San Antonio Spurs Defeat Phoenix Suns, 102-91

We’re worse. Oh well.

Anyway, Gentry needs to play a 9 man rotation.

PG Nash/Price
SG Redd/Dudley
SF Hill/Warrick/Dudley
PF Morris/Frye/Warrick
C Gortat/Frye

Brown, Chill, Telfair and Lopez can be used to give a guy a game off here and there.

I hate to say this, but I think Hill’s career may be coming to an end. This could possibly be his last season. I suppose he could play one more year if we re-sign Nash and a star or two just to give a title one more shot, but he’s nearly about done. This could be it.

and very sad :(

for the majority of u that have no idea what I’m talking about i had posted a fanpost about how we need to trade Nash and Hill to a contender for draft picks and look to next season.

5 straight losses in San Antonio.. Getting killed for most of the game on national TV…. It was a rough game to watch for most of it. Nash looked like he was killing himself at the end of the game (grabbing the shorts, moving slowly on defense, not closing on shooters, breathing heavily). Hill was completely worthless on offense once again (I know he is injured).

I will say I LOVED the game Price had and he has been playing pretty solid for us I must say. Frye continues to shoot absolutely terribly though for some reason and our offense is almost exclusively Nash & Gortat on the pick & roll.

Also WTF was up with the rotations tonight. They are like 3rd in the league in 3 point % and we left way too many shooters open.

BSOTS is changing it’s site name to “Bright Side of Markieff Morris!!!”

And there was much rejoicing

Watching Lopez knock some purrs on their ass when they started their cheap-shotting, eye gouging bullshit they always pull.

Should have been done long ago.

Key number: 4. Scoring and rebounding totals for Suns starting forwards Grant Hill and Channing Frye in total 41 minutes of playing time.

If we get 4 points from our forwards, we are doomed. We can just hope Frye starts shooting or we have to bench him.

But despite how frustrating it is to lose again, judging by the box score, it seems like we definitely should have won this game. If Frye, Hill, Redd, Warrick, etc. all just make the shots that they’re suppose to make, the shots they usually make, then we win this game, no? It can’t be too much to ask for our guys to just perform how they’re supposed to… how they normally do…

It seems like inconsistency is our biggest problem. We lack a “go-to” guy, obviously, but it still doesn’t really seem like we needed one tonight. We just needed our players to do what they usually do. Inconsistency…. Probably the most frustrating problem to have. Everyone seems to be losing faith do to lack of talent, but FUCK, why can’t our guys just be remotely consistent… I feel like we’d be fine. The talent seems to be there, to me.

It seems like we broke down late in the game, again, but if everyone had just made the shots they’re supposed to throughout the game, we wouldn’t have needed a savior to dig us out of that hole.

I could barely stay focused on the game.
And then I had a friend over so I couldn’t even stay focused on the game thread.

So I watched Pride and Prejudice when the game was over to get happy again.

I can’t understand why the shooting is just so terrible. I mean the offense was just horrendous there.
Steve’s shots and ability to create shots is the only thing keeping us even relatively close in some of these games.

That was not fun.

Hopefully the eyes in our FO will open up and some small cogs will start to turn.
Like Beavis 25 has mentioned we can rebuild via Free agentcy, trades and the draft all at once. We are going to have a ton a cap space and we have some players that can be used to get picks or other players that we currently lack, a SG that can shoot. If we manage to get a high draft pick with our own pick then it’s a bonus.

Our rebuilding process doesn’t have to be like the Clippers or T-Wolves. Year after year of lottery busts and bad management. Just like the 2003 season we cleaned house and retooled for 2004. If we kept our pick at 7 back then ugggggh.

Someone please correct me if i’m wrong but since i’ve been following the Suns since the 92 season our sides have been build mainly on savy trades and free agent signings, which have made us a very competitive basketball club. Yes, we have drafted some great players along the way too. My main point is we can rebuild quickly i just hope our FO can see it and execute it better than what we are doing on the court.

