Game Day: Hornets (14-16) @ Suns (20-10), Wed 2/24/21

[AmareIsGod]

I can appreciate Monty's comments after the game. I'm glad he's not about making excuses or looking to complain about calls. He knows the team blew it with piss poor defense. That should have never been a game determined by a call or non call at the end. Time to move on to the next game.

[Indy]

[Aztec Sunsfan]

It hurts, but I’m glad we lost this one, we didn’t deserve the tie. If we had the foul called, and then proceed to win on overtime, it would be precisely the kind of win that cover the cracks, on this case poor efforts and lack of perimeter defense. A lot of clanky shots can come from being tired, rushed, but also from lack of focus and engagement. I think the latter was the case last night. We took it for granted. Booker as well entangled verbally with the bench of an under .500 team that cost us a tech and a free throw point. Then a triple, and 3 became 7 up for the Hornets after that stellar play.

So I prefer this loss to hurt on everyone and take those lessons early.

[Superbone]

After half way through the 2nd quarter, we were totally out of rhythm the rest of the way.

[In2ition]

They've got to figure out how to keep Booker warm after he leaves the game. He just seems cold and out of it by the time he comes back. It's not helping. What did he have, 17 in the first 11 minutes and then 16 the rest of the way?

[specialsauce]

Agree, this keeps happening. Monty leaves him in way too long to start the game then he rests him basically half the second quarter plus timeouts and by the time he’s back he’s totally out of rhythm

[Mori Chu]

I assume it's out of a desire to stagger the minutes of Paul and Book so they can each do their own thing. But I don't feel like they're in each other's way as much lately compared to earlier in the season. And I almost never like seeing a player play a whole quarter; that just feels like bad strategy.

[bajanguy008]

They've got to figure out how to keep Booker warm after he leaves the game. He just seems cold and out of it by the time he comes back. It's not helping. What did he have, 17 in the first 11 minutes and then 16 the rest of the way?

Vs ORL - 12:00 (17pts) , 6:10 (1pt) 27
Vs BKN - 10:48 (16pts) , 4:42 (2pts) 22
@ NO - 10:26 (7pts) , 7:07 (5pts) 23
@ MEM - 9:49 (5pts) , 6:00 (10pts) 23
Vs POR - 10:24 (17pts) , 6:39 (5pts) 34
Vs CHA - 10:59 (16pts) , 4:52 (3pts) 33

I thought that would be really tedious to source but wasn't that hard lol, so yes that's how Book is being played in the first half. Minutes played and pts in first two quarters and the last number is his total pts on the night

How he's scoring seems to be becoming a trend. Still not sure what's the best solution, if it is on Monty or Book

[Superbone]

https://arizonarepublic-az-app.newsmemo ... =199528ed9

‘The problem is you missed it’

Like Paul, NBA TV analyst and former NBA player, Greg Anthony, said the play would be unveiled in the league report.

“They’ll say we missed the call, but if you’re the Phoenix Suns, you don’t care about admitting you missed it,” Anthony said during NBA TV’s postgame analysis after Wednesday’s game. “The problem is you missed it.”

Charlotte (15-16) also didn’t have any timeouts.

So if Booker, a career 86.9% free throw shooter, makes all three free throws, the Hornets would’ve had to inbound the ball from the baseline opposite of their basket and get off a shot in less than a second based on the time Booker attempted the shot. After the game, Booker made a point to say, “there’s 100 cameras in there to see what happened.”

One camera angle showed Hayward making contact with Booker on the shot with his right hand as he had both hands up in contesting the 3.

‘This is a bad miss’

“Sometimes refs swallow whistles and are scared to make calls in big-time points of games cause they don’t want to become the star of the show, but in this situation, you’ve got to do your job. This is a bad miss,” said NBA TV analyst and former NBA player, Brendan Haywood.

David Guthrie, James Williams and Scott Twardoski were the officials.

“It’s almost like if you had a player that missed a point-blank layup with the game on the line, we would talk about how he has to make that shot,” Haywood continued. “Whoever this official is, has to make this call. This is a call you make 10 out of 10 times. Two things refs are supposed to look at is do you allow the player to get his follow through and do you give him space to land.”

The play wasn’t reviewed as Williams used his challenge in the third quarter when Booker collided with Hornets big Cody Zeller. Booker was initially called for an offensive foul, but Williams’ challenge was ruled a successful one and Zeller was given the foul.

On the next play, Booker was called for an offensive foul Hornets guard Terry Rozier drew on him with 8:48 left in the third. Down 73-71, B o o ke r s a t t h e r e s t o f the quarter.

Phoenix ended up trailing, 97-91, going into the fourth quarter.

While Booker was clearly fouled on the final play, Williams said he was more upset the Suns (20-11) blew a 17-point, first-half lead in the loss.

“We shouldn’t have been in that position,” Williams said.