Phoenix Suns Lose Season Opener to Hornets in Heartbreaking Fashion, 85-84

I know they lost CP3 and D West… but geez, they got a lot of good assets back and are a really talented team. Like I said in the thread, I’m not saying they are #1 in the NBA – but they do not ‘suck’ by any stretch of the imagination.

But forget about magnifying our sulking in a misperceived opponent – I’m very happy with how the Suns played tonight.

Considering a shortened training camp, a lockout, a rough preseason – This team showed great defensive improvement and significant offensive rust. Keyword – rust.

Alex L. Mentioned on twitter tonight that this game displayed a Suns team reminiscent of the 2nd half Suns of last year, “Close but no cigar”. For the very first game of the season I will giddily take that. I look forward to the next game.

but we did some good things tonight. Just need to shoot the ball better (Frye esp.).

However, the team with the ‘closer’ won, and the team without one threw the ball out of bounds and couldn’t even get a shot. That will be the case 75% of the time, every time.

should have put Hakim instead

Even if Shannon Brown wanted to be worse in his 2nd game he probably couldn’t pull it off. His performance tonight was something special….like a ball hogging Earl Barron.

like i said in the preview, all i wanted was a solid effort on defense; anything else is extra. I don’t know if it is positivity or that i have grown mature as a Sun’s fan. It’s all about getting used to heartbreaks.

We need to face reality that the Nash era is over. I don’t understand all the optimism of making the playoffs. Never gonna happen.

Hate to see it end like that. I didn’t see the entire game, but I did like some of what I saw. Especially Lopez and Gortat.

Our throw-together bench, which was supposed to be our glaring weakness, actually came through tonight. We were up when we brought starters back in. Frye, and even Hill and Dudley need to give us more.

By slipping on the court. What was with that?

Our offense looked like a mess for almost the entire game, even WITH Nash on the court.

Chilly kept missing from three. We need a D-3 guy to spread the floor, but that’s not his game, and ultimately, I think he’s not going to be the right fit for us.

Frye is still in a slump.

I didn’t really even notice that Brown and Bassy were in the game. Bassy seemed to give the offense a little more movement than Price did, but Price was playing some really great defense at the other end. Unfortunately, neither of them can run the offense while Nash is out. The offense was completely stagnant when Steve was on the bench.

Gortat played well; Lopez played even better. The rookie was fantastic too. Active all over the court.

Steve looked tired. Grant was kind of invisible. Dudley did fine but it is telling that he is the starting SG on this team.

1. Grant and Chill, two of our weakest outside shooters, combined for 8 three-point shots (50% of their shot attempts).

2. Telfair and Price split time at the back-up PG spot. I think the last thing we need is discontinuity at the play-caller position when the second unit comes in. Gentry needs to decide on one of them to play all the back-up minutes, and quick.

3. Shannon Brown is as bad a chukker as Pietrus was, with a putrid 12.5% shooting percentage. At least Peaches provided decent rebounding and perimeter defense. Brown provides absolutely NOTHING in the box score besides woeful shooting.

4. Brown also got blocked 3 times in his 8 shot attempts. Case in point, this guy needs to either take some better shots or just stop shooting.

5. I think we got the versatile, mean, defensive, rebounding big man we’ve been looking for all these years in Morris. I LOVE 9 rebounds, 2 steals, and 2 blocks in just 24 minutes of action. But three-point shots made up 60% of his FG attempts, and we didn’t draft Morris to jack up threes. He’s supposed to shore up our interior offense.

6. Gentry seemed really excited about using Warrick at the 3. I’m assuming Hak got a DNP because he had unfavorable matchups against Ariza and Aminu, who are both big, strong, and quick enough to contain him.

All in all, from just looking at the box score, it seems as if a lot of our troubles arise out of bad decision-making, particularly in the second unit. It all comes down to the poor play of our back-up point guards. Brown jacks up errant shots off iso plays, Childress and Morris jack up threes, and Warrick can’t provide pick-and-roll action because neither Price nor Telfair can provide the playmaking that we need from them.

With all the years of experience we have on this team, the best he can come up with is making a rookie in his first game the pivot man when we’re down by one with four seconds left.

What is he thinking? Is he thinking at all?

and I do still feel sad that we lost to the Hornets in our home-opener. But I’ve had some time to calm down and think (I watched the Kings beat the Lakers) and I think that we can just take so many positives from this game, if you look past the blatant negatives.
I mean, how long have we been getting angry with Robin Lopez, begging for him to play better? And he went out there and kicked butt like his old self.
And Steve Nash is still Steve Nash.
And Markieff Morris continues to show a lot of promise.

