Props to Aaron Brooks on his career high 30 points

It's funny how people were complaining in the first two quarters of this game about AB in the game thread on how he is one dimensional player and he is only good for limited role. We have to realize that AB is only in his second year in the NBA. He is going to have bad and good games. I think Brooks is only going to improve for years to come, but we'll have to be patient.

 

But he did make these shots, and won the game.I think he would distribute if he missed the first 4 or 5 shots.

All in all, he's a guy who has a beautiful future.

 

what would you have said if he finished with 5-6 assists tonight on easy shots teammates missed in the first quarter? artest, yao, etc missed shots early. and yes, he took nash off the dribble a couple times early, but other than that he got his looks off passing the ball to Yao or he was open. He wasn't breaking the offense to give us the Aaron Brooks show very often.

Also, lowry should not start. the team is winning with this alignment and brooks has had all of a handful of games to learn his new role. you give these things time. With young players like lowry or brooks, inconsistency is part of the deal.

 

If this game has Rafer, we would have lost BIG time...or even Tmac cuz he sucks at shooting and taking a majority of shots and not letting everyone touching the ball. Rafer+Tmac=bad chemistry for team.

 

You look at the game tonight and it just turned into a shootout between Nash and Brooks. Nash was unreal tonight, just dropping in buckets from everywhere. That fadeaway is unguardable, he can shoot that all night and you can't stop it. The pull up 3 is also a tough shot to guard, because he gets it up there so quick. He looked like 2005 MVP Steve Nash tonight, just sick.

Aaron is still learning, but tonight I think was a big boost for his confidence. Being aggressive down the stretch is what wins you ball games. Yao really stepped up tonight, he did very well defensively on Shaq for the most part, and he made some great passes to the cutters tonight to get some easy buckets.

For once it seemed like Yao was actually exploiting a weakness, instead of being the weakness that gets exploited.

 

I was using Nash as a counterpoint to put the damper on the AB played great notion.

No, what I'm saying is that even though AB scored 30 points he still played shaky and made mistakes that was a part of why we lost a double digit lead.

Meanwhile Nash plays the cool veteran former MVP who's been through this before and calmly brings back his team. I dare say we were lucky to win this game against a struggling Suns team coming into this game cause that Nash 3 was dead on but just short.

And who says we can't we compare the play of the 2 starting pgs anyways? That's part of the growing process for AB.

 

That's fine, i'm just saying that while AB's defense must improve, Nash was in the zone in the 2nd half. Put rafer, lowry, whomever you want out there it wouldn't have affected nash in that 2nd half.

 

I hate that assists are such a barometer for how good a point guard plays, how many assists Nash had really had little to do with how good he was distributing, most of them were just kickouts to guys like Barnes and Barbosa, who combined to jack up like 18 three pointers.

I'm not trying to say that Nash isn't a distributor, but if you look at the pick and roll defense, I didn't really see Nash slicing our interior defense and finding Shaq or whoever for easy dunks, most of his assists tonight came on longballs, I'd wager on it.

Aaron on the other hand made clutch baskets, and exploited Nash for the defensive liability that he is. Aaron did exactly what was needed of him, and that is why we won the game.

 

You are correct on how Nash got his assists. He passed to shooters and they made shots. shaq got only a couple of his dimes. brooks would have had some more had teammates made shots in the first quarter.

to show how faulty assists are, look at the rockets offense. if brooks feeds yao in the post 10 times and yao hits all 10, brooks has 10 assists. all he did was throw a decent entry pass all night and got 10 assists.

 

isn't that the same to every player on the court?

of course i am happy for him. but i still see him as a pure pg.

 

My problem wasn't Nash getting into a zone. My problem was some of AB's decision making while we had the lead, which dwindled down to the finish we had.

Certainly not saying losing the lead was all of AB's fault, but he was shaky running the offense at times.

 

But Yao's approach is really slow as well, he usually catches the ball, makes 2 head fakes... then makes his move into the paint and puts up the hook shot. I don't think whoever threw the entry pass gets an assist for that.

 

True, but even then brooks would be running the offense correctly and not have a big assist night. So our point remains how flawed assists can be for judging players.

 

You guys act like Barnes and Barbosa bailed out Nash when he had no place to go.

That's their offense, the pick and roll is designed to suck in help from perimeter thereby leaving shooters open at the 3 line. Either that or the ballhandler will keep the ball and create a shot for himself or find the roller. Pick and roll 101.

Nash was just running their offense like clockwork.

 

Steve Nash had 31 points and 9 assists -- in the second half. That's nuts.

 

i am not talking about assist or turnover numbers. and every pg in every game will have teammates missing some shots that could've been otherwise credited to the pg as assists.

until brooks learns how to control the tempo of the game and how to distribute the ball, i don't see a big future in him. he's speedy and he can shoot (some big shots, too). right now, that's about it.

not to be piggy on a youngster pg, and i know he's still learning. but almost half of the possessions i see him nearly clueless and just keeps dribbling. a lot of times even when he penetrates to the rim, he either gets rejected (due to his frame) or a turnover since he's got no plan of what to do with the ball if the layup isn't there.

 

At times yes, but he's about 10 games into life as a starter. it's to be expected. and it's not like lowry would be averse to these growing pains either.

FWIW, I'll admit I love artest and the fact he made huge clutch shots, but the ball should have ran through Yao in the last 2 minutes.

 

The Suns offense is predicated on getting up a shot 7 seconds, Nash isn't looking to kick out for the 3 every time. They want to run, or they want to get their shooters getting the ball up right away. Or they want to dump it into Shaq and let him do his thing. I saw Nash tonight trying to distribute off the pick and roll, but it wasn't working. They looked really bad in first half for the most part.

I seriously doubt the Suns wanted to have Matt Barnes hoisting up 10 three pointers as the mainstay of their offense.

What changed? Nash taking over the game and pretty much shooting like Allen Iverson circa 1999 in the 2nd half.

 

so is this a sign of success of the "adelman project", ala turning yao into vlade v.2? yao's got 6 assists 2 games in a row now.

 

Not really, Yao isn't going to face a 1-2-2 that leaves the middle wide open for cutters every night. Phoenix doesn't exactly emphasize defense.