Game Thread Apr 07, 2021 08:00PM MT: Jazz at Suns

[One Brow]

Thats not good.

18 shots means it's still in the range of a statistical anomaly.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Oh, and maybe even worse than the defensive rebounding is the transition defense. That's where the Jazz were really bleeding points.

This is partly on Quin... but also guys bitching at refs or exaggerating fouls that don't get called.

The part that is on Quin that drives me nuts is the Euro foul. Our guys don't even try sometimes because someone will take a foul... not conditioned to get back and contest in transition imo. The Don one where he didn't go up on Book sucked... it looked like he was in great position to contest and he basically ran away... prolly afraid of giving up the and one.

 

[NAOS]

Quin's offense does not do as well for teams that switch aggressively and are good at mitigating screens. Rudy's big *** screens are the facilitator for a lot of offense. The Suns did a great job of avoiding them. I wish the Jazz had better on ball ability to slip screens.

Chris Paul has always been a master at it, and it has rubbed off on the Suns. There is a reason the Suns are going from a 10 year drought to having one of the best records in the league.

Chris Paul is a nut punching d-bag, but he is a very good player, and pwns (is pwns still a thing?) Rudy every time we play against him.

Don’t forget who ended Lob City.

 

[One Brow]

Problem is our lulls seem to come against good teams. Are they lulls?

Would that be as opposed to all the teams that don't find it harder to play the good teams?

 

[NAOS]

I agree with you... will say it isn't just on Rudy though. Rudy can bother the mid range but he has to come to high which means someone else needs to cover his guy or box out the miss... When CP drives all the way to the hoop he usually isn't trying to score but if he takes Rudy with him then he can drop the alley oop to Ayton.

Rudy is amazing... the narrative that he gets played off the court in the playoffs is ********... the narrative should be the limitations on this type of gimmicky system and having this many non defenders around him will limit the playoff effectiveness of the defense.

If Rudy had decided to play elsewhere and justified his decision by saying he was tired of being hung out to dry, I would’ve agreed and then cried a little.

 

[One Brow]

This game had all the signs of our playoff question marks....

- will Favors be useful or will we dread minutes Gobert sits?

Favors looked like a slightly above-average starting center against the Suns. When Gobert went down, my only concern was our third-string center (thankfully Gobert came back).

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

The problem here is that we’re playing money ball. That’s not inherently wrong. You play the hand you’re dealt and hope to move forward. The problem with money ball is that it thrives in larger samples, but is very risky in small samples. The reason the house always wins is because they are placing drastically more bets than each guest individually, coupled with a very small advantage that’s not nearly as noticeable psychologically or in any given instance. That’s where we thrive. We will shoot our numbers.... over time. The playoffs are a small sample. When things clamp down, the calculus changes. It’s why we suck at rebounding despite our numbers, and I’ve been saying this for at least three seasons, so it’s not a new development. We can point to anomalies as to why games are won and lost, but each game will have anomalies, and any game that doesn’t itself will be an anomaly. Good teams find ways to win games. We’ve certainly done that this year. We’re not in first place for no reason. But, that said, the last two games we found ways to lose. We found ways to lose three games in a row against Denver. We had completely bested them that series. Then we found ways to lose.

We have shooting that should approximate our averages more in the future. But we’ve had a lot of games go the way of not being able to produce because we can’t throw it in the ocean. Do we remember the Houston series? We lost because we couldn’t hit a shot.m, with a non-shooting team. Unbelievably, I think we’re still capable of that in a playoff series, and if we blame it on flukes an anomalies, and that the money ball didn’t have a large enough sample to regress to the mean, well, it’s the playoffs... and your sample sizes are small. Ask the house how they’d feel if all their bets for a year got thrown into 7 scenarios. I’m certain they wouldn’t be going into that thinking the house always wins.

Its not just the money ball on offense... we play money ball on defense too. The bend but don't break method is fine in the regular season. Most teams won't shoot well enough from the mid range to make it worth more than rim attempts or threes. So take away the rim and threes at all costs... don't worry about forcing turnovers.

Problem is the good teams can score well enough in those ranges to make the math bad... and now you are vulnerable to two potential money ball outliers... the other team shoots well in the midrange or from three and you lose... you shoot poorly from three and you lose.

There are parts about this team that are fraudulent. I think we are definitely a second round playoff team and can give most teams a run for their money. We will hit a roadblock though and part of that is system oriented. Part of it is we just don't have one of Lebron, KD, Steph, Kawhi, or Embiid (I know he doesn't have the resume yet but I think he's there). Hell even Jokic and Giannis have limitations that may end up limiting their ceilings. So what is the right approach? I'm genuinely asking. Win the most games and give yourself a shot I guess? If DM became a dynamic defender then we'd be in business, but I think he going to top out at averagish.

