Yet they were one bull call away from beating them last year
It's funny how the rocket crowd makes such a big deal on one fricken call. Dallas got screwed by calls for the most of the series including game 6 which I think was the worst ref game I have ever seen. You can't touch Mcgrady because it is foul while Dirk gets hacked and no call.
Who cares, they would've gotten owned by PHX or the Spurs anyways.
Spurs won the championship... enough of your other team's talk.
Well what you say is arguable, but its not conclusive....we can see the same replay of someone 'fouling' dirk and go either way
what is conclusive is that replay of the outofbounds finley thing...we all saw his feet touching the ground with the ball in his hands
that is not arguable
that was a bad call
Maybe you can convince Kori to change this forum to spurs news instead of nba news than.
You know how many bad calls that happen in a game. It is ridiculous to argue about 1 bad call. There were bad calls before that one that got Houston back in the game but they choose to focus on that one call. Figures that rocket fans would poor sport about that.
Man, there's no way Phoenix is better this year. Their transition three-point shooting is gone. There is no way Raja Bell is comparable to Joe Johnson. Johnson is an amazing athlete with a beautiful stroke who can also put the ball on the floor and create his own shot. He's not the defender Bell is, but he's a lot more Bowen than Nash. Q was an integral part of that team last year. One bad playoff series and everyone says fvck him. That trade for Thomas was stupid. You can't make the team into something it's not. What they need is a shotblocking defensive big, not some aging undersized 4. If Stoudemire can develop a strong defensive game they're going to win a le... but without that they're going to need to steal a FA center next summer.
Well... The Rockets upgraded.
I don't think the Mavs did much.
The Suns system made the 3 point shot available. Q wasn't known for his 3 point shooting and JJ didn't have that many 3's the year before Nash. Coach D's plan is simple, he wants the SUNS to score in 6 seconds or less, so if its just Marion, Nash, Bell and Amare running down the floor after a Thomas rebound, how is that worse.
Bell more than makes up for the loss of Q.
Add to that the addition of Thomas allows Marion to move back to the 3 from the 4 and it is an improvement. The Suns got wide open three because of the attention that Nash and Amare attracted. There are many people in the league that can score those baskets with looks that open.
Losing JJ hurts because of his ability to create but we managed to beat Dallas without him. I am not worried about a lack of shooting on this years team.
You also have to look at the roster 1-12. This years roster is much deeper.
Phoenix is a better team on paper. This biggest improvement is replacing guys that never played with guys that can.
Seems to me the people that say Phoenix will be worse are the same people saying last year that Phoenix would fade by the end of the year with no bench or they couldn't get deep into the playoffs.
Most people don't even understand the success they had last year. I am not concerned with those people saying the Suns will take a step back. In fact it mostly makes me feel better.
do you work for ESPN?
I gotta agree with you. It's much easier to double amare and nash. If you're the spurs you double amare and nash and let bowen take marion out of the game. If they could have let marion go and kept jj this team would look really sick.
Exerpts of mine from previous posts on the topic...
Sept. 9, 2005
Bell, Nash, Jackson and Jones are all at or above 40% from range. Barbosa and Marion are around 37/38%. That's six quality shooters. Everyone talks about Richardson and Johnson like their 3-point ability made the Suns, when, in effect, it's the exact opposite.
Johnson shot 30% from range in 03-04. Richardson shot around 33%. The open looks caused by Nash and Amare were what led to the open shots and the increased shooting percentage. For all his effort, Q was no better than a volume shooter. He was a 35% 3-point shooter. Jackson, who shot 45% with the Suns last season, attempted four three-pointers in just under 25 minutes per game with Phoenix. Give him 30 and an increased shooter's role and he'll match Q's volume and should do much better precentage wise.
Johnson hurts. Already gone over it. But his 3-point shooting wasn't HUGE. His percentage was great, but he only attempted like 3/4 a game. He wasn't nailing more than 2 per on average, so a combo of Bell and Jones should easily replace that. Both shot over 40% last year and both should benefit from the open looks.
I wanted Padgett real bad. He's a legit PF with 40%, 25-foot range. That was a big loss.
Overall, though, most claiming the Suns are through fail to grasp some key info...