I’m by no means pleased right now. But, I do think that we still have the chance to be an ok team this year.

A loss to the Hornets spells doom for the rest of this season.

I double dare the Suns to make a ass out of me and prove me wrong.

but backup PG is the primary position of concern and Ronnie Price and Sebastian Telfair combined for 0 made FGs, 2 points, 2 assists and 1 rebound in 18 points of action.

Yeah, we need better play from our backup PGs then we got tonight. I liked Price’s defense but we struggled tonight.

Our wings lost us the game, by my count they scored a combined 24 points and shot 2-15 from 3. As good as Nash, Lopez and Gortat were tonight, we will need consistent scoring from the wings to get in the playoffs, we know Jared and shannon can score but I don’t think they can guarantee us 25ppg a night like we need.
I was impressed by Morris but he showed his lack of experience with at least 3 very silly fouls that cost us. I don’t blame him for the last play because EG guarded Nash well. But despite him and Lopez playing well I would have prefered Gortat and Frye out there for the final 5 minutes despite Frye shooting poorly, sitting him is only going to hurt his confidence.
There was also a stretch between the end of the 3rd and the start of the 4th were we had a chance to make it a double digit lead, our defense was great then but Price/Bassy just couldn’t create anything to increase the lead.
And was I the only one shocked that Warrick didn’t play? He was impressive in pre-season + the scrimmage and he could bring instant offense at the 3 or the 4 if he was matched with Landry. I would have just rather have him run pick+roll than have Chilly shoot panic 3’s.

Question is how the next games will look like? Nash have no back up, Frye,Chill can’t score some points. Hill the same. OnlyNash we played P’n’R. Who wil be score? Too much questions without answers. I know season just started but we played with team from our Lavel (I think) in Home. Take a look what’s going on on the other courts. SAC won LA, MiN almost win with OKL. It doesn’t look good for Suns.

But like many others said, there were a lot of good things to take from this.

I don’t expect us to shoot as bad as we did tonight forever, first half was painful at times but I think there was a lot of rust of these guys, especially Grant and Channing in the first half. Shortened training camp and prep these guys still have a lot going.

Seeing Lopez’s 21 and activity is a huge encouragement especially based on what we saw last season, Gortat is still impressive and was very excited about Morris’ game. He was active on the boards and on defense and I can see him having a BIG impact on the Suns this season.

It sucks to lose, but I’m holding out hope that these guys can get their act together shooting wise and be able to take advantage of having some quality bigs to throw at opposing teams.

That said, Telfair and Price didn’t have very much of an impact and Shannon seemed overeager to convince fans he was an asset and it made him look out of place.

We held this team to a 85 point game, i think we need to count on those Frye´s 3s and so Childress offensive rebounds.

And so Shannon and Telfair, Grant Hill fail miserable to do any of the things his 6.5mil was signed for, i was counting and is it secure to say that Lopez is catching and doing a lot better, yet he was more known from his defensive side and so Gortat, they are big bodies, they cannot allow little guys like Gordon do whatever they want under the rim, if he is gonna kill us from somewhere should be 3 pointline and mid ranges.

Also very dissapointed with Dudley who is our specialist defender lack of any of his attributes.

Yes, we lost. Yes, it was ugly as hell. But seriously has anyone else watched basketball for other teams this year? EVERYONE (but the heat) looks ugly and sloppy and shitty. I gotta be honest, I hate the loss, but if we were going to lose in some way, I am glad that it was because we havent gotten our shot (e.g. Frye) than for some other reason. They showed plenty of promise in the 1st and 3rd with Nash out there and had grit in digging out of a 10 point hole to take the lead against a scrappy hornets team. I can be happy about that. Here are a few things that I take away.
1) Gortat is rusty, Markief is new, and Robin is baller. Our big men played a VERY nice game for having been away from the NBA game for so long. My take is that Robin played so well because he knows the system and is confident. Imagine how much better Morris and Gortat will do when they round into form.
2) Brown and Price were putrid, but we only lost by one. Price has been in PHX all of, what, a week? Give him a break. We all know Brown is talented but, again, he has only been here a little while. It looks like he is trying really hard to show he is good. Once he settles down his shots will fall and we will be golden.
3) Frye’s shot will come. He was active on defense and played Landry pretty strongly.
4) Nash looked rusty, but he broke out of it late. Not sure what is going on there. He seemed to want to facilitate and not shoot but I think we are going to need him to be a scorer early on this season until the team gets more comfortable.