There are tweaks we could make and things we could add that would take the edge off of some of our flaws a little. Like having one more good rebounding wing (remember when Torrey Craig was moved for free) or one really disruptive physical perimeter defender (remember when Torrey Craig was moved for free). Maybe having a stretch 5 in place of Favs and running a different type of defensive system/set than when Rudy is on the court. Such a system might even benefit us with Rudy on the court.

If we had this squad without the threat of having it broken up due to cap reasons then they could have championship upside... if we had a prospect at the wing or draft picks to make a move to boost us over the top then maybe we could justify the hope. But... we sunk a lot of cap resources and draft picks into backup center... we leveraged ourselves cap and asset wise to get to this point. So now what? If it doesn't work we are at the point where we are out of ammo and now just throw the gun at the bad guy.

Everyone should enjoy the team and season... we are awesome... these guys are the best. Just enjoy it knowing we are closer to being a "cute story" than we are to the title. If Brooklyn is healthy I think they steam roll the league anyway. Too much talent... Griffin and Aldridge also miraculously found the fountain of youth now that they aren't dogging it for the teams that paid them a **** ton of money.

 

[TheGoldStandard]

Don’t forget who ended Lob City.

True. I am not knocking Rudy, just poiting out CP3 has his #. He knows how to score on him. It is simply a bad matchup.

 

[LogGrad98]

We

Quin's offense does not do as well for teams that switch aggressively and are good at mitigating screens. Rudy's big *** screens are the facilitator for a lot of offense. The Suns did a great job of avoiding them. I wish the Jazz had better on ball ability to slip screens.

Chris Paul has always been a master at it, and it has rubbed off on the Suns. There is a reason the Suns are going from a 10 year drought to having one of the best records in the league.

Chris Paul is a nut punching d-bag, but he is a very good player, and pwns (is pwns still a thing?) Rudy every time we play against him.

Used to run multiple screens in those scenarios. We also had a motion offense with active screens at the top of the key combined with cuts to the basket and to the corners. We hardly do that any more. We either do a pick and roll or just a blind drive into the middle and try for the kick out. We need to run more variety. The good teams are figuring this out and we don't show many different looks to take advantage of what they are giving us or to get our offense going. We are almost always better when 3 or 4 guys touch the ball before we take a shot. But recently it's been no passes and just an ugly screen-roll with bad kick outs or worse shots. Snyder does not adjust well in-game.

I don't think we saw "the blender" but maybe three times last night. Considering that is what they call it when we are moving the ball and playing our best offense, that is really bad. Why don't we do that anymore?

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Would that be as opposed to all the teams that don't find it harder to play the good teams?

That's kinda my point... they might not be lulls... we might just be a team that is going to bully ****** teams but lose more than we "should" against good teams. Last year we had a poor record against good teams compared to other teams in our tier. This year I'm not sure we can do an adequate comparison because of all the teams we have beat that are short handed.

Last night both teams threw a clunker and we lost to the home team... not the end of the world. I don't think the Suns are as good as the LA teams or Denver will be in the playoffs... would just nice to see a great signature win against a team that is our peer. I think we are kind of showing the things that make Lebron and other contenders not take us all that seriously.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

If Rudy had decided to play elsewhere and justified his decision by saying he was tired of being hung out to dry, I would’ve agreed and then cried a little.

This system also kind of makes him the impact guy he is though... so don't feel too bad for him. He has his own limitations and last night there were several 50/50 rebounds he didn't get that cost us. It would be awesome to see him play with a guy like CP that can find the big on the lob from seemingly every angle. CP is one of one though.

 

[TheGoldStandard]

We

Used to run multiple screens in those scenarios. We also had a motion offense with active screens at the top of the key combined with cuts to the basket and to the corners. We hardly do that any more. We either do a pick and roll or just a blind drive into the middle and try for the kick out. We need to run more variety. The good teams are figuring this out and we don't show many different looks to take advantage of what they are giving us or to get our offense going. We are almost always better when 3 or 4 guys touch the ball before we take a shot. But recently it's been no passes and just an ugly screen-roll with bad kick outs or worse shots. Snyder does not adjust well in-game.

I don't think we saw "the blender" but maybe three times last night. Considering that is what they call it when we are moving the ball and playing our best offense, that is really bad. Why don't we do that anymore?

That is what I was alluding to about hero ball. Even may be successful against the blender, but we won't know if they keep chucking w 15 seconds on the shot clock. I loved the old UCLA and motion due to all the back cuts. Wore our defenders. Wish we employed more off ball movement.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Last night felt like a double loss... if I had an online gambling account I'd be betting against us tonight. Mike will surely sit... Portland has given us trouble... back end of a back to back in which we played overtime... we are six point favorites... that feels like free money.