1. Without Johnson and effectively without Q, the Suns defeated the Mavericks 3-1, including two games on the road. While JJ and Q are gone for good now, Bell, Jones and Thomas come in to help replace them.
So, IMO, they aren't any worse than the Mavericks, who, have had quite the offseason as well, losing Finley and Bradley (don't laugh yet) and replacing them with Christie and Diop (OK, laugh now)...
2. The Suns were one of the worst defensive rebounding teams in the League last season. They gave up around 15/16 per game. With Thomas and Grant being added to Marion and Amare, hopefully this won't continue.
You forget. The Suns were a pretty good defensive FG% team last year. They just couldn't rebound. Well, with Bell replacing Q, Jackson and Jones replacing Johnson and having Diaw and Grant off the bench, the Suns should be better defensively and now be able to rebound their forced misses.
Sept. 9, 2005
People are making way too big an issue out of the two players losses. At least the impact from 3-point range, anyways... The pieces are in place to replace those two and all things point to them doing just fine.The Suns system made Johnson and Richardson. Stop pretending it was the other way around.
Excluding last season:
Joe Johnson: 34% career from range, 30% in 03-04.
Quentin Richardson: 3.7 3-pointers attempted per game for career.
Last season with Nash and Amare:
Johnson: 48% from range.
Richardson: 7.98 3-pointers attempted per game.
Funny how things changed, right? Wrong...
With Houston in 04-05 Jackson shot 37%. With Phoenix, 46%.
This clearly shows that within the Suns system, 3-point shooters were made. So, when the Suns replace Johnson and Richardson with Bell and Jones, two 40% shooters, I'm not sure why it entales such drama from the media. Richardson wasn't the chucker until he got to Phoenix. Johnson wasn't the 3-point shooter until he was paired with Nash and Amare.
Jackson may be the best case, going from Houston to Phoenix and increasing his 3-point% by 9 points.
The Suns have four players on the roster that shoot 40% or better from range. Then they have Barbosa, career 37% and Marion, career 35%.
I'm still not seeing the need to panic.
....
I'll give you defense. I'm curious to see how things work as well, but here's what's known. The Suns last year were a top-12 defensive FG% team. That's not too bad.
They've rid out Richardson, obviously their worst defender, being that he's the laziest defender and replaced him with Bell. Perhaps bell isn't the lock-down defender some make him out to be, but you cannot argue this isn't an improvement defensively.
They lost Johnson, which hurts, but have replaced him with a platoon of Jackson, Jones and Marion... all equal if not better.
The loss of Hunter hurts, but he played 12 minutes a game, so let's not overstate his impact.
By adding Thomas and Grant, the Suns have two players who can muscle up the post player, allowing Amare and Marion to block shots in help defense.
As for rebounding...
Kurt Thomas is a top-5 defensive rebounder in the League. He'll be good for 8/9 rebounds with the Suns and he give them the box-out rebounder they lacked.
Brian Grant isn't going to play much more than 15 minutes per game, but he's a poor version of Thomas, boxing-out and battling for position. He'll be good for 4/5 rebounds if healthy.
Amare almost averaged 11 rebounds per game in the playoffs. He really started to turn the corner and did so against very good compe ion. Vs. the Spurs his rebounding was near 12 per game.
Marion is always good for 9/10.
That's close to 32/35 likely rebounds from the four frontcourt players.
That's really good. Especially when put in this perspective. Last year's frontcourt, about 24.
Werd.
Another intersting thing about the "system". All last year D'Antoni re-stated his belief that a fast-break style of play can win a championship. Well, he just lost most of his horses to do that, so now he either needs to force a square peg in a round hole or change the system that some are crediting for the good outside shooting. The only improvement they've made is to get their 3 back to his natural position, which is actually going to hurt them, because Richardson was a better 3 point shooter than Marion in the system, and Richardson shot a ton more threes than Marion does. They have Bell tagged as a starter, so who does Jackson take minutes from? Nash and Bell? Bell and Marion? You can play matchup with that all day and find a mismatch. There goes the defense they traded for.
As for making a big deal about the losses: Joe Johnson was traded for nothing of comparable or immediate value to the team. That's a giant loss, considering he was the only thing preventing them from being swept out of the playoffs by the same team they will have to go through this year.
I enjoy your posts and dig your avatar but I really don't think you understand what "the system" is if you can call it that.
You can't run if you can't rebound and that was probably the Suns biggest problem last year. Does it take some kind of special skill to run to the corner and shoot an open three as Johnson did much of last year?
The Suns system just needs five guys on the floor that can play ball. No defensive centers that are major liabilities. Guys that can shoot when open and adjust on the fly to what the defense is giving. Much of it based on the Nash/Stoudemire pick and roll.
They kept their most important players and added more players that fit the system. Sure the lost JJ but the also replaced McCarty, Voskuhl, Outlaw, and Shirley with guys that know how to play this style of ball.
Jackson doesn't need to take minutes from anyone. He is points off the bench just like last year and will get his 25 min a game. It is guys like Barbosa, Jones, House, and Diaw that will be fighting for minutes.
Thank you. If we can't enjoy BSing about sports, then there's no point.
If the team that led the league in rebounding says that its biggest problem was rebounding and not defense, then I don't understand.
I guess we'll find out, because if it's that easy then Raja Bell will be able to take 300 threes and hit them at 48 percent.
The Suns have no defensive centers. They have a power forward playing center because he's slightly less undersized than everyone else on the roster. They have five guys that can play ball, but I don't think they can play ball as well as the group they had last year.
I disagree, and I'm not sure how you can say they upgraded their talent, and I don't know how you think that guys playing for the Knicks and the Jazz somehow know fast-break basketball better than the guys that left. Also, I think Hunter is going to be a player in this league, and losing him will be even bigger in coming years than it will be this year.
Yeah, that's probably right, but he hasn't been consistently reliable, durable or valuable in his career and relying on him as a sixth man is a concern. He is also the three point threat that isn't part of the pick and roll that you say sets up the open threes, so Nash is going to have to stay in the game in order for JJ to score.
The suns led the league in rebounding because they shot so many more shots than anyone in the league. Obstructed View Fails to see that rebounding differential is what matters. They couldn't do any defensive rebounding last year and adding Kurt Thomas fulfills this need perfectly for that reason. Raja Bell, Jim Jackson, and James Jones should fill in nicely with the suns system because they are all high percentage 3 point shooters. I'm sure training camp will help them adapt to the suns system by those running drills for fastbreaks.
Actually, I do understand that. It's just funny that the Suns don't realize that defense is what matters. If you can get defensive rebounds or turnovers, you can run the fast break. You have to rely on the other team to miss shots in order to get defensive rebounds and that's difficult when you don't play good defense. On the other end of the floor if you have someone trailing on the break that can't shoot from the outside then you've lost a huge dimension to your offense, so even if the new player gets more rebounds, the defense can stop the other players by clogging the paint, which was pretty much an automatic kick-out to Q last year. As a Spurs fan, that was a scary element to the Suns' attack, and he knocked down virtually all of the uncontested threes he saw.
Much of this is academic, because the Suns wouldn't have won as many games this year simply because other teams had the summer to figure out how to defend them. Even if the Suns don't come out scorching, it may not be due to their personnel.
If you look at their stats on defense last year, they did a pretty good job holding teams down on field goal percentage. It was the extra rebounds that got them on trouble on defense. Also when the other team gets so many shots of course they will score alot. The suns style allows the games to be high scoring regardless of field goal percentage. I don't see the suns outside game being any different this year than last. Everyone on the floor can still hit those shots except some players on the bench like Diaw and B. Grant which I don't see them playing much anyway. They might lose a little on offense but gain alot on rebounding and defense.
without the 40 ppg they lost
theyre gonna have to gain a load of defense to have the year they had last year
So now they will only score 70 ppg.
They didn't "loose" 40 ppg. That is ridiculous.
I guess Miami gained 30 points with the addition of Walker, J. Williams, and Payton than. That idea of losing 40 points is stupid because they got other players that get more shots that are just as good of shooters as J. Johnson and Q. Richardson. The offense isn't going to change either because it is still about Nash and Amare's pick and roll.
If you say they had a large number of total rebounds I belive you. I haven't checked.
I do know that they were out rebounded in a lot of games last year.
I think only 4 teams were out rebounded more than the Suns.
I think they were close to last in the league in offensive rebounds allowed.
we'll see
I'll just say right now the Suns arent going to win as many games this year, or make it past the wcf
I will bet my life on it.
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