Game Day: Cavaliers (10-14) @ Suns (13-9), Mon 2/8/21

[Superbone]

I didn’t see this live

I came here to see if anybody mentioned it. Horrible hip check on Cam that could have caused injury. How do the refs miss that. That should have been reviewed and made a flagrant 1.

[BKinSJC]

With this win, the team is back to .500 overall (48-48) in the Monty Williams era, for the first time since they fell to 8-9 last season with a November 27th, 2019 loss to the Wizards. They were 26-39 when the league COVID hiatus began; 22-9 between the bubble and the start of this season so far.

Just for the, uh, fun (??) of it, here's other recent Suns coaches:

Igor Kokoskov: Never at or above .500 after his second game as head coach. Final record, one season, 19-63.

Jay Triano (interim): Won four of his first five games, but then proceeded to lose five in a row and was never at or above .500 again. Final record was 21-58 in most of one season.

Earl Watson: Actually lost all of his first nine games as coach, and was never anywhere close to .500 during his tenure. Final record, 33-85 across parts of 3 seasons. I know he didn't have great talent to work with overall, but he still gets my vote as single most clueless Suns coach ever.

Jeff Hornacek: Was only below .500 briefly at 5-6 in his first season; finished that season at 48-34 and was as still way above level at +19, 71 games into his second season, 86-67 overall; the team would finish that season losing 10 of 11. Stayed above .500 as a coach until a loss against OKC on the last day of 2015, where his record fell to 99-100. He'd win only two more games as Suns coach, finishing 101-112 overall.

Lindsey Hunter: Won his first two games replacing Alvin Gentry, and four of his first eight for his last view of .500 - lost 18 of his final 22 and finished 12-29 in his half a season in the head coaching spot.

Which takes us back to Gentry, the last to coach the Suns in a playoff game. He briefly fell under .500 during an early 6-game losing streak after he took over midseason in 2008-09 for Terry Porter, but got back to .500 at 8-8 and finished out his first season at 18-13; the Suns narrowly missed the playoffs despite being 46-36 that season. He followed up with that 54-28 Western Conference finals season, and even with the team just hanging around .500 for most of the two seasons that followed, his overall Suns record was never in danger of dipping below .500 again. His 13-28 start to the 2012-13 season still left him at 158-144 across three full seasons and parts of two others.

[ShelC]

[ShelC]

Was off by 3pts in my prediction for Moore but had a feeling he'd step up with Paul out. He's been looking better and better each game, finding his rhythm and seems in better shape the last few weeks. Really like his game for this team and offense. We can nitpick Jones' offseason but adding Gallo and Moore to the backcourt were big additions for the minimum. And now Frank is playing well too which is a boon for us.

Glad Bridges' in-between game is re-emerging. That's the offense we need to mix in with the 3s and he's the guy who can do it.

Not sure what's going on with these refs but you'd think we'd start getting some respect on these fouls, especially Book. Seems like there were some pretty bad ones yesterday, hoping the Suns send tape to the league office with a nice message. Just ridiculous at this point.

[carey]

I have a hard time rooting for Frank but he plays really hard every night and I do respect that. I want to say that I don’t actually understand how he is able to be so effective given how horribly slow he is. That behind the back dribble then spin move off the glass on Javale was so dirty that it basically caused Javale to get himself a double technical. I’d be pissed too if Frank did that to me.

[carey]

Sexton was a tough guard for Mikal

They were talking on Twitter about how Sexton comes off his screens so fast that even Mikal can’t guard him.

[carey]

The Cavs lineup is weird. Due to injuries they start what is essentially a dual PG and dual center lineup with a rookie wing. They are last in the league in offense but are still 10-14 because they have the tenth ranked defense. They will likely trade Drummond for anything they can get soon. Kevin Love as well. Both of those deals will be key to whatever the Cavs become in the next couple years. A trio of Sexton, Garland, Allen isn’t bad though.

[ShelC]

Can't make the wide open C+S three, but hits this one on the move over 2 defenders



And here's the move by Karl Anthony Krisfrank Porzinisky

[bajanguy008]

Mixed Bag for my Avatar Bros

Was hoping that both would build on the Cs game, excellent by Mikal and like we have said and the postgame comments highlighted his midrange gonna be a real weapon because of that high release point.
Again my boy Cam missed too much, he was 0/6 and at least 4 of those were wide open but hey he hit his last two and as has been the trend all season the ball found him late again in a close game.

[jonh]

Something that has impressed me about Monty is how actively involved he is with his players. There have been several reports on how Monty is either calling or texting players daily to check the player's mentality and keep them focused. McD was the polar opposite in regards to communication with players--it always seemed as though departing players were disgruntled at broken promises, and the lack of communication.

Im all on board the Monty train, and think he is an underrated reason for the Suns trajectory change both last season and this season.

[carey]

Im all on board the Monty train, and think he is an underrated reason for the Suns trajectory change both last season and this season.

I think Monty is a good coach. Not a great coach. A bit worried that he lets Paul run the whole show basically. That's not his job. I understand his leadership is a key component of getting paid $40M a year. He's not the coach though. I also worry about this whole 'match up' thing he has going on. I'd rather the team be proactive than reactive.

I think these guys say it better.

[Split T]

I think we all thought the pace was up in this game without Chris Paul, but apparently this was our 6th slowest game of the season...I wonder why it seemed faster? I think it was maybe just all the scoring, both teams were scoring easily, which gave the illusion of a fast pace.

[Indy]

Does anyone have clips of what happened between Frank and McGee?

[Split T]

The only clip I saw showed the very beginning before anything really happened, so not sure if it was just verbal or if it turned physical.

[Indy]

yeah the FSAZ broadcast missed all of it.

[carey]

Does anyone have clips of what happened between Frank and McGee?

I saw it on Twitter last night let me find it if I can. Basically Frank just gave him a little shove w/ two hands to push him out of the lane.

[In2ition]

Does anyone have clips of what happened between Frank and McGee?

I saw it on Twitter last night let me find it if I can. Basically Frank just gave him a little shove w/ two hands to push him out of the lane.

I loved the little thumbs up from Frank after McGee got tossed and was trying to start something.

[Indy]

Does anyone have clips of what happened between Frank and McGee?

I saw it on Twitter last night let me find it if I can. Basically Frank just gave him a little shove w/ two hands to push him out of the lane.

I saw that but the shot cut away just as the slow mo slight push was shown. It took a while before the camera came back to the action and they were 30 feet apart then.

[Superbone]

I have a hard time rooting for Frank but he plays really hard every night and I do respect that. I want to say that I don’t actually understand how he is able to be so effective given how horribly slow he is. That behind the back dribble then spin move off the glass on Javale was so dirty that it basically caused Javale to get himself a double technical. I’d be pissed too if Frank did that to me.

[Superbone]

The Garland kid looked like he was 12 years old.