 

[NAOS]

True. I am not knocking Rudy, just poiting out CP3 has his #. He knows how to score on him. It is simply a bad matchup.

Gobert was the key ingredient that ended the team CP3 is most closely associated with. CP gets his buckets, but Rudy needs a better system and better players than he’s had recently. It ain’t about Rudy.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Gobert was the key ingredient that ended the team CP3 is most closely associated with. CP gets his buckets, but Rudy needs a better system and better players than he’s had recently. It ain’t about Rudy.

Especially now that CP has slowed down... Rudy can guard him on the perimeter and can come out to bother his shot... he needs the guy behind him to either tag Ayton to stop the lob or box him out on the miss... we can't do either so Rudy is stuck in between. CP is ****ing automatic from midrange so it might be worth betting that they might miss the connection a time or two and turn the ball over. IDK

 

[Hekate]

I agree with you... will say it isn't just on Rudy though. Rudy can bother the mid range but he has to come to high which means someone else needs to cover his guy or box out the miss... When CP drives all the way to the hoop he usually isn't trying to score but if he takes Rudy with him then he can drop the alley oop to Ayton.

Rudy is amazing... the narrative that he gets played off the court in the playoffs is ********... the narrative should be the limitations on this type of gimmicky system and having this many non defenders around him will limit the playoff effectiveness of the defense.

I don't think it is the system. Gobert gives players enough time to recover, they just can't do it consistently. We have been doing late switches much more this year if the primary defender can't recover on time. It's a different look and has been mostly effective but I don't think that is something you can do more of with the personnel we have. I wonder what would happen if we took the easy way out and switched everything.

 

[NAOS]

This system also kind of makes him the impact guy he is though... so don't feel too bad for him. He has his own limitations and last night there were several 50/50 rebounds he didn't get that cost us. It would be awesome to see him play with a guy like CP that can find the big on the lob from seemingly every angle. CP is one of one though.

Yes. And he could have said, “I’ve cherished the opportunity... Thank you and au revoir.” And then left to become the King of French-Speaking Canada and the King of Nick Nurses’ defense.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I don't think it is the system. Gobert gives players enough time to recover, they just can't do it consistently. We have been doing late switches much more this year if the primary defender can't recover on time. It's a different look and has been mostly effective but I don't think that is something you can do more of with the personnel we have. I wonder what would happen if we took the easy way out and switched everything.

The system forces teams to shoot midrange shots... if you go over that means that those will be lightly contested unless the defender has solid length... our guys just don't. I think most of the championship teams have guys that can kill it in the midrange.

I think it would be okay if got more deflections, steals, and generally were more physical with guys on the perimeter. Needs to be more mixing and matching... CP can't be given automatic reads.

 

[Hekate]

The system forces teams to shoot midrange shots... if you go over that means that those will be lightly contested unless the defender has solid length... our guys just don't. I think most of the championship teams have guys that can kill it in the midrange.

I think it would be okay if got more deflections, steals, and generally were more physical with guys on the perimeter. Needs to be more mixing and matching... CP can't be given automatic reads.

You kinda have to give up something. Unless you have 3-4 great switch defenders and even then 1 of them has to be your center. Most teams also have guys that can kill you from 3.

I think the scheme is fine. When Oni plays you see him recover quicker than others. It's mostly an effort and mentality thing. Size matters but it's hard to play guys like Craig over Clarkson or Bogey. Just don't give up on the play after the initial screen like we do recently and it's days and nights. We don't have to lockdown teams with the offense we are supposed to have.

Deflections are getting on the same level as steals with how often it gets used now.

I get being more physical but it really has to come with defensive understanding. Like last night Mitchell was pushing and sticking to Booker and Booker just faked a screen and opened up Cam Johnson because Mitchell wasn't seeing anything else. Ingles needs to sag to contain. Clarkson can be feisty but gets easily shaken off etc.

I get the allure of playing multiple schemes but Raptors imploded this year trying to play the same way with Baynes, Siakam and Boucher at center.

 

[NAOS]

The system forces teams to shoot midrange shots... if you go over that means that those will be lightly contested unless the defender has solid length... our guys just don't. I think most of the championship teams have guys that can kill it in the midrange.

I think it would be okay if got more deflections, steals, and generally were more physical with guys on the perimeter. Needs to be more mixing and matching... CP can't be given automatic reads.

Maybe people will listen to you when you say this stuff? I predicted the broad outlines of last night’s outcomes (on the defensive end) from a mile away. Frustrating.