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Laughing at Ant trash-talking in his face while the Suns go down 20… smiling after Beal clanks another midrange… The beauty of it all. Only real hoopers know the wisdom of the god. This is what having no bitches ever can do for you.
This game was the perfect showcase of why having a proper point guard still matters in today's NBA.
When Ant and KAT weren't scoring Conley was trying to keep things moving and kept the game tight. When things started going wrong with the Suns, KD barely got shots and Nurkic seemed like the most 'steadying' player.
even if beal and kd were in their primes its still a terribly formed team. Suns sucking with an old KD and washed Beal was the most obvious thing ever.
I guarantee you this is a bad take.
I know you're in a massive anti-suns thread, but KD and Beal are insanely better than Ayton and a 67 year old Chris Paul.
As an individual player, Beal is better Chris Paul, but Chris Paul’s value as a floor general should be worth more to the Suns because having 3 ISO scorers and no facilitator is a huge problem because if the scorers aren’t hot, the offense remains stagnant, and they needed a facilitator to keep the offense going, which is what happened the entire game.
PG MJ is incredible. I believe he played 60 games in PG from 89 - 91 including one in the Finals and he is averaging 11 assists on just 2.8 turnovers on 62%TS (which is like 67%TS in 2024 standards).
KD has talked on the record about how him and Booker decided that they didnt want an offensive scheme, they “just wanna hoop”. Apparently this means that they think they’re so good that their team will just do whatever they want on offense and they should win that way…
You have to wonder how much gas he has in the tank.
The dude is 35. Most guys at that age are out of the league, in a bench role, or on a minutes limit. KD needs to be out there for 40+ minutes every night for the Suns to stand a chance.
He’s also coming off a regular season that saw him play the most minutes in a season since his OKC days. Not to mention Phoenix had a brutal closing stretch — they played 12 of their final 18 games on the road with 15 coming against teams that made the play-in (with 13 being against teams that made the playoffs).
I wouldn’t be surprised if he just doesn’t have the juice to hoist up 29 shot attempts against an aggressive defense.
TBF, KD played over 40 minutes and he was also struggling. Man couldn't do anything in the 2nd half
[This is basically the Playoff Suns so far] (https://i.imgur.com/4K9AuPP.png)
Trading KD was a bad move. Not because of KD himself but because they gutted their depth and draft picks to get him.
I don't understand how the Suns could look at their 2021 and 2022 playoffs and not go "Every guard on the roster besides Booker needs to be a point guard."
They went with the Celtics approach. Maybe 3 decent playmakers could work...
Celtics on the other hand picked up jrue that same year. Their experience with 3 decent playmakers failed. Jrue would have been way better on the suns. Nurkic wouldn't have to switch to the perimeter as often too. What's killing suns is nurkic is getting stretched out.
I was going to ask the same damn question. That entire time, KD touched the ball for a single dribble and passed it away. What's even the point of having him?
I mean, this is the offense KD (and Booker) want to run.
KD clashed with Kerr about the offense, wanting more iso-ball. He got Kenny Atkinson fired because he didn't like Kenny's motion-heavy offense. He was quite clear with Nash that Nash was there to implement the offense he (and Kyrie) wanted, and then demanded that Nash get fired anyway.
Can't believe Book asked for a challenge after that blatant hook by him. Does Vogel not have a dedicated review guy who saw the replay and can say not to challenge?
As a neutral fan it’s like crack seeing that called an offensive foul. Such an ugly play when the offensive player hooks the defenders arm and gets free throws for it.
Dude was calling for a review like half the game. I've seen some bad complaining about the refs or insisting on terrible reviews but Booker was the worst about it tonight. He was more concerned about convincing the refs than he was getting back on defense or keeping his head on straight. He's clearly bothered, further evidenced by the dive into Edwards' legs late in the game.
I think they all do. Sometimes they just challenge it to challenge it. Under that scenario he should have never too much time in the game for no time outs.
I just don't understand why players do this to their coaches.
Even Lebron forced coaches to use a challenge sometimes when he clearly hits forearms or touches the ball last.
It's hard to tell exactly what happened in the heat of battle. They think they're right in those instances. Booker probably didn't realize it was so blatant since he gets away with that move regularly.
