't capitalize again and went back to re-do the whole thing. Old habits die hard.

I appreciate it! Read the whole thing.

Superbone wrote:

pickle wrote:I just want to mention, I finished this whole post and then realized I didn't capitalize again and went back to re-do the whole thing. Old habits die hard.

I appreciate it! Read the whole thing.

Used to work in IT where for some reason capitalization was never required, and now with all the typing on smart phones where the darned thing fixes capitalization for you, I just haven't bothered with the shift key at all for the longest time now.

I haven't watched the last couple of games, just been busy... and looking at the box score of the Warriors game, I'm not sure I want to, but I suppose I should just to see TJ's career game. Am half way through the Raptors game...

The Warriors game is worth watching. Not just for TJ, but also Curry had a crazy first half (even by his standards).

Thanks RW. I'll try to bite into it.

Ring_Wanted wrote:The Warriors game is worth watching. Not just for TJ, but also Curry had a crazy first half (even by his standards).

So true. And seeing that in person, I was just in awe. The guy is unreal.

What made it even more outstanding is that his shot looked like never touched anything but net. Honestly I don't thing the world has seen anything like this. Circus, off balance, after deceleration, instant release, whatever. Nothing but net.

Klay as well, off catch and shoot. And the rest of their f*ckers Iggy, Green and Barbosa couldn't miss either.

Hmmmm. Shots fired by Hornacek.
https://twitter.com/paulcoro/status/672799772181417984

Doesn't mean anything until he does something about it.

I doubt it would equal more wins, but I think I would enjoy watching 35 minutes of Booker, TJ, Len and Lueur each night.

Limiting Tucker and Kieff's minutes is imperative. You can live with the two guards and their inconsistent scoring and TOs, but the rest of the rotation needs to be efficient. Warren and Leuer should have been starting for like two weeks now and Booker should be a staple on the rotation.

What's going on with Chandler? Is he still hurt? Haven't seen much of him lately.

Indy wrote:Doesn't mean anything until he does something about it.

I doubt it would equal more wins, but I think I would enjoy watching 35 minutes of Booker, TJ, Len and Lueur each night.

Agree. Unless he walks the talk, nobody will take him seriously.

One wonders if he has the chutzpah to bench two of his more vocal players, given how badly he handled Marcus' blowup last year.

carey wrote:Hmmmm. Shots fired by Hornacek.
https://twitter.com/paulcoro/status/672799772181417984

I want to see this translated into action. Play them. It's on the coach to make the changes we all seem to agree need to be made.

Gameday thread?

The Wiz' top 4 bigs are all out. I really hope Hornacek takes this opportunity to punish them inside instead of (once again) going small to match up with them.

Shabazz wrote:Gameday thread?

On it.