Phx-Suns.Net

Suns needed a wakeup call. Yes, Atlanta was hot. But they weren't playing with urgency tonight and their defense has been lacking lately. You can't just play back and forth all game or dig a hole and then turn it on with 6 minutes left in the game hoping to always win. Time to get back to the basics and play disciplined defense.

James Jones needs to make getting a solid guard our priority. Eric Gordon. Somebody. Paul checked out early in the 4th and less than 2 minutes later, Williams had him back in the game. We aren't going to make it to the finals if we are relying on Shamet as Booker's backup and Payton / Cam Payne. I get that Payne was starting to turn a corner before his injury but I'm worried he's going to revert to the disappointment he was before he started to figure it out.

AmareIsGod wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 03, 2022 8:07 pm

Suns needed a wakeup call. Yes, Atlanta was hot. But they weren't playing with urgency tonight and their defense has been lacking lately. You can't just play back and forth all game or dig a hole and then turn it on with 6 minutes left in the game hoping to always win. Time to get back to the basics and play disciplined defense.

James Jones needs to make getting a solid guard our priority. Eric Gordon. Somebody. Paul checked out early in the 4th and less than 2 minutes later, Williams had him back in the game. We aren't going to make it to the finals if we are relying on Shamet as Booker's backup and Payton / Cam Payne. I get that Payne was starting to turn a corner before his injury but I'm worried he's going to revert to the disappointment he was before he started to figure it out.

I'm comfortable with Payne, but Shamet and Payton aren't cutting it, so I agree - they really need to look at shoring up the backcourt.

The Bobster wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 03, 2022 8:16 pm

AmareIsGod wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 03, 2022 8:07 pm

Suns needed a wakeup call. Yes, Atlanta was hot. But they weren't playing with urgency tonight and their defense has been lacking lately. You can't just play back and forth all game or dig a hole and then turn it on with 6 minutes left in the game hoping to always win. Time to get back to the basics and play disciplined defense.

James Jones needs to make getting a solid guard our priority. Eric Gordon. Somebody. Paul checked out early in the 4th and less than 2 minutes later, Williams had him back in the game. We aren't going to make it to the finals if we are relying on Shamet as Booker's backup and Payton / Cam Payne. I get that Payne was starting to turn a corner before his injury but I'm worried he's going to revert to the disappointment he was before he started to figure it out.

I'm comfortable with Payne, but Shamet and Payton aren't cutting it, so I agree - they really need to look at shoring up the backcourt.

I just want Payne to be available more and consistent. If we get the guy from last season and the stretch before his wrist injury, great. But I want more guard depth.

Even Payne was pretty rough in the finals.

Payton is proving to be unplayable in a mostly meaningless regular season game. It’ll be pretty irresponsible if we don’t do something to fix our guard depth

Terrrible coaching.

Benching Ayton (4 assists, 9 rebounds through 3 quarters), who had a +0, with Booker -6, Paul -4, McGee -12, and Ayton's replacement Cam Johnson with a -10!

And then leaving that small lineup in there when they:
1. Weren't getting the job done
2. Were too tired to finish it out
and
3. The game was over, and he still wouldn't take anyone out.

Booker and Paul played almost the entire second half. Just to get a loss. I hope Monty realizes it's not worth it for a regular season game.

Hawks are a dangerous team. A lot of offense and they can play really good defense. They've underachieved so far but they're a fun team when they're clicking. We couldn't slow down Huerter; Collins and Gallo are matchup problems with their size and 3 level scoring and Trae had himself 43 on 16-25 with 6 threes. Didn't love the super small look late in the game and not sure what the point of Stix was.

Mikal's scoring the past 3 games has been really encouraging to see. We have set plays we're running for him and he's got go-to shots he's making with ease. Complete game from him with 24-8-4-2stls on 9-17 and 2 threes. Mostly typical games from everyone else, with DA quiet and a step off/slow. Payne and/or Shamet would've helped by at least being threats, which we're missing off the bench.

Bottom line is you're not winning many games giving up 124 pts. They made 20 threes, so if that's what it takes to beat us so be it. But the Hawks are capable of shooting like that. They'd be a team that could give us a run in a 7 game series.

"Didn't love the super small look late in the game and not sure what the point of Stix was."

That was baffling, especially with Collins and Gallo, both 6-10, out there for the Hawks.

Looking back at the game, the only thing I can think of was Monty Williams wanting to test out some different lineups and combinations during the regular season against a quality opponent since the playoffs are quality teams. Popovich would do that regularly with those championship squads. Otherwise our lineups and coaching in that game, particularly late, were very suspect.

JeremyG wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 03, 2022 8:26 pm

Terrrible coaching.

Benching Ayton (4 assists, 9 rebounds through 3 quarters), who had a +0, with Booker -6, Paul -4, McGee -12, and Ayton's replacement Cam Johnson with a -10!

And then leaving that small lineup in there when they:
1. Weren't getting the job done
2. Were too tired to finish it out
and
3. The game was over, and he still wouldn't take anyone out.

Booker and Paul played almost the entire second half. Just to get a loss. I hope Monty realizes it's not worth it for a regular season game.

You should get your Ayton knee pads autographed

Young feigns that he’s hurt to start the game and then shows that he’s really not. Won the mind game tonight. Hawks three point shooting was just torrid tonight. Nothing you can do about that. I’ll tell you one thing though, the Suns are not an easy out. In spite of all that they hung tough and put pressure on them until the end.

Mori Chu wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 03, 2022 7:52 pm

What is Monty doing keeping our guys in to the bitter end? Throw in the towel.

This team doesn’t give up. Maybe to a fault.

Wow man

Well like I said in my preview, no breaking news that it would all be about Trae. We did take advantage of him on the defensive end, Mikal was making light work of it probably had 4 or 5 easy turn around jumpers but we weren't able to get him in foul trouble or anything. He was giving up points (2pters) on just about everybody he switched on to but then going down and hitting 3s so that obviously didn't work out. I'm obviously still happy to see Mikal getting the buckets tho for three straight 20+

Book got his 32 but didn't seem to really get into rhythm, I'm surprised he finished 13/27 because it felt like one of those inefficient nights not to mention grabbing zero rebounds is a really strange stat for him.

That Huerter 2nd quarter stretch was nuts man, thought when they could only muster a 3pt lead at HT that we would do our thing and close it out but credit to them.