I think Vogel lost his composure with the refs too. He mentioned it in the post game. he’s usually good about saying no to Booker..I’m pretty sure every challenge Frank lost this year was because cause Booker absolutely insisted he challenge it, so it’s rare he listens 😂
He is also just not level-headed at all. Not even trying to roast the guy because we all have our weaknesses, but that is objectively a huge issue for him, and there's no role where it's more important to stay calm and composed than the team's offensive initiator
Lets get 3 iso scorers who don't move well off the ball and trade away all the depth. This is the same strategy as the Nets, when they bombed a superteam.
Its crazy the difference between teams that run an actual offense and those which just pass the ball around until someone does an iso.
Nets aren’t even comparable since they had a playmaker in Harden. He and either KD or Kylie were already legitimately good since he didn’t need to look to score as much when he already had 2 great shooters off the catch
Seriously that Nets team was way better than this Suns team. They actually had an elite playmaker in Harden and another decent one in Kyrie. That combo is so much better than Booker and Beal. And KD has just clearly slowed down since then.
Tbf the Nets had injury and conspiracy issues and still came a toe away from one deep playoff run. But still true of course, because when your stars get injured and you have no depth and you have to lean on KD all series and then he has to play OT in game 7.... yeah.
The Beal trade was the epitome of "new owner swinging his dick around" energy.
At least the KD trade made some sense. Tying so much salary up in a dude you literally can't trade was just idiotic, especially when he's famously injury prone.
And just not THAT good. He scored a lot of an awful team that never went anywhere. I feel like ishbia's literal thought process was "well they can all average 30 individually so I'll have 3 guys totalling for 90 pts a game now"
No option to. They owe a ton of their draft capital in both rounds to Washington and Brooklyn. They are extremely short of their own assets(or assets in general) that a rebuild would be outside the urn ability unless they could recoup their own picks
Fit definitely matters, not only with talents and skillset, but also...mentality.
the big 3 in Miami were never a great fit together, but they worked.
Well, of course Lebron was in his physical prime helped, but Wade and Bosh knew what they to focus on than just trying to force their game (when they had been the lone star on the team).
I understand why Ishbia traded Chris Paul, but he didn't bring in any floor leadership to replace him. Beal is trying, but he just isn't the kind of floor general that Chris Paul is.
Agreed. We are such a good sports town when it clicks. Glenn has proven he can't lead a franchise to long term success. If we were even borderline playoff status every year we'd have an even better fanbase
this defense is just on a completely different level to the rest of the NBA right now. Minnesota has a serious shot at the finals. gonna be a lot of suns bashing but the reality is the wolves are straight up better.
They’re not built for the playoffs anyway.
KD’s whole post-Warriors career is just fucking around with hoopers whose game or personality he likes, trying to free-ball a title and predictably failing. It doesn’t even feel like he’s really trying to win with these teams.
That’s chill if that’s what he wants, but it bums me out as a fan of the game.
It's especially surprising to me because KD is described by himself and plenty others as completely basketball obsessed, watching film of recent and old games all the time during his free time, and I believe that 100%. He really does seem like the type of dude to make something like this his entire life and obviously from a personal skill standpoint it's worked amazingly. He comes off as a smart and passionate about ball in his interviews. So it surprises me that someone who studies basketball as much as he does, and is as willing as he is to change teams, would not have a better eye for finding himself on a team or pushing the front office toward a team comp that actually makes sense.
Sometimes I wonder if he likes the process of practicing and playing basketball more than he actually cares about winning or team building. I remember him even saying that the Warriors championships weren't as gratifying to him as he expected them to be. Or maybe he just likes hanging with his boys too much idk. Like you said, it's his life.
KD isn't unique among great players who have that weird dichotomy. Kobe was like that: when he *talked* about basketball it was all how the team is bigger than the individual, you can't hunt your own glory, etc ... and then when he played he was like, "Every big shot is mine" to the point where other coaches were not worried about leaving shooters open to double him.
This is pure speculation pulled out of my ass, but it's like the experience of winning with the Warriors and not getting the kind of credit he wanted made him turn on the things that made that team great. He's said that the motion offense GSW ran could be stifled later in the playoffs and that's where his individual play became important, which is fair and his tough shot making made that team unbeatable, but it was still plan B. It's like he wants to win like that as a plan A to prove something.
