So D'Antoni said the team he fears most in terms of disrupting the Sun's breakneck pace is the ROX. He mentioned that playing us comes down to a game of dictating pace. Sorry, don't have direct link, but I'm paraphrasing what was reported on NBA TV yesterday. So if it's all about dictating pace (as I think we all already know), why is it that the SUNS repeatedly are able to dictate pace, while we stand around as though we've never played against them before? The answer is that we lack offensive discipline. We don't have a real PG that can control pace and play a smart half-court game. And leaving the pace up to TMAC to dictate is not fair to him, as he is still mainly a scorer as opposed to a orchestrator, despite what some think. He still takes questionable shots that lead to long rebounds and easy fast break opportunities and he often takes those shots early in the clock. The fact that we cannot play our normal deliberate game throws Yao off his game, as he feels the need to rush shots and force shots because he knows he's not going to get many touches. All I will say about Rafer is that he possesses good skills (dribbling, passing), but he does not understand how to run a team. We need to learn from what the Lakers were able to do against the SUns in the playoffs last year...they used clock and dumped it down low to Kwame or Odom...or else Kobe would drive it to the basket or draw defenders and kick as the clock was winding down. This was effective and limited FG attempts for Phoenix....ultimately forced them to get tight and play into the Lakers hands... for a three games at least.
Good find man. If this is true,then well we just have to get it together against the suns,dont forget tmac and yao missed most of their shots,if they were both at 47 or 50% the game would've been close,or even a win for us for that matter.
that's my point....I think TMac and Yao will consistently "Suck" against this team if we don't get better at dictating tempo. Yao will continue to think, "Sh&**T, I better get my shot off before a fourth defender comes at me." And TMac, we all know, plays best when he has free reign to shoot whenever he feels it...which sometimes plays into the hands of Phoenix. I don't think we can or want to change Tmac...we've seen what happens when we try....he becomes far less productive. The solution has to be to play a PG who understands the larger picture of what the Suns want to do VS. what the WE want to do. Right now we don't have that, unless he's sitting on the bench...either that or VG will have to micromanage each possession and give Rafer an earpiece so he can tell him when to pull back and when to attack.
i dont like Marion on Tmac. We have to exploit Yao vs Amare/Thomas/Diaw They have to get Yao the ball earlier in the possession.
the suns were taking yao out and tmac shot poorly his legs were not there you could tell he was short on a lot of his jumpers.if tmac had a good game instead of one of his poorest performances of the year we may have won i dont know if we would have. its all ifs at that point. and the suns announcers did mention what d'antoni said and through the first three quarters i just kept thinking man we're right there if we actually had hit some of our easier shots we could be tied. my biggest beef with rafer is not his 3pt shooting but his lack of offensive discpline as someone mentioned earlier he naturally tries to push it against the suns and takes some poor shots. last night there were at least 3 times i saw yao had his man sealed a rafer dribbled and either took the shot or went away from yao. on a night where the big guy is struggling to get good shots you have to feed him the ball on the few possesions where he is open to keep him active. everytime i see him run down the court only to see him get down and turn around and run back because of a quick shot by rafer that is not a designed shot of the offense makes me want to pull my hair. sadly i keep thinking that a great pg for this team is bob sura, he didnt have as good handles as rafer but he had a high bball iq. he pushed when there was an advantage and slowed it down when nothing was there. spot up 3pt shooter about the same as rafer through i am more confident with sura's stroke, a much better finisher and rebounder, defensively they are the same each eith their own strengths in different defensive areas. sigh i wish bobby was back, i hope morey goes after a bobba sura type pg in the offseason with the mle...a big guy is needed but i think you could find a serviceable big in the D league or the draft. we dont need an all-star pf. a hustling pf like hayes would be great (well taller and a better shooter)
Spacing was horrible last night. Don't get me wrong, Phoenix played great defense...in that kind of way where Seattle used to illegally play defense on Hakeem. It makes the entry passers hesitant to get the ball into the post. There's a reason both Chucky and Juwan had good offensive nights. It's not coincidence that it happened...it was the way Phoenix was playing defense....BUT, Rafer sucked, and spacing was possibly the worst I've seen all season from this team. For Yao, for the guards, for everybody. Hopefully if the team ever gets to play Phoenix not on the second night of a back to back, we'll see something a little different.
You will get your wish on April 16th at Toyota Center. And its a back to back for the Suns, unfortunately we are the first game though.
Is this supposed to be a slap in the face? Seriously, for us to have a chance against them, our outside shots have to fall, otherwise they'll easily take Yao out of the game by doubling or tripling him. With a guard of such woeful shooting percentage in Rafer, and also Tmac at 30%, there is no chance.
i actually completely agree with his comments...although i would have to put SA right there also. i don't think we've had a fair shot at really playing the suns.. all three back to back and once without tmac and yao. We held them to 8 points under their avg...all we have to do is make our shots and we can beat them...
he may be right but we've posed nowhere close to a threat in any recent game i can remember. it'll be interesting to see where we stand when both teams are rested and yao is back in shape, cause he's clearly still not there stamina-wise yet. it'll also help if rafer will quit shooting jumpers with 20 seconds left in the shot clock. i don't have a problem with him shooting open jumpers from yao or tracy passes but thinking he's steve nash is going to do nothing but hurt us. run the offense and take open shots and i'd have a lot less of a problem with him.
Agree with everything you said, against an up tempo team like Phx, PG needs to do a better job at slowing down and set up an effective half court offence. Let the shot clock wind down and upset their tempo on defence. We just seem to run with them whenever we play with the suns and our advantages always seem to become a liability, namely Yao. And guys need to be tougher and more physical on defence.
Don't know if you were watching the game but the Suns were triple teaming Yao way before he even got the ball. And of course the Suns biggest strength is Yao's biggest weakness, Yao had to ask out of the game in the first quarter bacause he was pooped. When he did get touches, he missed most of them, I think it's getting close to say that the Suns are getting into Yao's head where he automatically thinks he will struggle when we play them. I think there were a few teams like that in Hakeem's days.
Rafer has come close to decapitating heads with the rebounds created off his misses. Who would of thought playing basketball would be such an occupational hazard.
It's called Public Relations. Mike d'Antoni will say the same thing with whatever team they face. The Suns are classy like that. D'ANTONI: The team we most fear are the Celtics...the team that can beat us any given night are the Hawks...we were lucky to beat the Grizzlies. They're really tough... Rudy T used to be the master at this sort of thing.
not to mention he knows we are Phoenix's b****es right now and he doesn't want to upset the apple cart. DD
