Game 61: OKC Thunder (41-18) @ Phoenix Suns (35-25) | Sunday | 7:30 PM

[lilfishi22]

Sarver ? Noooooooo.....masochism has limits too.

FWIW Ishbia thought he can buy a championship before the league applied big restrictions in that regard.

If the team makes the playoffs with upcoming schedule it means they are in good form and capable of knocking out one of those less experienced teams like MIN and OKC. Beating the top tier teams like DEN and BOS in 7 game series, I doubt it.

Based on what Hollinger mentioned, when the KD trade took place, no one knew what the 2nd apron implications were and the consensus was that the penalties were much harsher than expected when it was publicised.

[Saberestar]

Going to be an interesting off-season. History proves it’s better to pull the plug too early than too late.

Yeah too bad Matt dumbass Ishbia hasn’t learned sht from history otherwise he wouldn’t drop everything to form a clusterfck of an old brittle “big 3”.

Robert Sarver has to be smiling the hardest of all people in the United States. And he deserves too. He cashed out at a great time and the has been massive disappointment every month since the sale.

Sucks to say but many Suns fans miss Robert Sarver. And we rightfully should because Ishbia knows absolutely nothing of forming an NBA team. He’s the young kid from the Succession show, that’s all he is.

How long before we can get someone to report sexual abuse or racism from Ishbia and oust him?

Ishbia has been AMAZING for the organization, literally doing amazing things for the Mercury and the Suns.

Only one team can win it all every year, we have a very nice chance like another 10 teams in the league.

The championship is wide open and that's great for the league. No tanking and teams fighting harder than most years.

So many great teams are equal contenders, like I said I wouldn't be surprised with the final win from at least 10 teams. 9 of them will not win it...are they doing the wrong things? No, it's not like that.

Hopefully Book is back in less than a couple weeks and we can go to the final sprint with the team at full strength.

[Puff]

It is the same story over and over. OKC gets up 11 more shots than the Suns. Suns 21 TO's to 6 for OKC. We cannot and will not win games while this continues to happen. Beal leading the way with 7, what a friggin bargain. At least he played and made some shots. It is a disgrace that he and Booker are our point guard. They are terrible at that job.

Someone complained about Saben Lee's shooting but he played 16 minutes with zero turnovers and the ball seemed to move quite well.

This big three and coach that our owner put together for us is not working and will not work. We are going to be an early out if we even make the playoffs.

I have no idea how to fix this mess without moving on from the big three. I expect we will continue to attempt to plug the hole until KD's contract runs out. We should trade him this summer for whatever we can get along with Bradley Beal, but we won't.

This team is not fun to watch. It is like watching a train wreck that happened before. The only suspense is when it is going to happen.

[Calvin Klein]

He’s the young kid from the Succession show, that’s all he is.

Every since I heard him on the Simmons podcast I always say he is Kendall Roy. Just a rich kid that wants to look cool. "i'm all about winning" And he sounds like he is a bit..."over excited".

Watch on YouTube

[King4Day]

Last night might be the straw that broke the camels back for me.
The turnovers have been a problem all season. We went up, what? 7-8 after our furious comeback.... did anyone feel comfortable that we were going to hold on? That's the identity of this team.

Part of me wants to sit our stars just so they don't get hurt before next season. The other side of me knows they need to keep building chemistry with the hope we nail our vet min signings this summer and everything clicks.

[MrMiyagi]

Big 3: 14-9
Book/KD: 12-8
Book/Beal: 3-1
Beal/KD: 2-3
KD: 2-4
Book: 2-1
Beal: 0-0

Total: 35-26

[bwgood77]

Going to be an interesting off-season. History proves it’s better to pull the plug too early than too late.

Yeah too bad Matt dumbass Ishbia hasn’t learned sht from history otherwise he wouldn’t drop everything to form a clusterfck of an old brittle “big 3”.

Robert Sarver has to be smiling the hardest of all people in the United States. And he deserves too. He cashed out at a great time and the has been massive disappointment every month since the sale.

