2024 Playoffs: Suns-Timberwolves Round 1 News Thread

[Superbone]

[Mori Chu]

Too bad about Grayson. I would rather let him rest a game if that's what he needs than risk injuring it further.

[Mori Chu]

Outrage bait. Some analyst thinks KD is "irrelevant":

[SunsRIt]

Colin Cowherd is in the same category as Dan Bickley to me. Not overblown blowhards that say things just for a reaction

[specialsauce]

They're both outstanding. And he's not wrong.

[TOO]

Cowherd is a moron, he's got some of the worst takes in sports media.

[Kryptonic]

Cowherd panders to the LA audience and does whatever he thinks will get him "likes". Unfortunately FSI gives him a platform

[Flagrant Fowl]

Flagrant Fowl says Colin Cowherd is becoming ‘irrelevant’

"Zach Lowe looks much better historically. Bill Simmons is really the soul of the The Ringer, winning titles before, during, and after him. Ryen Russillo is now a more consistent player on both ends. SAS has more regular season MVPs. As I'm watching FS1 get rolled, Colin Cowherd is becoming increasingly irrelevant."

See, I can do that too.

[Scarecrow33]

As a franchise we have been blessed with some of the best point guards to play in the NBA for the last 30 years at least. I haven't been on the "We need a PG no matter what" bandwagon. I was anxious to see what point-book or point-beal could do. I figured they could figure it out. Now I know they cannot.

There are teams that have won championships without stellar point guards. BJ Armstrong and Derek Fisher are not HOF candidates though their teams did quite well. The Triangle didn't need no pass first PG because it was designed for all-world, ball-dominant scoring guards.

Our big 3 have 37 years NBA experience, (or is it 40, now that we are at the end of the season.) They scored 52 points in game 2 vs the Wolves. 17.3 points per each. Frank Vogel did not make them forget how to play winning basketball in one season.

THIS TEAM cannot play effectively without a true pass-first point guard. If you are not convinced, imagine swapping vintage Steve Nash into the starting lineup for Grayson. My pulse just increased 20 beats per minute.

No idea what move they coulda/shoulda made to avert this disaster. However, if they go into next season without a true point guard, I may have to picket FootPrint center.

[Split T]

I don’t think there’s room for a pg added to our big 3….in theory it sounds great, but imagine a Nash/nurk pick n roll with Beal, Booker, and Durant all off ball…are they gonna be ok standing in the corner? It becomes too much firepower that’s not being used.

I don’t really know why it didn’t work out, but I have a few thoughts:

1. Too small. KD is 6’11, but he plays small. He’s really a SF. Grayson, Beal, and Book are all SGs. We run 2,2,2,3,5

2. Not enough spacing because Nurk is neither a lob threat or a pop threat and our guys want to get to the rim/midrange and don’t take pull-up 3s.

3.There isn’t a natural pg on the roster and when the shots stop falling, our guys don’t know or don’t trust what they need to do. Need someone who can be trusted to keep the offense moving.

4. No true vocal leader. Too many lead by example types.

5. Coach doesn’t seem to be able to get the players to play the way he wants.

6. Lack of chemistry…they still look like they’ve never played with eachother at times.

7. They look defeated. They know they aren’t that good and it shows.

[Mori Chu]

Good posts and good list by Split. But there's a crucial area missing from the list: defense. To state the obvious, whether you win an NBA game comes down to whether your offense scores enough points and whether your defense stops the bad guys from scoring as many points as you did. Statistically, even though the ball-pounding, lack of ball movement, lack of PG / initiation, too many long 2s, etc., are infuriating, our offense this year is actually decent. But (a) given all our firepower, it should be excellent, not just "decent"; and (b) our defense is atrocious to go along with it, so we can't stop the other team from just outscoring us.

As I have said a few times, our starting five in 2021 had four plus-defenders: CP3, Mikal, Jae, Ayton; it had only one mediocre or minus-defender: Booker (and he isn't truly horrible, only mediocre). Most of our bench also played pretty good defense, guys like Cam Johnson, Torrey Craig, Jevon Carter, Jalen Smith. There are a few exceptions like Cam Payne and Dario Saric, but you get the idea: most of the roster was great at defense while also being good on offense.

This year, we have four mediocre or minus-defenders in the starting lineup: Book, Beal, Allen, and Nurkic. All of those guys are "okay" defenders, not truly awful like, say, KAT or James Harden. But "okay" isn't good enough. And none of them (other than maybe Nurkic) is "big" or "strong" for their position. Our best starting defender is KD, but he's also skinny and not great at stopping bulky PF/Cs. Our bench is also pretty questionable on D; Bol has long arms but poor body control, Eubanks is a spaz, Eric Gordon is old and fat. The bench guys who are actually impressive defenders don't play (Okogie, Thad Young, Saben Lee). O'Neale is a solid defender so I'll give them credit for finding him.

