Game Day: Nets (12-10) @ Suns (13-10), Wed 12/13/23

[ShelC]

Another shitty one. I agree this team right now isn't any fun to watch. There's no juice, no comradery, no excitement. No flow and even when KD and Book are doing their thing, everything seems hard for them. That all goes away if we're winning, but we aren't. We still have the excuse that the Big 3 haven't really played together yet and we're not healthy and will need EG and Allen on the floor as shooters. But we gotta get it together soon. Too many wasted possessions, bad decisions, careless turnovers.

Book went the 1st qtr without looking for a shot, which felt a bit CP3-ish. He needs to be a scorer, balancing that out with still running the team. I still like the Goodwin minutes where Book is off the ball. I worry about how hard the game's become for him now that he's seeing double teams more than half the game.

Beal still looked out of sorts but had a few good possessions. He's had to work hard for his shots too, which is odd now that he's been out there with KD and Book. I know we're going with PointBook but Beal's gotta take on some of the ballhandling to even things out and make sure he's staying involved. Looked like he was standing and watching too much while Book was on the ball.

Little played well after a tough start but the mask is bothering him. Metu had his shot going but doesn't provide much else and didn't start the 2nd half. I do think we'll play better with Allen and EG out there, but will they help the defense and rebounding?

[Wally_West]

Can we talk more about how big Nurk’s dick has been these last several games?

It’s been pretty big ngl

[England Sun]

This was one of those games where an even slightly productive bench would help and we had our 6th & 7th men out.
Agree there’s still much to work on and it’s not going to be the beating of teams in 3 quarters as some predicted with the big 3, but most teams would struggle with two of their top 7 guys out.
And it was a loss of less than a handful of points.

[Split T]

Book was +16 in a 4 point loss. We were outscored by 20 points during the 8 minutes he was on the bench. I didn’t watch the game, but that seems like the game right there.

[SunsSince92]

Even when we didn't have CP3, our offense was not standing around while someone dribbles the air out of the ball. As someone pointed, we should get a lot of easy backcuts, open 3s and transition buckets, but all we're getting is turnovers.

Yep, I agree but that's because we didn't have the elite scorers we have now. Everyone wanted to be involved in the offense because there wasn't really a pecking order after Book (who wasn't the player he is now). There's almost too much deference to Book and KD (and presumably Beal soon) to do everything on the offensive end.

As you say, that leads to a lot of iso ball with the role players standing around watching them play. A fair percentage of the turnovers have come when one of those 3 has tried something that's failed and they're frantically looking to pass out of it to keep the possession alive.

It's something they need to address as it's just not working at the moment.

[Nodack]

That game must have felt good if you are Cam and Mikal.

[Superbone]

Can we talk more about how good Nurk has been these last several games?

Honestly he’s been doing fantastic and been better than anticipated.

We wasted his career high rebounding night.

[Mori Chu]

I hate our bad offensive flow and how every possession seems like we have to work hard to get a contested shot. With so many gunners we should be draining a ton of 3s and scoring 140 ppg or something. But it seems like defenses have figured us out and force us to waste 20 seconds of the clock and then hoist a contested jumper. Maybe it can be improved with the personnel and coaching staff we have. I don't know if Point Book is really a viable offense, and I certainly don't like seeing KD and Nurk bring the ball up like they seem to love to do. I'm still trying to be patient because it was a B2B game/loss and the first game with all our Big 3 guys together. But it's frustrating to watch. I just want a smoother offense that looks like they have a plan; it just looks like they dribble it up and see what happens. Needs improvement.

[TOO]

Until the Suns show they can consistently handle a team when they blitz the ball handler this team isn't going anywhere. They need to get out and run, this walk it up, let your initiatior get doubled immediately and then have to throw cross court passes because there is no release valve isn't effective, no matter who is on the court. Don't even gete started on Gordon and his jump passes or Nurk and his worm burner back door passes, ugh. Just sloppy and unorganized all around.

[Split T]

Fun fact, only one team in suns history has had a better offensive rating than this current team. That was the Finals team in 2021. Yes there are some issues we need to figure out, but even with our big 3 only playing 1 game together so far, we still have a better offense than all but 1 past suns team. There is no reason to panic yet.

[TOO]

How do the defense, rebound, and TO rates stack up to the 21 team?

[Split T]

Defense is worse by 3.8 points per 100 possessions, turnover rate is 2% points higher, offensive rebound rate is 6% points higher, defensive rebound rate is 5% points lower

[TOO]

Generally worse across the board. But barely, interesting. This is where we advanced stats just feel like a lie, because the eye test says this is a 6th seed if they are lucky.