Sucks to say but many Suns fans miss Robert Sarver. And we rightfully should because Ishbia knows absolutely nothing of forming an NBA team. He’s the young kid from the Succession show, that’s all he is.

How long before we can get someone to report sexual abuse or racism from Ishbia and oust him?

Still think about his phrase in the press conference "I will not sacrifice our future" and then after a late night dinner with his buddies he trades the farm for KD.

[bwgood77]

Last night might be the straw that broke the camels back for me.
The turnovers have been a problem all season. We went up, what? 7-8 after our furious comeback.... did anyone feel comfortable that we were going to hold on? That's the identity of this team.

Part of me wants to sit our stars just so they don't get hurt before next season. The other side of me knows they need to keep building chemistry with the hope we nail our vet min signings this summer and everything clicks.

How is losing to OKC by 8 without Book after a big time comeback to make it close that bad of a loss?

Yes, we had a lot of turnovers and need to clean that up, but OKC is #1 in the NBA in forcing opponent turnovers.

[King4Day]

Last night might be the straw that broke the camels back for me.
The turnovers have been a problem all season. We went up, what? 7-8 after our furious comeback.... did anyone feel comfortable that we were going to hold on? That's the identity of this team.

Part of me wants to sit our stars just so they don't get hurt before next season. The other side of me knows they need to keep building chemistry with the hope we nail our vet min signings this summer and everything clicks.

How is losing to OKC by 8 without Book after a big time comeback to make it close that bad of a loss?

Yes, we had a lot of turnovers and need to clean that up, but OKC is #1 in the NBA in forcing opponent turnovers.

We won't clean up the turnovers though. That's been the problem all season. Low IQ turnovers.
We still have 2 stars in Beal and KD who should be able to take over games, but they don't. They don't make big shots either where kids on OKC and Houston are.
If OKC is #1 in forcing turnovers, that doesn't make things better. It just exasperates one of the teams' biggest flaws.

The team needed health to build chemistry to fix the turnover problem. Booker being out maybe 2 weeks eliminates any real shot at developing chemistry needed for the playoffs. We're at the point where the team needs luck to have a chance going forward.

[bwgood77]

It is the same story over and over. OKC gets up 11 more shots than the Suns. Suns 21 TO's to 6 for OKC. We cannot and will not win games while this continues to happen. Beal leading the way with 7, what a friggin bargain. At least he played and made some shots. It is a disgrace that he and Booker are our point guard. They are terrible at that job.

Someone complained about Saben Lee's shooting but he played 16 minutes with zero turnovers and the ball seemed to move quite well.

This big three and coach that our owner put together for us is not working and will not work. We are going to be an early out if we even make the playoffs.

I have no idea how to fix this mess without moving on from the big three. I expect we will continue to attempt to plug the hole until KD's contract runs out. We should trade him this summer for whatever we can get along with Bradley Beal, but we won't.

This team is not fun to watch. It is like watching a train wreck that happened before. The only suspense is when it is going to happen.

Turnovers were bad but OKC forces the most turnovers of any team in the NBA. Aside from the turnovers, Beal was very impressive. Nurkic helped big time rebounding but for a C to go 7-16 (with most of his makes being tip ins off misses) along with 5 turnovers, has to improve.

[bwgood77]

Last night might be the straw that broke the camels back for me.
The turnovers have been a problem all season. We went up, what? 7-8 after our furious comeback.... did anyone feel comfortable that we were going to hold on? That's the identity of this team.

Part of me wants to sit our stars just so they don't get hurt before next season. The other side of me knows they need to keep building chemistry with the hope we nail our vet min signings this summer and everything clicks.

How is losing to OKC by 8 without Book after a big time comeback to make it close that bad of a loss?

Yes, we had a lot of turnovers and need to clean that up, but OKC is #1 in the NBA in forcing opponent turnovers.

We won't clean up the turnovers though. That's been the problem all season. Low IQ turnovers.
We still have 2 stars in Beal and KD who should be able to take over games, but they don't. They don't make big shots either where kids on OKC and Houston are.
If OKC is #1 in forcing turnovers, that doesn't make things better. It just exasperates one of the teams' biggest flaws.