He was so frustrating last season, nice to see how active and efficient (in offense & defense) he was vs the Hornets.
Still a disappointing loss (Frye, Hill, Chilly and Brown did not look good… and the Suns are still struggling in the money time), but they showed some encouraging things. Nice defensive improvement, especially.
It’ll take some time to see these guys at their full collective capacity, and based on what I saw last night, I’m pretty confident.

We will have one thing weve been missing,A seven foot asset other gms will be foaming at the mouth and willing to overpay for.

(patting my own back) I wrote about this 1-2 weeks ago. Suns still lacking that offseason target – a go-to scorer. Trust me that the front office is not blind. They see the same thing.

Yet they signed Shannon Brown as their only attempt to fill this gap, hoping that he was ready to break out from behind Kobe and become an all-around good player. So far, no good. But I’m pretty sure that the front office will give him more than a few games to get his feet under him and play well before replacing him with someone off the street.

Patience is required here. Might even require waiting till next season to fill that go-to scorer gap. Suns won’t sacrifice 2012 cap space on a veteran acquisition just to make this season more palatable. So either a trade is made at the deadline (in 2 months) or next summer’s offseason. But not in the next few weeks.

Chilly was just out there casting up 3 point shots?

I’ve know it’s probably happened, but in my over-exaggerating mind’s eye, I swear to god I’ve never seen him make a 3 pointer.

In years past I would be elated at the idea of big cap space,But these aint jerrys suns no more.Meaning in the past guys came here knowing jerry took care of his own and would put the best team on the floor around them.Now these are banker bobs suns-At least we have great weather to sell to them!

with the Suns getting the ball with 10 seconds left in the game.

Kieff beign on floor for final play,Would rather see him get that crunch time exp now rather than 50 games in with a playoff birth on the line.

All teams are rusty, hell Dallas is 0-2. There will ups and downs the first 2 months of the year.
This Suns will team will struggle because ( Like we all have mentioned) no player to go to in the late part of the game. Win games they shouldn’t and lose games they shouldn’t ( like last night). Hope Lopez and Morris keep improving.

But it sure feels like a lot of you are putting lipstick on a pig. Obviously I’m not willing to give up on the season after one game but against a thrown together mess of a Hornets team, at home, the Suns need to win. Not should have won, not could have won…they needed to win. The margin for error is so insanely thin with this team that they can’t afford to give away games to non-playoff Western Conference teams (which is what the Hornets are).

Robin looked great and there’s reason for optimism with Morris who seems like he’ll be a tough rebounder (quite a concept). Everything else? Pretty rough. If Grant Hill looks old and slow in Game 1, I can’t imagine what he’s going to look like in Game 50 on the third night of a back to back to back.

We’ll see. I’ll be there acting frustrated against Philly because well really….I don’t know any better.

the Lakers are 0-2 lol…i hope the Jazz can make that an 0-3.

All kidding aside, i really thought that our defense was ok…we just really didnt make any of our good looks from anywhere. We really need Shannon Brown to step up and stop trying hard too much. There were plenty of occasions where he should’ve given up the ball, rather than shoot an off-balanced shot. But i was really looking forward to an high-flying dunk yesterday..i guess in due time.

and yes…i Love how RoLo played yesterday.

Both teams had some points to build on, but the fact remains that both teams are more than “one wing player away” from being competitive in the Western Conference.

One team shot 40% and the other shot 44%. One team was 20% from three and the other was 12% from three.

Both teams have enough to pull off a few wins and hover around .500. Is that “good enough” around here?

The Gortat/Lopez combination at center is nice and was showing promise last year, too. It is a great asset to have, if the right pieces are around them. However, does anyone see either player developing into a dominant NBA player? At best, this tandem is an incredible asset on a team with 2-3 legit NBA stars.

Right now, however, only Nash is playing at an elite level, and his status in that range is going to be questionable until the end of his career.

Enjoy the ride, Suns’ fans. If Nash stays, there will be some great games to watch. There will also be games more infuriating than this one to watch. There may even be a chance at the 8 seed in the playoffs. It’s not like we’re stuck watching the Kings or Bobcats.

But — the fact that Morris was a crucial link in the attempted game-winning play means that the Suns are building for the future.