[Cap]

Anyone bet on the Suns preseason at +550?

[In2ition]

Another shitty one. I agree this team right now isn't any fun to watch. There's no juice, no comradery, no excitement. No flow and even when KD and Book are doing their thing, everything seems hard for them. That all goes away if we're winning, but we aren't. We still have the excuse that the Big 3 haven't really played together yet and we're not healthy and will need EG and Allen on the floor as shooters. But we gotta get it together soon. Too many wasted possessions, bad decisions, careless turnovers.

Book went the 1st qtr without looking for a shot, which felt a bit CP3-ish. He needs to be a scorer, balancing that out with still running the team. I still like the Goodwin minutes where Book is off the ball. I worry about how hard the game's become for him now that he's seeing double teams more than half the game.

Beal still looked out of sorts but had a few good possessions. He's had to work hard for his shots too, which is odd now that he's been out there with KD and Book. I know we're going with PointBook but Beal's gotta take on some of the ballhandling to even things out and make sure he's staying involved. Looked like he was standing and watching too much while Book was on the ball.

Little played well after a tough start but the mask is bothering him. Metu had his shot going but doesn't provide much else and didn't start the 2nd half. I do think we'll play better with Allen and EG out there, but will they help the defense and rebounding?

Yeah, Book was trying to get everyone else going in the first quarter. KD needed those game time reps to get his timing back. Instead of building a big lead, they settled, thinking they will weather whatever storm was coming. Those minutes that Book was on the bench were brutal, again. You just can't keep giving up these large runs to teams. 19-0 run was ridiculous, and the Suns were missing shots, turning the ball over, allowing open 3s and the Nets to get into a nice rhythm, allowing offensive rebounds again and again until the Nets finally hit their shots, and just not generating offense through drawing fouls or layups.

Metu, although he has a nice shot is super soft, has a bit of aligator arms, can't seem to grab or secure a ball he has his hands on, and isn't the best deterrent on the defensive end. I was an advocate of playing him, but last night he really disappointed me with him not being able to do anything but shoot rn.

It's bothersome that this team has a really hard time putting any type of resistance up when the shot is released against offensive rebounders. They just turn and look instead of forcing contact to create space to secure the rebounds after a decent defensive stand. This is killing them.

I also really dislike this offense. Not enough cutting and moving. Just some simple PnR and reads off of it. It's no wonder it seems to bog down very quickly when Book is out.

[specialsauce]

Can we talk more about how big Nurk’s dick has been these last several games?

It’s been pretty big ngl

Lmao

[Split T]

I’ll be curious to see where it lands after we’ve had some time with our roster intact. I fully expect the offensive rating to be pretty easily the best in suns history…defense will be a problem. You can also see how the offense and defense is rated compared to an average offense and defense from that season.

This years team is more like 12-15 in relative offensive rating. The 04-05 team is the suns best offensive team by relative offensive rating. A true offensive juggernaut in an era of bad offense.

[specialsauce]

Another shitty one. I agree this team right now isn't any fun to watch. There's no juice, no comradery, no excitement. No flow and even when KD and Book are doing their thing, everything seems hard for them. That all goes away if we're winning, but we aren't. We still have the excuse that the Big 3 haven't really played together yet and we're not healthy and will need EG and Allen on the floor as shooters. But we gotta get it together soon. Too many wasted possessions, bad decisions, careless turnovers.

Book went the 1st qtr without looking for a shot, which felt a bit CP3-ish. He needs to be a scorer, balancing that out with still running the team. I still like the Goodwin minutes where Book is off the ball. I worry about how hard the game's become for him now that he's seeing double teams more than half the game.

Beal still looked out of sorts but had a few good possessions. He's had to work hard for his shots too, which is odd now that he's been out there with KD and Book. I know we're going with PointBook but Beal's gotta take on some of the ballhandling to even things out and make sure he's staying involved. Looked like he was standing and watching too much while Book was on the ball.

Little played well after a tough start but the mask is bothering him. Metu had his shot going but doesn't provide much else and didn't start the 2nd half. I do think we'll play better with Allen and EG out there, but will they help the defense and rebounding?

I just don’t see ya running many offensive sets. All iso.

[Mori Chu]

I'm trying not to worry too much. It was a back-to-back, and it was their first game playing together, and many of our key bench roleplayers were out. I want to give them a few more games. There's a lot of good stuff in there with the bad stuff. The bad stuff seems ... fixable. Still.

[Cap]

This team does not look at all like a contender, and the excuses are becoming less and less convincing.