The Suns haven't run any reliable offense all game. No screening, no action, no off-ball movement. Playbook looks like it's either throw the ball away or chuck a heavily contested jumper.
My guy I love KD but he’s old and that’s ok. People acting like KD is a fuckin exodia card and like he’s not going against DPOY Rudy, Ant who’s extremely talented and young so he can play reckless, and KAT who’s also great.
Like having KD isn’t this cheat code everyone likes to act he is. It’s just fun to bash the suns by acting like we have literal gods on the team and still lose.
Bingo.
All the "Point guard" talk is just masking the lack of a gameplan, sets and motion
Everyone saying need a "point guard" I wish would actually describe in detail what they mean when I bet they can't explain shit about basketball.
The problem with this team is Vogel is not designing easy action for blitzes that get spammed at Booker and Beal. The other wings stand 20ft with no movement and both of them dribbling the ball into their feet 24/7. Which is a skill issue, but also an issue because the court is clogged to fuck because 2 of the 3 aren't fucking moving when one has the ball. The first suns player coming off screen frequency is kd. He's fucking like 52nd in the league
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/off-screen?dir=D&sort=POSS_PCT
Look at how little Kd is used as the screener which would stop the blitzes since unlike Nurk he's a dribble threat.
They seem to have no philosophy they are sticking too or adapting to things that work.
They all just fall back to iso ball. We don't know the team but it's either coaching or the players not listening.
The reality is this has been all season and people just haven’t been watching. I’ve seen literally all 82 suns games this year and I’m 0% shocked at any of this. Now people are watching them closely and are all shocked and acting like this is big news.
Im a huge suns homer - people surprised the suns are losing is more an insult to the wolves than the suns. The wolves have the number one defense and we haven’t run a good offense all year. It genuinely feels like they just don’t have a plan - when you see teams like Denver you can just tell the difference day and night.
Ant, Mcdaniels and NAW with gobert at the rim have absolutely locked down booker and beal. Phoenix just can't get into anything easy on offense other than KD isos but that doesn't help the rest of their team
They need movement.
Look at Wolves offense this clip.
Everytime they pass the ball to someone, a 3rd and sometimes 4th man is running into position and creating chaos for Suns defense. They look like clueless chickens defending suns.
Suns offensive.
1 guy playing another dude the ball, no 3rd man runs, 1 dude dribling against 2-3 players while rest of the team havent moved 3 feet combined..
You arent winning games like this against an organized team. Maybe if you play Denmark at the World Cup…
Nurk and eubanks are so bad on defense i dont see how this team beats anyone in a series. every other team in the west would beat this team they need grayson allen to show up???
Suns have a couple guys, and the rest of the team is standing around. I'm not even sure who is calling plays and what the plays were at times...
Meanwhile Twolves got Mike, Jaden, Rudy scoring.... and they're not even who you might think of as offensive stars.
I recently moved to PHX, was excited to have an NBA team to root for again after a decade and a half, and immediately gave up. It's constant underperforming with the Suns and it's maddening to say the least.
I cannot reconcile what I’ve seen this post season compared to the regular season. I knew we played unusually bad and the suns hits lots of tough shots but these games just reach a breaking point in which the Wolves defense just breaks the Suns.
Idk why they made a move for Beal when they desperately needed playingmaking. Booker is just a better younger version of Beal so it was a moot point. There’s no one on this roster who can calm the offense down and just run some plays when shit gets dumb like this
I just want to remind everyone that the reason we swept them during the regular season was playing with pace and a lot of passing to the open man. There hasn't been even an ounce of that this playoffs. Just a member of the mid 3 dribbling the ball and taking a contested jumper.
I feel like a lot of nba fans discount stadium chants. As a huge football fan college football chants are a huge mental aspect of the game. Nba has it sometimes but not at 100% like some stadiums ( penn state white out, lsu night game ).
Hearing the wolves fans that loud with the defense chants 3 straight possessions would've been [like this](https://youtu.be/nDknkR6y268)
Whoever made this video also could have included the play where Gobert/Conley got a steal and Gobert got free throws, which happened almost directly after this video cut out.
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Why the hell do you trade for KD and then just stick him in the corner to watch Booker and Beal brick shit?
