GDT: Wolves at Suns

[FNG]

My game review:

We're in Tucson, and at about 3pm my honey said "do you want to drive up to Phoenix for the Wolves game?" I said "Nah, I'm not driving 4 hours roundtrip to spend $400 to watch a scheduled loss".


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/45/9f/ac ... 88fec7.png

[Carlos Danger]

My game review:

We're in Tucson, and at about 3pm my honey said "do you want to drive up to Phoenix for the Wolves game?" I said "Nah, I'm not driving 4 hours roundtrip to spend $400 to watch a scheduled loss".


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/45/9f/ac ... 88fec7.png

That was a good call LST. My take? I can live with losing 3 out of every 11 games.

At least Towns is starting to come around. We have plenty of talent. Didn't see the game, but looking at the box score...I see:
SlowMo had three assists. Troy Brown one. And the rest of the bench - goose egg. Maybe it was a game we could have used a little JMac? Let's see if Finchy can get them back into Win mode.

[FNG]

My game review:

We're in Tucson, and at about 3pm my honey said "do you want to drive up to Phoenix for the Wolves game?" I said "Nah, I'm not driving 4 hours roundtrip to spend $400 to watch a scheduled loss".


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/45/9f/ac ... 88fec7.png

That was a good call LST. My take? I can live with losing 3 out of every 11 games.

At least Towns is starting to come around. We have plenty of talent. Didn't see the game, but looking at the box score...I see:
SlowMo had three assists. Troy Brown one. And the rest of the bench - goose egg. Maybe it was a game we could have used a little JMac? Let's see if Finchy can get them back into Win mode.

Oh, I agree, Anthony...I'm a homer, but I didn't have this team 8-3 after 11 games. I looked at the box too, and I don't think JMac would have helped much. Normally we're going to win most games in which we only turn the ball over last night, but our #1 defense let a 3-6 team shoot 60%...JMac wasn't going to help there. You have to be focused to play great defense, and we were understandably lax after 2 great wins in the Bay Area. I'm optimistic about how we show up in the Big Easy.

[Q-is-here]

My game review:

We're in Tucson, and at about 3pm my honey said "do you want to drive up to Phoenix for the Wolves game?" I said "Nah, I'm not driving 4 hours roundtrip to spend $400 to watch a scheduled loss".


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/45/9f/ac ... 88fec7.png

That was a good call LST. My take? I can live with losing 3 out of every 11 games.

At least Towns is starting to come around. We have plenty of talent. Didn't see the game, but looking at the box score...I see:
SlowMo had three assists. Troy Brown one. And the rest of the bench - goose egg. Maybe it was a game we could have used a little JMac? Let's see if Finchy can get them back into Win mode.

Oh, I agree, Anthony...I'm a homer, but I didn't have this team 8-3 after 11 games. I looked at the box too, and I don't think JMac would have helped much. Normally we're going to win most games in which we only turn the ball over last night, but our #1 defense let a 3-6 team shoot 60%...JMac wasn't going to help there. You have to be focused to play great defense, and we were understandably lax after 2 great wins in the Bay Area. I'm optimistic about how we show up in the Big Easy.

I don't know...I get the scheduled loss stuff, etc., etc....but it was a humbling experience because great offense can always beat a great defense in the NBA. And Durant and Booker are ridiculously tough covers. Now add Beal to the mix - yikes!

My takeaway is less about doing anything different defensively and more about adding firepower to our team at some point before the trade deadline. Not sure we have enough of it to keep up with a full strength Phoenix squad in a playoff series based on our roster today.

[Carlos Danger]

That was a good call LST. My take? I can live with losing 3 out of every 11 games.

At least Towns is starting to come around. We have plenty of talent. Didn't see the game, but looking at the box score...I see:
SlowMo had three assists. Troy Brown one. And the rest of the bench - goose egg. Maybe it was a game we could have used a little JMac? Let's see if Finchy can get them back into Win mode.

Oh, I agree, Anthony...I'm a homer, but I didn't have this team 8-3 after 11 games. I looked at the box too, and I don't think JMac would have helped much. Normally we're going to win most games in which we only turn the ball over last night, but our #1 defense let a 3-6 team shoot 60%...JMac wasn't going to help there. You have to be focused to play great defense, and we were understandably lax after 2 great wins in the Bay Area. I'm optimistic about how we show up in the Big Easy.

I don't know...I get the scheduled loss stuff, etc., etc....but it was a humbling experience because great offense can always beat a great defense in the NBA. And Durant and Booker are ridiculously tough covers. Now add Beal to the mix - yikes!

My takeaway is less about doing anything different defensively and more about adding firepower to our team at some point before the trade deadline. Not sure we have enough of it to keep up with a full strength Phoenix squad in a playoff series based on our roster today.

