Game Day: Suns (7-7) @ TWolves (8-7), Sat 11/23/19

[ShelC]

Ugly game but these are the ones you gotta win too. Didn't really look like anyone was sharp or engaged, even the refs. Some real poor execution on both ends but I liked the rebounding and effort in the paint. Booker had a big line but still feels like he's hesitant looking for his shot. We definitely saw more ISO from him in the 2nd half and it was good to see him getting to the line. No 3s interestingly but he stayed with what was working. Kelly seemed off with his energy but came on in the 2nd half and finished with 25 and 11 with 4 steals and got to the line 9 times. Pretty non descript game frm everyone else. We definitely did just enough offensively to win.

The +/- in the boxscore is a little confusing. All the starters except Dario (?!?) were negatives while Cam, Diallo, Tyler Johnson and Elie were positives despite Cam, Elie, and Tyler going a combined 3 of 20. I like Elie's play recently and think he could be a nice player who develops under the coaching staff. Diallo was great in limited minutes and maybe gives Monty some confidence going forward.

Feels like Monty wants to keep as much consistency with lineups, rotations, roles, minutes as he can. I don't think we'll all of a sudden see Frank in the doghouse and Diallo starting games until Baynes/Ayton comes back. He's moving guys in the lineup and giving more minutes but not really messing with the offense or using too many different combos.

[3rdside]

Didn’t watch it but great win.

It’s just one win, but if we do that, with who we had out, shooting 34% and 28%, and we did it in Minnesota ... Minnesota must not be very good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Nodack]

I’ll take the win. Diallo played well. He does deserve more minutes. If we don’t play Saric and Kaminsky who are we playing? Diallo at center yes and then?... Saric or Kaminsky.

Hopefully we will get back to full strength and go on another roll sooner than later.

[specialsauce]

I’ll take the win. Diallo played well. He does deserve more minutes. If we don’t play Saric and Kaminsky who are we playing? Diallo at center yes and then?... Saric or Kaminsky.

Hopefully we will get back to full strength and go on another roll sooner than later.

Start Bridges at the 4 with Saric at 5. Bring Diallo/Kaminsky off the bench at the 5.

They just cannot be on the court together. It’s cringeworthy

[Shabazz]

Suns got lucky in this one that KAT didn't attack the basket more. He would have had 50. Only took 7 shots inside the 3 point line.

Not sure what's going on with Tyler. He was one of the few players I thought we could count on for consistency before the season. He's been consistently bad.

[carey]

Frank is a stretch 5. Ask him to do anything else and you’ll be disappointed. He needs to rebound on defense and then set screens & pop on offense. Watching him attempt to score inside is brutal. Can he even jump?

Was hard watching Booker and Oubre drag this team to victory tonight. The bench was awful. Bridges needs to get his shit sorted.

[Superbone]

Booker coming on. 14/8/6 right now...triple double watch

Too bad he missed his first TD by one assist.

[specialsauce]

Frank is a stretch 5. Ask him to do anything else and you’ll be disappointed. He needs to rebound on defense and then set screens & pop on offense. Watching him attempt to score inside is brutal. Can he even jump?

Was hard watching Booker and Oubre drag this team to victory tonight. The bench was awful. Bridges needs to get his s*** sorted.

The bench was awful????? Huh? Did we watch the same game?

[specialsauce]

Frank is a stretch 5. Ask him to do anything else and you’ll be disappointed. He needs to rebound on defense and then set screens & pop on offense. Watching him attempt to score inside is brutal. Can he even jump?

Was hard watching Booker and Oubre drag this team to victory tonight. The bench was awful. Bridges needs to get his s*** sorted.

The bench was awful????? Huh? Did we watch the same game?

Bridges was +11 tonight. Every member of the bench was a plus.

[carey]

Frank is a stretch 5. Ask him to do anything else and you’ll be disappointed. He needs to rebound on defense and then set screens & pop on offense. Watching him attempt to score inside is brutal. Can he even jump?

Was hard watching Booker and Oubre drag this team to victory tonight. The bench was awful. Bridges needs to get his s*** sorted.

The bench was awful????? Huh? Did we watch the same game?

