Motion offenses that set a ton of screens and move and shoot the 3 efficiently. Last night the Wolves killed us with ultimate small ball. The Golden State formula all over again. Half the game they played with a 6-8 and 6-9 combo at c/pf (kyle/mcdaniels) with 3 other smalls...... and at least 3 guys at a time on the court shooting over 38% from 3 with all 5 guys with a good to great handle. We're sending Sengun Durant and Bari out there to defend those lineups in space with all that movement???? And then running Clint out there with the bench? One of the startersminutes should have been limited. (Bari not Sengun.) And Clint should not have seen the court without 3 shooters and a PnR partner. They ran circles around us because we're essentially playing 3 bigs out there. The only possible answer would have been to stagger KD and Sengun at the 5 and max out minutes for Amen, Reed, Tari, JD, Josh, Aaron. But no way Ime going to use his imagination that way. We ran out of juice late and they kept running it up and getting either wide open 3's or blow-bys. It's too bad they didn't have Julius healthy to run out there for 28 minutes and foul their game up. We're cooked and ready to serve up to either Denver or OKC. We will go down in 5 games max against them.
I think we probably lose to anybody at all if Doncic comes back. We completely lost all of our defensive identity/intensity from last season. It's clear it was never Ime and was actually FVV and Dillon who were the real culture setters on the court. We've gone soft.
We play basically a 7.5 man rotation with Capela cameos. When 3 of them are outright bad defensively you aren't gonna have an elite defense, good culture or not. Last night was particularly bad, being on a B2B was part of it. Amen and Jabari played heavy minutes both games.
I guess we'll just have to play Amen and KD 48 minutes a game and play more Tate and Tari because that's sure to make things better. I hear incompetent rotations are the key to Ime style basketball, so we need to maximize the incompetence.
You know if you're going to read words that aren't there it's pointless to quote me. Once again for illiterate people out there "FVV and Dillon set the defensive culture." Nowhere does it say "FVV saves the world." Learn to read, it's really easy, I've been doing it since I was a little child.
I think the FO has a big decision about Ime this offseason. I think what we've seen over the last two years is that Ime is a good coach but he can only play one way and he's extremely inflexible. We are getting more and more players that don't fit into Ime-ball, and we are losing Ime-ball players. At this point we either have to adjust the roster or just find a new coach. But I don't think Ime is the right coach for a team with KD, Sengun, and Reed.
As much as we don't miss Fred, we miss Fred. The skillset, experience and defense have been missing from the position all season. But I still want an upgrade at PG in the offseason.
Agree completely. I'm not a massive FVV fan at all (I think his shooting at times was a big low point last season) however it's hard to deny at this point the leadership he exhibited on the court. I think any half decent PG probably protects the ball better than our current squad, what I think we're missing is the accountability from both guys. We rarely looked lethargic last season, sloppy sure, but never soft. I think Ime's taken credit unfairly for what both guys brought to the team.
TBF the wolves played hard and hit their shots. We just don’t move the ball around on offense and can’t hit from outside. Minny is also, obviously, a more cohesive team. You can see they play for each other. This season has been more disappointing than I ever could have imagined. Plenty of blame to go around…
That's kind of the thing, no one can anymore. At least against a hot team. Modern offense is just so sophisticated plus the rule changes plus how good shooting is nowadays. Defenses are helpless some nights and there's nothing you can do. Only bad teams can really still be defended every night. If a team moves around and passes to the open man, it'll just come down to whether or not they're hitting their shots. It's better to just build for offense and keep up in the scoring race.
My only hope regarding this poor defense from last night, is that Ime just didn’t give it too much thought considering we didn’t have much to play for. In a playoff series I do believe he can do the necessary defensive adjustments. Meanwhile, I have almost zero faith in Ime making the right offensive adjustments..
That would be strange after Brooks committed to the Arizona fans that he would stay a Sun as long as he can. But athletes' words are fickle......