This team really has two starters: Nash and Gorat. The rest, ( yes including BAMF) should be coming off the bench.
Sarver has stripped this team of talent. From WCF in two years to a team that will be locked into the 12th seed in the West. In there defense they were put into a tough situation with Amare whether to sign him or not. The problem is they made horrible decisions to replace that void. To bring in Hedo, Chilly, Warrick, Brooks, Shannon Brown, Telfair, drafting Earl Clark and Lopez. Getting rid of the core bench of that WCF team has been a downfall for this current roster. Losing Lou, Barbosa, and Dragic really has hurt.
Under Sarver this team has digressed to the point that they have become unwatchable. The option they need to explore and be aggressive with is trading Nash. Find a team that Nash would accept and do the best to get 1st round picks or pick. Problem is personally, I have no faith in a Sarver led management team to get this done. Bottom line, we are stuck with a horrible owner.

But I guess that’s ok. It appears our bench missed it too.

for the Suns, when they really get their shit together and start playing like they have to. I think that may be too much to ask with this quickly assembled group of guys.

lots of positives (believe it or not).
But I’ll start with the negatives:

- As stated above, Frye, Hak, Hill, Redd, and Lopez had horrible games. We aren’t going to win with 3.5 people having good games against even decent teams.
- Coaching decisions, such as putting Hak against Blair is a joke. Also, not going into Gortat at the end of the game. Maybe some more p-n-r at that point? Kicking out to Morris/Dudz? What were they doing just taking outside jumpers?
- Need to play Nash fewer minutes. Price was doing well and can give more minutes of rest for Nash. He might have had a hard time against Parker- but, jeez Nash looked spent or hurt at the end of the game.
- Rebounding in the first half was pitiful. They looked slow to the ball.
- I sensed just a lack of game plan overall at the end. They looked confused again.

The positives:
- Gortat looked like a stud out there. He missed most of his first shots, but still finished at 50% and got 15 rebounds. Not that I expect him to be a 24/15 guy every night, but last night he looked like he was capable of it. He was completely confident and taking care of the game by being agressive when given the chance with the ball. He’s also showing he can create his own shot a bit more.
- Nash was hitting everything early. It was good to see him just take care of the offense early when everyone was struggling, and he looked flawless early on.
- Morris looked very solid. There were just a couple of rookie foul mistakes, but otherwise, they guy is awesome.
- Dudz played really hard and hit some big shots, but also missed some. He had a good, but not great, game.
- Taking care of the ball. I don’t remember the last time I saw the Suns have this few turnovers. It is really refreshing.
- They rebounded better in the 2nd half.
- Ronnie Price gives his full effort and I love that. He made a couple of silly fouls, but otherwise, really played pretty well.
- (can’t believe I’m saying this, but…) Brown is improving. He didn’t take AS many dumb shots. He actually hit 50%, which is a huge improvement. He got out in transition at least once (off a Price hussle) and to the rim. I think he is starting to settle in… I hope.

Overall, I think these guys could settle in to being a decent team if they figure things out. Really, they could have easily won this game if shots were falling. If Frye, Redd, Hak, Lopez, and Hill had hit half their shots, they’d have had enough to win. Most of them were open, too. It’s possible it’s just a matter of conditioning, still- but it could also be a lack of “fire”. Or maybe both.

The question is: Can they get that fire and drive to be a full-on “beasting” team after starting with a record of 5-16? Would it matter? Should we wait that long before trades start happening? Any decision is a gamble (trade or stand pat), but I’m interested to see what happens. Even if they just keep losing games all season, then we’d have the draft pick(s) some people are hoping for. So, hopefully a lot of good will come of the season one way or the other. I’m not being naive, but rather just hoping for the best.

We should go after JR Smith (and possibly Wilson Chandler) when he comes back from China in February/March. He will be up for grabs and we need to capitalize on that. Hell, we should go after him right now, convince him he should buy out (and pay the 500 thousand we’re allowed to help him out) and come here, he wants to be top banana in the NBA and he’d have a chance to do that playing for us.

That way Dudley can go back to being the 6th man role which he excels at, and it gives Ronnie Price someone other than Morris to play with when he’s out there.

On top of that we get someone who can consistently score 20+ points a game and create offense without the help of Nash. More importantly he’s just entering his prime, which is perfect. We need someone who can be THE GUY and right now. He’s also a lights out shooter off the catch which helps a lot since he’d be playing with Steve. Remember that one time he scored 11 three pointers and almost tied the NBA record? On 65% shooting from beyond the arc? Yeah, that guy can shoot.