Bridges was +11 tonight. Every member of the bench was a plus.

Cam 1-7, Bridges 1-5, Okobo 1-7. Like I said, Booker dragged them along to the win. He should have had 15 assists or more last night.

[LazarusLong]

Bench guys hustled and brought the Suns back into the lead in the second quarter.
Diallo had 6 pts (on 3-3 shooting), 5 rebs and 2 assists.
Okobo, the smallest guy on the floor, had 6 rebounds.
Bridges had 5 rebs, 2 assts and 2 steals.
C johnson had 2 steals.

Yes, they didn't shoot well, but none of the starters were scorching the nets.
The second unit did a number of things that were noticeable if one was watching the game.

Booker and Oubre didn't shoot exceptionally well, but they did get to the foul line and made 19-20 combined FTs.

[Aztec Sunsfan]

On a night were neither team could buy a decent string of offensive possessions, we did just enough to prevail. I’ll take it, ugly ass games counts the same in the W-L columns and we desperately needed to stop the fall. Good to see the guys trying to get this one in order to avoid going under .500 and succeeding, it builds character and as someone else said it, enough of moral victories, we need to start winning games we have no business winning like tonight’s.

On the old times, we would win a lot of beautiful games but would lose the ugly ones, then in the postseason, you could tell in the face of some players the lack of resilience to get trough slumps and dragged games, many Spurs playoff games comes to mind where they dragged us to the mud and we got stuck while the crawled out of the pit with the W.

So yeah, great win, and great to see Booker dragging us out of the mud.

[Aztec Sunsfan]

Underrated subplot in this game: Can Booker discreetly whisper in KAT's ear that he has to come to Phoenix? Ayton, salary, picks for KAT. Let's get it done.

This will be my new fantasy trade I keep trying in the Trade Machine to start and finish a session. Sadly, that Wiggins resurgence probably pit the breaks on any internal discussion about it, both on the FO and on KAT’s camp.

What valuables would you put in the table next to Ayton? Bridges? Our pick doesn’t look so juicy this year.

By the way, is someone else missing Ayton on the trade machine today? I went to run this and he is not even in our roster, is this because of the suspension? “25 games and banned from NBA’s games, activities and trade machines for a first time offense”

[ShelC]

Ayton and Bridges would be the core to any KAT trade and not sure that'd be enough. Maybe we throw in Cam plus picks? If Minny were looking to trade KAT, they could do worse than Ayton for sure. But would they want to trade him to a WC team to play with his buddy? Minny could probably get better offers anyway. Off the top of my head I think Minny and Orlando could come up with an interesting deal.

[3rdside]

Baynes and Rubio out again tonight..man what a tough start to the season.

[Aztec Sunsfan]

Baynes and Rubio out again tonight..man what a tough start to the season.

Not sure they would make our chances to win better than “really doubtful”, so perhaps the extra days until the Wizards game will be better for the long run than throwing them into an really difficult game day. I keep thinking that Rubio aggravated his back by coming back too soon.

[specialsauce]

Frank is a stretch 5. Ask him to do anything else and you’ll be disappointed. He needs to rebound on defense and then set screens & pop on offense. Watching him attempt to score inside is brutal. Can he even jump?

Was hard watching Booker and Oubre drag this team to victory tonight. The bench was awful. Bridges needs to get his s*** sorted.

The bench was awful????? Huh? Did we watch the same game?

Bridges was +11 tonight. Every member of the bench was a plus.

Cam 1-7, Bridges 1-5, Okobo 1-7. Like I said, Booker dragged them along to the win. He should have had 15 assists or more last night.

Uh there’s more to it than Fg%. They scored significantly more points than the opponent on their time on the court. That’s as good as it gets. Did Book drag Kaminsky to a -18??

[3rdside]

Baynes and jokic is a good match up, likewise booker and Murray ... add Rubio and a bit of luck and we’re a game (ye of little faith!)

[Superbone]

Will somebody please put up a game thread for tonight? I’m actually in Arizona but heading back to Cali in a few hours but don’t have time to put up the game thread. Thanks in advance.

[3rdside]

coming right up...