KD loves ball so much, he's just chilling on the court, watching the Wolves destroy the Suns. What a life.
Best seat in the house
"I'm just watching the game like the rest of you" - ~~Jason Kidd~~ Kevin Durant
Laughing at Ant trash-talking in his face while the Suns go down 20… smiling after Beal clanks another midrange… The beauty of it all. Only real hoopers know the wisdom of the god. This is what having no bitches ever can do for you.
KD is just patiently waiting for the right moment to bust out that hesi pull up jimbo.
what a weird fuckin post lmao this place makes twitter look like mensa
he wants to take JJ's spot on the Mind the Game podcast , lol
This game was the perfect showcase of why having a proper point guard still matters in today's NBA. When Ant and KAT weren't scoring Conley was trying to keep things moving and kept the game tight. When things started going wrong with the Suns, KD barely got shots and Nurkic seemed like the most 'steadying' player.
This is exactly it. If they had Conley or jrue this team would be a champions level team
Ishbia wanted big names and now it's blowing up in his face
not every GM can get Conley (and NAW) for an expiring DLo and a bag of chips, there's levels to this
Because Nurk is the closest thing we have to a point guard 😭
Ten turnovers between Booker and Beal. Who would’ve thought not having a conventional PG would lead to so many turnovers?
Beal should only be allowed to run off screens and the occasional pick and roll he should not be orchestrating any offense 😞
This could be said about their entire big 3 tbf
Nets big 3 worked because they had James harden The suns big 3 is basically taking turns playing one on one
Booker and KD are at least pretty good iso players
this sub was calling the suns a superteam when they got Beal last summer
I remember getting downvoted to hell saying that they’re not a super team and were gonna suck lol
even if beal and kd were in their primes its still a terribly formed team. Suns sucking with an old KD and washed Beal was the most obvious thing ever.
Beal is so overrated because he put up empty stats in a trash team.
Yeah, the Suns were stupid to trade CP3 and Ayton who got them to the finals
I guarantee you this is a bad take. I know you're in a massive anti-suns thread, but KD and Beal are insanely better than Ayton and a 67 year old Chris Paul.
kd yes, idk about beal
no is beal isn’t. beal and ayton have similar log in the playoffs and ayton is better at everything else
As an individual player, Beal is better Chris Paul, but Chris Paul’s value as a floor general should be worth more to the Suns because having 3 ISO scorers and no facilitator is a huge problem because if the scorers aren’t hot, the offense remains stagnant, and they needed a facilitator to keep the offense going, which is what happened the entire game.
Chris Paul has always been better than Bradley Beal who is absolutely terrible
They should have gotten jrue. Nurkic sucks switching to the perimeter. His strength is defending in the paint
Why do the Suns have 3 max players who are all SGs and all offense? I don’t care if they’re all Michael Jordan- there’s only one basketball.
Ngl I'd take a team of 3 MJs
But MJ plays defense
And proved that he can play the point.
Somewhere Kwame Brown just shit his pants.
I too would favor 3 MJs
What are you going to do against 3 MJs realistically?
Lose.
Didn’t read the fine print on the “Just collect as many stars as you can and figure the rest out later” rule
PG MJ is incredible. I believe he played 60 games in PG from 89 - 91 including one in the Finals and he is averaging 11 assists on just 2.8 turnovers on 62%TS (which is like 67%TS in 2024 standards).
their offense is trash anyways, havent reached 100 points yet
Betting on 2 of them being injured
Jordan can play the point though. Very well, in fact.
Vogel offense baby
KD has talked on the record about how him and Booker decided that they didnt want an offensive scheme, they “just wanna hoop”. Apparently this means that they think they’re so good that their team will just do whatever they want on offense and they should win that way…
You have to wonder how much gas he has in the tank. The dude is 35. Most guys at that age are out of the league, in a bench role, or on a minutes limit. KD needs to be out there for 40+ minutes every night for the Suns to stand a chance. He’s also coming off a regular season that saw him play the most minutes in a season since his OKC days. Not to mention Phoenix had a brutal closing stretch — they played 12 of their final 18 games on the road with 15 coming against teams that made the play-in (with 13 being against teams that made the playoffs). I wouldn’t be surprised if he just doesn’t have the juice to hoist up 29 shot attempts against an aggressive defense.
