Phoenix Suns Look to Hand the Oklahoma City Thunder Their First Loss

Durant is off to an unbelievable start to the season but that wouldn’t matter for BAMF. If we win this game, Its safe to say now that we can make the playoffs

Stolen a few there the last couple of years.

can you update the link to the opposition? Shouldnt it be the Thunder site, not the Hornet’s site (At the Hive)?

Coros bit where suns players told hornets Ariza didnt want any of rolo after there tizzhttp://t.co/RKoawkfTy.

channing despises?

It’s a LOT of basketball just coming fast and furious… it’s like everyone is already in playoff push mode.

If we can even up our record, and beat the Thunder away, I think we might just be better than the doom and gloom that followed game 2… maybe we’ll be a Road Warrior team? Something wrong with US Airways?

At america west\us airways as we were @ veterans memorial IMO.That shanny on mcdowell rocked in the late 80s and early 90s,I really miss the atmosphere.

Who is the only sun to wear the original 69-92 uniform,the design that came in 93 and our current design? Diehards will get it easy!

As much Gentry would like to try Telfair , this team is darn good, if we are going to take advantage of any kind of fatigue let´s do it by controlling the rebounds with Frye/Gortat/Morris and scoring from Hakim/Brown…Lopez should be huge for us tonight taking on foolish Perkins and getting into the FreeThrow line.

You can continue to make excuses about how the Hornets’ offense was terrible last night but there is no question that the Suns are playing a much higher level of defense than we’re used to seeing here in the desert.

That Hornets squad without Gordon is probably worse than the Suns at every roster spot 1-12. I would cry myself to sleep at night if the Suns and Hornets swapped rosters even if Gordon was included.

None of the team stats hold any weight at this point in the season. Sample size…..

I would say that defenses seem to have an advantage early on. I think it has more to do with bad offense than good defense personally. Last year Milwaukee had the worst field goal percentage in the NBA at .430. So far this year there are 11 teams below that mark. The culmination of not being in game shape, truncated training camps, no practices, lack of cohesion, some fat and happy players, etc. are all contributing to this.

I’m actually kind of surprised by the slow starts by a couple Suns, because I though that players like Nash would come into the season in peak physical condition but it appears he hasn’t found his legs yet…..

I’m looking forward to how the Suns perform against an NBA team because I couldn’t take a whole lot from what I saw of the Suns performance against the land of misfit toys squad.

Would it be great if the Suns were a top 10 defensive team? Sure. Do I think that it is likely? No. Just like I seriously doubt the Suns will average 86.7 points per game on 41% shooting with Hill leading the starters in scoring with 10 points a game the rest of the season.

Negatives – Rebounding is going to be interesting to watch – will it continue to be a festering wound or will the frontcourt of Lopez, Gortat, Frye, and Morris along with the rest of the purple paladins assuage this concern. This team should be able to at least be average on the boards with their size. I think that the scoring and Frye will come along – not worried yet.

Positives – I agree that chemistry looked better the last game than the first two (not that it was difficult to improve upon). The starters were still sluggish out of the gate and trailed early. It would be nice to see them get off to a quick start tonight. I liked some of Mario’s other incarnations (e.g. Racoon Mario, Frog Mario) better than Fire Mario. Everything being equal I was also kind of partial to Luigi in my youth.

It is encouraging seeing players like Lopez, Warrick, and Brown step up off the bench. If the team is going to approach their ceiling this season, I envision a squad that gets contributions from different players every night. There’s no all-star to lean on for 20+ a night (so far the Suns have had one player break 20 points this season), so the Suns will need to ride the hot hand. It would also be nice for the starters to step it up, since the player of the game has arguably come from the bench through all three games so far.

I think the Suns get blitzkrieged tonight, but a win would sure be an awesome way to close out the year. I will say that Frye SHATTERS the previous season high in scoring by going for 24 (I know I sound a little pie in the sky optimistic predicting somebody on the Suns could put up such a gaudy total) and the Suns keep this one interesting.

Have a happy new year everyone! Please stay safe and enjoy your planned festivities.

(A) Gandolf
(B) Lex Luther
© Darth Vader
(D) Master Splinter

But….this game is sandwiched between games against the Mavs for the Thunder, so maybe we can hope for them to be a little down emotionally and/or physically. Games will be hard to predict early on because of the short pre-season, players working into shape, etc. There will be nights when teams simply bring nothing, like us the other night against Philly.

I don’t think we can read into stats yet at all, after only three games against two opponents. The huge offensive rebounding night the Hornets had was probably a bit of a freak occurrence, as was their horrific shooting performance.

Marcus Morris has a PER of -4.31 while Markieff has a PER of 16.34. Who woulda known?