Good take and I agree. We could use another spark plug off the bench for sure. Naz is doing his part. SlowMo is solid/steady. But it would be nice if one of Shake/NAW/TBJ would show some scoring. It sounds like NAW is doing a lot of other good things, so I give him a pass. But yeah - for years we had a ton of one sided/offense only guys (Beasley, DLO etc.). I think we could use one like that off the bench and the rest of the two way guys could cover for him defensively - especially if paired with Rudy.

[FNG]

Oh, I agree, Anthony...I'm a homer, but I didn't have this team 8-3 after 11 games. I looked at the box too, and I don't think JMac would have helped much. Normally we're going to win most games in which we only turn the ball over last night, but our #1 defense let a 3-6 team shoot 60%...JMac wasn't going to help there. You have to be focused to play great defense, and we were understandably lax after 2 great wins in the Bay Area. I'm optimistic about how we show up in the Big Easy.

I don't know...I get the scheduled loss stuff, etc., etc....but it was a humbling experience because great offense can always beat a great defense in the NBA. And Durant and Booker are ridiculously tough covers. Now add Beal to the mix - yikes!

My takeaway is less about doing anything different defensively and more about adding firepower to our team at some point before the trade deadline. Not sure we have enough of it to keep up with a full strength Phoenix squad in a playoff series based on our roster today.

Good take and I agree. We could use another spark plug off the bench for sure. Naz is doing his part. SlowMo is solid/steady. But it would be nice if one of Shake/NAW/TBJ would show some scoring. It sounds like NAW is doing a lot of other good things, so I give him a pass. But yeah - for years we had a ton of one sided/offense only guys (Beasley, DLO etc.). I think we could use one like that off the bench and the rest of the two way guys could cover for him defensively - especially if paired with Rudy.

I suspect most teams would love to have more scoring from their bench, but I'm quite comfortable with ours. NAW is a problem, but I think SloMo, Naz and Milton are above average bench players. My biggest concern right now is Edwards, because he has been quite subpar the past four games...38% shooting and 27% on threes with way too much top of the key dribbling rather than moving the ball or attacking. I'm happy with the early season contributions from our other four starters and three of our bench players (and I was ecstatic about what Ant was doing in the first 7 games), but Ant's trajectory in the past 4 games is a problem. Silver lining? We won 3 of those games, which just goes to prove how good this roster is. But I want to see better play at both ends of the court from Ant.

[FNG]

I realize I may be piling on Ant here, but i have a question for those who actually watched the game. I did break down and watched most of the first quarter, and thought Jaden's defense on Durant was superb and Ant's on Booker was awful. Then I think I read somewhere that Finchie swapped the defensive assignments at some point, and noticed that KD ended up with 31 points (I don't remember seeing him score on Jaden)! I wonder how many of the 62 combined points by Booker and Durant were when they were lined up with Ant rather than Jaden. Based on what I saw in the first quarter, I'm concerned it might be at least 3/4 of them.

[KG4Ever]

I don't know...I get the scheduled loss stuff, etc., etc....but it was a humbling experience because great offense can always beat a great defense in the NBA. And Durant and Booker are ridiculously tough covers. Now add Beal to the mix - yikes!

My takeaway is less about doing anything different defensively and more about adding firepower to our team at some point before the trade deadline. Not sure we have enough of it to keep up with a full strength Phoenix squad in a playoff series based on our roster today.

Good take and I agree. We could use another spark plug off the bench for sure. Naz is doing his part. SlowMo is solid/steady. But it would be nice if one of Shake/NAW/TBJ would show some scoring. It sounds like NAW is doing a lot of other good things, so I give him a pass. But yeah - for years we had a ton of one sided/offense only guys (Beasley, DLO etc.). I think we could use one like that off the bench and the rest of the two way guys could cover for him defensively - especially if paired with Rudy.

I suspect most teams would love to have more scoring from their bench, but I'm quite comfortable with ours. NAW is a problem, but I think SloMo, Naz and Milton are above average bench players. My biggest concern right now is Edwards, because he has been quite subpar the past four games...38% shooting and 27% on threes with way too much top of the key dribbling rather than moving the ball or attacking. I'm happy with the early season contributions from our other four starters and three of our bench players (and I was ecstatic about what Ant was doing in the first 7 games), but Ant's trajectory in the past 4 games is a problem. Silver lining? We won 3 of those games, which just goes to prove how good this roster is. But I want to see better play at both ends of the court from Ant.

FNG, I agree 100%. Ant has been the biggest offensive problem on our road trip and he is such a high volume shooter, that when he's off, it hurts the team. I love Ant, but I kind of wish he would focus on higher percentage shots and pass more, plus put more consistent energy on defense. We got plenty of scorers so when Ant isn't feeling it he needs to move the ball more. I also like our bench scoring overall and Conley could use some rest days and I feel confident that our shooting will be fine as both Shake and JMAC shoot better than 50% overall and 42% on threes as starters and play better with higher usage.