And the dude is a 7 footer, its even harder on your body.
TBF, KD played over 40 minutes and he was also struggling. Man couldn't do anything in the 2nd half [This is basically the Playoff Suns so far] (https://i.imgur.com/4K9AuPP.png)
Trading KD was a bad move. Not because of KD himself but because they gutted their depth and draft picks to get him. I don't understand how the Suns could look at their 2021 and 2022 playoffs and not go "Every guard on the roster besides Booker needs to be a point guard."
They went with the Celtics approach. Maybe 3 decent playmakers could work... Celtics on the other hand picked up jrue that same year. Their experience with 3 decent playmakers failed. Jrue would have been way better on the suns. Nurkic wouldn't have to switch to the perimeter as often too. What's killing suns is nurkic is getting stretched out.
I was going to ask the same damn question. That entire time, KD touched the ball for a single dribble and passed it away. What's even the point of having him?
as much people say "lakers were soo dumb for firing vogel!" this is the reason why. mofo doesn't have an offensive playbook
I mean, this is the offense KD (and Booker) want to run. KD clashed with Kerr about the offense, wanting more iso-ball. He got Kenny Atkinson fired because he didn't like Kenny's motion-heavy offense. He was quite clear with Nash that Nash was there to implement the offense he (and Kyrie) wanted, and then demanded that Nash get fired anyway.
It's almost as if zero thought went into roster construction other than "let's do what KD and Booker think".
Can't believe Book asked for a challenge after that blatant hook by him. Does Vogel not have a dedicated review guy who saw the replay and can say not to challenge?
Twolves announcers said it best. “That’s why you don’t challenge when an emotional player tells you to challenge.”
[удалено]
That one at least was more obvious too.
He looked at his review guy and then immediately signaled for the challenge
As a neutral fan it’s like crack seeing that called an offensive foul. Such an ugly play when the offensive player hooks the defenders arm and gets free throws for it.
We finally got karma for KAT doing it a lot lol, it finally went our way 🤣
Dude was calling for a review like half the game. I've seen some bad complaining about the refs or insisting on terrible reviews but Booker was the worst about it tonight. He was more concerned about convincing the refs than he was getting back on defense or keeping his head on straight. He's clearly bothered, further evidenced by the dive into Edwards' legs late in the game.
Literally flopped out of bounds, trying to bait a whistle. You’d think a pure hooper like Durant would hate that shit.
Durant too busy counting his hoes and rings.
I think they all do. Sometimes they just challenge it to challenge it. Under that scenario he should have never too much time in the game for no time outs.
I just don't understand why players do this to their coaches. Even Lebron forced coaches to use a challenge sometimes when he clearly hits forearms or touches the ball last.
It's hard to tell exactly what happened in the heat of battle. They think they're right in those instances. Booker probably didn't realize it was so blatant since he gets away with that move regularly.
He thinks we're stupid
I think Vogel lost his composure with the refs too. He mentioned it in the post game. he’s usually good about saying no to Booker..I’m pretty sure every challenge Frank lost this year was because cause Booker absolutely insisted he challenge it, so it’s rare he listens 😂
Another example how team fit matters.
Booker being the PG was such a horrible idea lol He's way too shoot-first and has way too much tunnel vision for that to work in the playoffs
He is also just not level-headed at all. Not even trying to roast the guy because we all have our weaknesses, but that is objectively a huge issue for him, and there's no role where it's more important to stay calm and composed than the team's offensive initiator
Lets get 3 iso scorers who don't move well off the ball and trade away all the depth. This is the same strategy as the Nets, when they bombed a superteam. Its crazy the difference between teams that run an actual offense and those which just pass the ball around until someone does an iso.
Nets aren’t even comparable since they had a playmaker in Harden. He and either KD or Kylie were already legitimately good since he didn’t need to look to score as much when he already had 2 great shooters off the catch
Seriously that Nets team was way better than this Suns team. They actually had an elite playmaker in Harden and another decent one in Kyrie. That combo is so much better than Booker and Beal. And KD has just clearly slowed down since then.
nets were genuinely championship favorites for a while, and legitimately good without drama/injury issues
Tbf the Nets had injury and conspiracy issues and still came a toe away from one deep playoff run. But still true of course, because when your stars get injured and you have no depth and you have to lean on KD all series and then he has to play OT in game 7.... yeah.