You can tell this team has a huge defensive problem because we don't even have that guy you can put on the other team's best player. Going up against Jamal Murray, or DeAaron Fox, or Jayson Tatum, or whomever? Who would we put on that guy to try to slow him down? Uhhh... Beal? Grayson Allen? It's a fucking joke. We don't have a single impressive defender in the starting lineup that you can use to guard the multitude of great swingmen in the NBA.

IMO we have grossly undervalued defense up and down the roster. You want to surround a Big 3 with 3-and-D guys, but most of the guys we grabbed aren't actually providing the "D" (heh), just the "3". Grayson Allen has been awesome this year, but a guy like Herb Jones or Lu Dort would be WAY more useful for us. IMO starting Royce O'Neale would be much better. And I think we should be playing Okogie. I know his shooting blows, but just lock the guy in the gym and make him practice corner 3s. His defense is what we need, and we could live with his shooting. Maybe we should be playing Little, too. At least he (ironically) has some size for his position.

Anyways, that's my rant. Don't build a roster full of bad defenders and take long 2s every possession and expect to win NBA games in 2024.

[Split T]

Good points, I didn’t specifically address defense but I was implying it with the too small comment.

I do agree that having one elite defender would go a long way. I give credit to Beal as he’s stepped up and played a lot better defense than he has in previous years, but he’s still not a lock down guy. Grayson tries hard but he’s not either. Royce might be a bit better, but he’s just solid, not great. Book is good when he tries, but he doesn’t generally exert a lot of energy on that end.

Is there anyone on the team that will get after Book? He didn’t play defense until Monty and Chris showed up…with them gone maybe there is no one to get after him anymore. KD isn’t doing it. I never want Pat Bev on this team, but we need someone with his mentality that will get after his teammates. We don’t have that right now.

[Scarecrow33]

This is the one I want to focus on:

"6. Lack of chemistry…they still look like they’ve never played with each other at times."

It's almost like negative chemistry. Since the earliest games everyone defers to someone else. Almost like they are trying to avoid making any mistakes but play so tentatively they make more mistakes.

How many times have Book or Beal or KD been open at the 3 point line, received a pass, looked the defender in the eye, and just fail to shoot the damn ball. They take a jab step, do a pump fake and then drive into traffic or toss the ball to the next guy around the arc who goes through the same check-down list. One reason Allen is so valuable is because he will often just let it fly from the catch.

Why are the passes so limp so often? Why are guys over-thinking every pass and then being pass-ive? Something must be being done or said in practice or meetings to make these guys forget how to play winning basketball.

[Split T]

Ya it’s clear they want to utilize the threat of the 3 to get by their defender and get to an “easier” shot. Problem is we still don’t have a lot of great finishers and Nurk’s defender can just leave him most the time and help on drives. We just need to shoot the ball. I wanna see 40 3s minimum. If you want to drive and kick, you can’t have a bad shooting, bad finishing C in the way.

I don’t want to pile on Nurk, he’s been good for us this year as a connector and rebounder, but he works when we shoot 3s or teams hedge or trap the ball handler. He’s not good when teams play less aggressive on the ball handler and we don’t shoot the ball.

[Mori Chu]

[Carno]

As a franchise we have been blessed with some of the best point guards to play in the NBA for the last 30 years at least. I haven't been on the "We need a PG no matter what" bandwagon. I was anxious to see what point-book or point-beal could do. I figured they could figure it out. Now I know they cannot.

There are teams that have won championships without stellar point guards. BJ Armstrong and Derek Fisher are not HOF candidates though their teams did quite well. The Triangle didn't need no pass first PG because it was designed for all-world, ball-dominant scoring guards.

Our big 3 have 37 years NBA experience, (or is it 40, now that we are at the end of the season.) They scored 52 points in game 2 vs the Wolves. 17.3 points per each. Frank Vogel did not make them forget how to play winning basketball in one season.

THIS TEAM cannot play effectively without a true pass-first point guard. If you are not convinced, imagine swapping vintage Steve Nash into the starting lineup for Grayson. My pulse just increased 20 beats per minute.

No idea what move they coulda/shoulda made to avert this disaster. However, if they go into next season without a true point guard, I may have to picket FootPrint center.

Steve Nash isn't walking through that door.

Who is this mythical point guard that you keep referring to, and how do the Suns get him? I'll save you the trouble; he doesn't exist.

[Flagrant Fowl]

POA defender is still more important to this roster than a traditional PG.

Booker and Beal are playing outside of their most optimal roles, but a significant part of that could be mitigated by lowering their defensive workload.

[Furlanfufi]

A good PG should not be a factor in a team with this much offensive firepower. Look at the Heat.

Some of their players would be on Shanghai Sharks if not for Spoelstra.

[carey]

It's not about the PG. We can't defend a statue.

[Superbone]

Speaking of statues: