45 points in 12 minutes

[PoleSmoking]

That's a good point, but I'm not sure practices are really the same. For one thing, the Suns practice defense (I assume) by trying to copy the half-court offenses they always see in other teams. And then Suns' practices tend to be mostly walk-through stuff. D'Antoni's philosophy is to save it for the games.

Good point. It's the same with every team's practice, probably. Except that I know for a fact that Suns' practices are legendarily short and fast-paced. They seem to practice offense mostly, and figure that the burden of working out defensive schemes are on the other team. And it works for most of the 82 games. Exception Warriors games, apparently. But I don't think the explanation for last night against the Warriors was a lack of exposure to the fast-break style. It was turnovers and bad decisions by Nash & Marion mostly, but defensive rotation was a big problem for the whole team I guess. Maybe they need to stop focusing on offense during practice and work on defense. I mean, really, they should be able to take offense for granted at this point. But, hey, it's early in the season. All the good teams (Suns included) are still good. A lot of teams are still trying to find their preferred niche and style.

[PoleSmoking]

Awesome.

The irony of this thread was that it didn't seem like Spurs fans even realized their great defense sputtered last night.

Perhaps because it was at the hands of Beno, they chose not to acknowledge it for fear of destroying the universe.

Yeah, it is kinda interesting that it was the Spurs (of the 3 W. Powers) that gave up the 55% shooting. Conventional wisdom would hang that stat on the Suns, probably. I mean, if someone asked me: Mavs, Suns & Spurs all lost last night; which one gave up the highest opponent fg%? probably my last choice would have been Spurs for sure. Funny how these quirky fluke games go down, eh?

But that's what last night was, in fact. A quirky coincidence of fluke games for the Western conference powers. Probably won't see an alignment of misfortune like that for another 10 years. A lot of people lost a lot of money in Vegas last night, for sure.

[dubsball]

Hey guys I'm new here and this is my first post! This is an amazing forum, very well put together. Me and a couple of my buddies just started a Warriors blog, check out the link in my signature.

And as far as the 45 in the 1st quarter, did you guys ever take a minute to think that maybe the Warriors are just hot again? I mean we cannot handle the Spurs, but other than you guys, and maybe the Jazz, we can handle anyone when we have Baron AND Jack! (You guys know about Jack!) 1-6 without him, 5-1 with him, and I think we're going to continue to be hot and start to get some recognition soon.

Anyways, look forward to chatting with you guys. Stay up.

[Stargazer]

Good point. It's the same with every team's practice, probably. Except that I know for a fact that Suns' practices are legendarily short and fast-paced. They seem to practice offense mostly, and figure that the burden of working out defensive schemes are on the other team. And it works for most of the 82 games. Exception Warriors games, apparently. But I don't think the explanation for last night against the Warriors was a lack of exposure to the fast-break style. It was turnovers and bad decisions by Nash & Marion mostly, but defensive rotation was a big problem for the whole team I guess. Maybe they need to stop focusing on offense during practice and work on defense. I mean, really, they should be able to take offense for granted at this point. But, hey, it's early in the season. All the good teams (Suns included) are still good. A lot of teams are still trying to find their preferred niche and style.

I've notice the Suns have adopted a new defensive strategy this year (at least I think it's new; I didn't notice it last year). On almost every possession, they double team the ball the second it gets into the post, and then scramble like mad trying to rotate to cover when the pass comes out. All teams to this, but the Suns seem to do it constantly now. It's almost as if the team has given up on being able to defend straight up, and is hoping to perfect a new strategy that capitalizes on their speed. The result seems to be more steals and turnovers, but also a lot more open layups and looks when the rotation breaks down. I'm not sure yet what I think of it.

[anakha]

I've notice the Suns have adopted a new defensive strategy this year (at least I think it's new; I didn't notice it last year). On almost every possession, they double team the ball the second it gets into the post, and then scramble like mad trying to rotate to cover when the pass comes out. All teams to this, but the Suns seem to do it constantly now. It's almost as if the team has given up on being able to defend straight up, and is hoping to perfect a new strategy that capitalizes on their speed. The result seems to be more steals and turnovers, but also a lot more open layups and looks when the rotation breaks down. I'm not sure yet what I think of it.

Doesn't that put a lot of pressure on the team athletically? Especially considering that D'Antoni still seems to have a problem with extending his rotation...

[phyzik]

I've notice the Suns have adopted a new defensive strategy this year (at least I think it's new; I didn't notice it last year). On almost every possession, they double team the ball the second it gets into the post, and then scramble like mad trying to rotate to cover when the pass comes out. All teams to this, but the Suns seem to do it constantly now. It's almost as if the team has given up on being able to defend straight up, and is hoping to perfect a new strategy that capitalizes on their speed. The result seems to be more steals and turnovers, but also a lot more open layups and looks when the rotation breaks down. I'm not sure yet what I think of it.

now that you mention it, I have noticed that. Its going to be interesting to see how that pans out. I dont see it working for the suns. I mean, despite what people like to think, they are one of the older rosters in this league. I'd be curious to see how it would work with a younger team like Seattle or Chicago, or even Goldenstate just because of their lineup.