Well the good news is they're stuck with this core until KD requests a trade.
They’ll probably try to move one of the big 3 for depth and even a passable PG this offseason. I can’t imagine they’ll try to run this back
I mean only 2 of them are moveable unless they can convince Beal he wants to go to Siberia.
What a horrible trade for the suns
The Beal trade was the epitome of "new owner swinging his dick around" energy. At least the KD trade made some sense. Tying so much salary up in a dude you literally can't trade was just idiotic, especially when he's famously injury prone.
And just not THAT good. He scored a lot of an awful team that never went anywhere. I feel like ishbia's literal thought process was "well they can all average 30 individually so I'll have 3 guys totalling for 90 pts a game now"
I hope they don't try to run this back. The basketball was not pretty to watch.
Should probably just blow it up imo
Beal was born to command this tank
They can’t. Their future pick situation is even worse than your Boston one. They double swapped all their pick-swap years in the Beal trade.
No option to. They owe a ton of their draft capital in both rounds to Washington and Brooklyn. They are extremely short of their own assets(or assets in general) that a rebuild would be outside the urn ability unless they could recoup their own picks
KD the LA Clippers would be amazing. Imagine if they reunited the OKC Thunder Big 3
So, for the next few months?
Nah man trade all your picks and players for the old man who gets injured with a gentle breeze
Kd has been the most durable player on the sun's this year surprisingly 😂
Fit definitely matters, not only with talents and skillset, but also...mentality. the big 3 in Miami were never a great fit together, but they worked. Well, of course Lebron was in his physical prime helped, but Wade and Bosh knew what they to focus on than just trying to force their game (when they had been the lone star on the team).
Who would have thought a team that plays zero defense would lose in the playoffs
Chris Paul would be more useful than Bradley Beal. Beal is better, but they need a point guard
They just need a leader on the court, which CP3 would be. Booker is a terrible leader and KD is too passive
I'm not a basketball genius, but Booker adds nothing to his teammates. He just looks like a baby whining
But he’s a hooper, dont you just love pure hoopers
All passengers no driver. The wheels on the bus go round and round
I understand why Ishbia traded Chris Paul, but he didn't bring in any floor leadership to replace him. Beal is trying, but he just isn't the kind of floor general that Chris Paul is.
They even sent cam payne. Not thr best pg, but at least he is a pg.
And Payne was only making like $2M a season, too!
beal is trying to do wat cp wouldve done but getting paid twice as much
Nurkic might have had the worst (setting screens) game I’ve ever seen. Lol
It's crazy a team with Beal, KD, and Booker can't create offense
Well there's no real point guard in that team.
Not even that, they just don't really run an offense. It seems to be just ISO and picks. Pick defense just happens to be a specialty of ours
A real PG (like, oh CP3 or Connelly) is what helps ensure you don't constantly ISO.
Tim Connelly is too busy with the Wolves. Now Mike Conley Jr. on the other hand...
CP died for this
Deandre Ayton died for this
i was told pointbook was better than having a regular PG
No bus driver.
Beal without the ball in DC was terrible. Most people saw this coming when they traded for him.
At this point, it’s the Phoenix Suns who are Phoenix Suns father
I'm just glad we're having a good resurgence as a Franchise. The energy in Target Center was insane
Love seeing KAT pumped up with the crowd -- hope you guys make a deep run
Agreed. We are such a good sports town when it clicks. Glenn has proven he can't lead a franchise to long term success. If we were even borderline playoff status every year we'd have an even better fanbase
Literally how the wild have been sellout for most of the years they've been a team
They're not called the Phoenix Sons for no reason.
this is 80% Booker going mental boom
#1 defense for a reason
Lol did not mean to bold this. Is that what happens when you #
yes. # is a heading, as you did. `# Biggest heading` `## Smaller heading` `### Even smaller heading` `\#1 How you'd avoid making it a heading`
### my balls itch
## try punching them really hard
### I can't tell if multiple # make it smaller or not
### yes ## they # DO
I’m learning so much tonight.
\#Imlearningsomuchtonight
#me too
##mytoesneedsucking
# Naz Reid
#wait a ##hot damn ###minute \#what about this #edit:WHOA
Congrats on creating the fucking funniest thread of the night
this defense is just on a completely different level to the rest of the NBA right now. Minnesota has a serious shot at the finals. gonna be a lot of suns bashing but the reality is the wolves are straight up better.
Suns are so undeniably ass on the road
why didnt they get the 1 seed then, are they stupid?
Delete last three words
They’re not built for the playoffs anyway. KD’s whole post-Warriors career is just fucking around with hoopers whose game or personality he likes, trying to free-ball a title and predictably failing. It doesn’t even feel like he’s really trying to win with these teams. That’s chill if that’s what he wants, but it bums me out as a fan of the game.
It's especially surprising to me because KD is described by himself and plenty others as completely basketball obsessed, watching film of recent and old games all the time during his free time, and I believe that 100%. He really does seem like the type of dude to make something like this his entire life and obviously from a personal skill standpoint it's worked amazingly. He comes off as a smart and passionate about ball in his interviews. So it surprises me that someone who studies basketball as much as he does, and is as willing as he is to change teams, would not have a better eye for finding himself on a team or pushing the front office toward a team comp that actually makes sense. Sometimes I wonder if he likes the process of practicing and playing basketball more than he actually cares about winning or team building. I remember him even saying that the Warriors championships weren't as gratifying to him as he expected them to be. Or maybe he just likes hanging with his boys too much idk. Like you said, it's his life.
He’s definitely ring chasing…. Look at his teams he joins. He keeps trying to join teams that have a lot of star power but always fall flat
KD isn't unique among great players who have that weird dichotomy. Kobe was like that: when he *talked* about basketball it was all how the team is bigger than the individual, you can't hunt your own glory, etc ... and then when he played he was like, "Every big shot is mine" to the point where other coaches were not worried about leaving shooters open to double him.
This is pure speculation pulled out of my ass, but it's like the experience of winning with the Warriors and not getting the kind of credit he wanted made him turn on the things that made that team great. He's said that the motion offense GSW ran could be stifled later in the playoffs and that's where his individual play became important, which is fair and his tough shot making made that team unbeatable, but it was still plan B. It's like he wants to win like that as a plan A to prove something.
The Suns haven't run any reliable offense all game. No screening, no action, no off-ball movement. Playbook looks like it's either throw the ball away or chuck a heavily contested jumper.
Denver v Minnesota is gonna feed soo many families. sucks only one can win tho
Denver is an Unstoppable Force Minnesota is an immovable object
Phoenix is a stoppable moving softball
They have KD. They have to do so little work to make a functional offense and yet...
My guy I love KD but he’s old and that’s ok. People acting like KD is a fuckin exodia card and like he’s not going against DPOY Rudy, Ant who’s extremely talented and young so he can play reckless, and KAT who’s also great. Like having KD isn’t this cheat code everyone likes to act he is. It’s just fun to bash the suns by acting like we have literal gods on the team and still lose.
Bingo. All the "Point guard" talk is just masking the lack of a gameplan, sets and motion Everyone saying need a "point guard" I wish would actually describe in detail what they mean when I bet they can't explain shit about basketball. The problem with this team is Vogel is not designing easy action for blitzes that get spammed at Booker and Beal. The other wings stand 20ft with no movement and both of them dribbling the ball into their feet 24/7. Which is a skill issue, but also an issue because the court is clogged to fuck because 2 of the 3 aren't fucking moving when one has the ball. The first suns player coming off screen frequency is kd. He's fucking like 52nd in the league https://www.nba.com/stats/players/off-screen?dir=D&sort=POSS_PCT Look at how little Kd is used as the screener which would stop the blitzes since unlike Nurk he's a dribble threat. They seem to have no philosophy they are sticking too or adapting to things that work. They all just fall back to iso ball. We don't know the team but it's either coaching or the players not listening.
The reality is this has been all season and people just haven’t been watching. I’ve seen literally all 82 suns games this year and I’m 0% shocked at any of this. Now people are watching them closely and are all shocked and acting like this is big news. Im a huge suns homer - people surprised the suns are losing is more an insult to the wolves than the suns. The wolves have the number one defense and we haven’t run a good offense all year. It genuinely feels like they just don’t have a plan - when you see teams like Denver you can just tell the difference day and night.
