Rockets' Bench Dominates Suns, Rockets Win 96-89

to say, ugh.

Even with Dudley and Frye playing better we are still having the same problems. Closing games, rebounding, and bench scoring. As long as we are playing hard I will be happy but it is clear that there is only so much this team can do with the current players.

Otherwise, our team is playing as well as they possibly can right now.

Nash made his 8th all-star game. He’s 38. That’s really cool. The guy really is Batman.

But by the box score it looks like the stars played awesome. The bench just didn’t come with the same fire. eventually the starters couldnt play great forever. at one point I saw redd was the only bench player with points. Just sadd. And the stayline for all the bench players were reading 0 or 1. Despite that we kept it close but still. If were not tanking this season a non gortat nash trade must happen

Gonna rewatch the end, but here’s what the Rockets said they did to shut down the Suns late:

“We changed up that very last five minutes to switching on him (Nash) so he couldn’t make those pocket passes and find the open guys. That was the difference,” Budinger said after the game.

It’s a shame we wasted a double-double by Channing and one MONSTER dunk. That really was nasty.

Dragic seemed happy being here again and playing against his old teammates and coach. After watching Telfair struggle so badly it really made me miss the hell out of Dragic all over again. Tonight he once again showed what he is capable of, and unfortunately we were the recipient this time.

This doesn’t mean I blame Gentry, Babby, or Sarver for trading him…It was his fault he played so poorly last season and seemed to lose that intensity that made him “The Dragon” that we all knew and loved. But it looks like he learned his lesson and bounced back in Houston, and I would be all for getting him back in free agency this summer.

please get Goran. he seems to have matured so much after being traded. its like he left phoenix a kid and came back a man with nice pg skills.
his skills as a combo guard would make him an excellent backup 1-2 and help keep our rotations down. hes like price and telfair mixed. idk maybe im just being sentimental but The guy seems to likable to think we traded him to save a sinking ship.
I remember when him and lopez were our future. now we’ed kill for one back and are accepting that the other wont be back next year.

They were talking about the three players still in China and where they are going. We all know Chandler is going back to Denver. Kenny Smith joked and said J.R Smith is going to Alcatraz which made me laugh so hard but in reality he’ll probably go the Spurs or something. As for Aaron Brooks, they said he’ll probably go back to Phoenix but Knicks could make him an offer. I highly doubt it though since they have like four PG’s already. If anything I see the Lakers trying to snatch him.

i remember him going off last year on them. but yea i think between gortat and frye they logged in 80+ mins. I can understand a little just because the backups were garbage but yea giving warrick a chance wouldnt have hurt.

we still need a starting SG. if Dudley could dribble the ball for more than 2 seconds the load on nash would be lifted. Dudleys a SF who would be best as a backup 2-3. Id say go to Redd but he cant play a lick of D and is only worth starting if hes scoring 20ppg to offset the bad day. is there no way we can trade RoLo to Memphis in some sort of package with a 2nd rounder and maybe take back a bad contract or give them anyone not named gortat or nash? Im sure they dont want to lose mayo for nothing since they aren’t going to resign him. put mayo on this team and were a 5-7 seed easy. then just let Frye and Morris get backup C duty

Of course our bench look putrid but that is only because their bench was better than their starters, but we play quite better and the only piece we really miss this game was Gortat, besides we are on our way I guess I look it up like a series

Every 5 game is a series, so we are currently at 3-1, you don’t have to win 5 straigh games, you need to win 2 out of 3 and 5 out of 8, that is how you reach playoff if you’re team is bad.

Make him a very fine offer. Sign Dragic in the offseason, and jettison Brown, Telfair and Price.

The lesson of Goran…patience

I generally agree with the direct correlation between Frye’s play and the team’s success, but last night was an aberration.

Frye lead the team in scoring (including 4 three pointers), rebounding, steals, and blocks (21, 10, 2, 2) yet the team still lost and failed to score 90 points.

Nash can be unselfish to a fault at times. Playing last night on the Mark West principle didn’t help the team. I’m sure I could construct an aesthetically pleasing model that depicts how the Suns are more successful this year when Nash shoots and scores more, but I won’t because it seems pretty obvious to me.

One clear takeaway is that a player who was on the court for 35 minutes and finished the game 7-7 from the field didn’t take enough shots.

I understand that Nash is trying to create the easiest shot possible for his team, so depending on how the defense plays he will pass to give his teammate the easier shot. What Nash needs to understand (in my feeble estimation) is that sometimes the difficult closely contested shot for him is still easier than the semingly more makeable attempt for one of his less talented teammates.

I think Nash needs to force the issue for himself on offense, more in general, and especially situationally.

As MM eruditely delineated above, the offense ran through Nash on 8 of the last 10 possessions – one Gortat turned the ball over before the team got into its set and the other they were (apparently?) unable to get it back to Nash off an inbounds play. 8 possessions and Nash takes 1 shot when he hasn’t missed all night….

This would have been a big win. The Suns could have pulled within 2 games of Utah and Portland for the 8th seed. Instead the face a two game trip to California that could result in them coming home in 14th place.

Securing home victories against the teams the Suns are competing with for a playoff spot is vital. These are the types of squandered opportunities the team will look back on with regret if they fall just a little short of qualifying for the postseason.