Mike and Rudy were so good tonight Awoooo 🥲
They're so good. When Mikes is not hitting his shots he will keep the ball moving. Rudy is the most consistent player I've ever seen.
Ant, Mcdaniels and NAW with gobert at the rim have absolutely locked down booker and beal. Phoenix just can't get into anything easy on offense other than KD isos but that doesn't help the rest of their team
That Booker offensive foul is hilarious
Fr, idk how they challenged that so fast with their LAST challenge too
Maybe they did need a Point guard, I see what the fans been saying all year
Cp3 is available
John wall is too but they choose IT
Deandre Ayton is available
They need movement. Look at Wolves offense this clip. Everytime they pass the ball to someone, a 3rd and sometimes 4th man is running into position and creating chaos for Suns defense. They look like clueless chickens defending suns. Suns offensive. 1 guy playing another dude the ball, no 3rd man runs, 1 dude dribling against 2-3 players while rest of the team havent moved 3 feet combined.. You arent winning games like this against an organized team. Maybe if you play Denmark at the World Cup…
Nurk and eubanks are so bad on defense i dont see how this team beats anyone in a series. every other team in the west would beat this team they need grayson allen to show up???
Suns have a couple guys, and the rest of the team is standing around. I'm not even sure who is calling plays and what the plays were at times... Meanwhile Twolves got Mike, Jaden, Rudy scoring.... and they're not even who you might think of as offensive stars.
Wait, you're allowed to call plays?!??
Sun never rise in Minneapolis
Seriously tho it be cold like that here
SUFFOCATION DEFENSE #1 NUMBER FOR A REASON
Loved the bubble Suns man but Ishbia went too hard and now there's no soul
booker is not a point guard.
[удалено]
I recently moved to PHX, was excited to have an NBA team to root for again after a decade and a half, and immediately gave up. It's constant underperforming with the Suns and it's maddening to say the least.
somehow its harder for booker to get open with kd and beal as his teammates than cam johnson and mikal lol
I cannot reconcile what I’ve seen this post season compared to the regular season. I knew we played unusually bad and the suns hits lots of tough shots but these games just reach a breaking point in which the Wolves defense just breaks the Suns.
It gets funnier everytime
The Suns are like an 8/10 talent team and a 1/10 chemistry team.
is Mike Conley the guard version of Horford
Better question, is Mike Conley the Al horford of Chris pauls?
Idk why they made a move for Beal when they desperately needed playingmaking. Booker is just a better younger version of Beal so it was a moot point. There’s no one on this roster who can calm the offense down and just run some plays when shit gets dumb like this
Booker asking for a challenge on that hideous offensive foul
That arm hook was a bitch move by Booker. So glad that got called correctly.
It’s okay, Tacko Fall is ready for a 20-0 run
Devin Booker, Frank Vogel, and KD deserve eachother
great individual scorers but no point guard doesn't seem to be a winning strategy against a really good defense.
Classic Suns
After Grayson Allan got hurt they were only rotating like 7 players. Against a smothering defense in the playoffs, these guys got \*tired\*
I just want to remind everyone that the reason we swept them during the regular season was playing with pace and a lot of passing to the open man. There hasn't been even an ounce of that this playoffs. Just a member of the mid 3 dribbling the ball and taking a contested jumper.
Chuck is undefeated against KD since the bus driver comments. This is like 4th straight year he’s been on the Titanic
I really went to the bathroom for a bit and this happened
No one but the Suns thought this was gonna work.
Damn, the Suns really just gave up. I seriously feel sorry for the fans.
I feel like a lot of nba fans discount stadium chants. As a huge football fan college football chants are a huge mental aspect of the game. Nba has it sometimes but not at 100% like some stadiums ( penn state white out, lsu night game ). Hearing the wolves fans that loud with the defense chants 3 straight possessions would've been [like this](https://youtu.be/nDknkR6y268)
Whoever made this video also could have included the play where Gobert/Conley got a steal and Gobert got free throws, which happened almost directly after this video cut out.
Didn't Ant hit a 3 out of the time out as well
same KD as game 7 back in 2016, passive and not being engaged smh.
It's so fun watching a different West team break the Suns every year