The team needed health to build chemistry to fix the turnover problem. Booker being out maybe 2 weeks eliminates any real shot at developing chemistry needed for the playoffs. We're at the point where the team needs luck to have a chance going forward.

Sure, it would be nice, but we avg 15 turnovers per game and league avg is 13.6, so it's not like we are far worse than avg. And OKC is #1 in forcing opponent turnovers...and we were missing our primary ball handler. Durant is 7th in the NBA in turnovers per game so that's not good, but a lot of the biggest names are up there with him.

[Calvin Klein]

Still think about his phrase in the press conference "I will not sacrifice our future" and then after a late night dinner with his buddies he trades the farm for KD.

I know you always try to be rational and not get too high or too low. But deep down I know you are one of us.

[bwgood77]

Still think about his phrase in the press conference "I will not sacrifice our future" and then after a late night dinner with his buddies he trades the farm for KD.

I know you always try to be rational and not get too high or too low. But deep down I know you are one of us.

I'm not happy about the overall direction our team took over the last year (starting with KD trade) but it is what it is, so I try to be hopeful because there isn't much we can do. I could whine all day and night but that isn't going to do anything except make me upset and probably make others pissed off.

[bwgood77]

Read on Twitter

Looks like playing a 36 year old Durant for almost 36 mins a game while asking him to do a **** ton on defense and manage top 2 scoring load team wise is taking its toll…what a surprise.

It wasn't even just this year.

Boston exposed him in the playoffs where he really struggled against their tough coverage and he could no longer get to his spots like he used to. This is why I was so opposed to giving up so many 1st round picks for him because he was no longer a top 5 player although still very good.

He's still good but he needs to be coming off screens instead of trying to beat the defenders off the dribble.

It's weird there are so many Beal complaints in this specific game thread, being he shot over 71%, 60% from 3, got to the line 10x, hitting 8 of them, with 31 points. Sure, the turnovers sucked, but OKC is a different beast with turnovers. But he had 31, 6 ast, 4 reb and a nice block as well. And the team was a +5 with him on the floor.

If we HAVE to blame a star for this loss, KD was the one who struggled, shooting 40% from the field with 4 reb, 3 ast and 5 turnovers and the team was a -9 while he was on the floor.

But, he did have it tough.

I don't think we need to "blame" anyone though. We lost a tough hard fought game against the best team in the west without Booker.

[lilfishi22]

Last night might be the straw that broke the camels back for me.
The turnovers have been a problem all season. We went up, what? 7-8 after our furious comeback.... did anyone feel comfortable that we were going to hold on? That's the identity of this team.

Part of me wants to sit our stars just so they don't get hurt before next season. The other side of me knows they need to keep building chemistry with the hope we nail our vet min signings this summer and everything clicks.

How is losing to OKC by 8 without Book after a big time comeback to make it close that bad of a loss?

Yes, we had a lot of turnovers and need to clean that up, but OKC is #1 in the NBA in forcing opponent turnovers.

We won't clean up the turnovers though. That's been the problem all season. Low IQ turnovers.
We still have 2 stars in Beal and KD who should be able to take over games, but they don't. They don't make big shots either where kids on OKC and Houston are.
If OKC is #1 in forcing turnovers, that doesn't make things better. It just exasperates one of the teams' biggest flaws.

The team needed health to build chemistry to fix the turnover problem. Booker being out maybe 2 weeks eliminates any real shot at developing chemistry needed for the playoffs. We're at the point where the team needs luck to have a chance going forward.

Hard to argue against this. At first, it was the unfamiliarity with each other then it was waiting for Beal to get healthy and it's a few weeks after the ASW and we still have these issues (amongst others).

Our 4th quarter execution is also incredibly pedestrian. You can have a 1000 actions on a possession but if it still ends up being a KD/Book/Beal iso against their original defenders with 5s left on the clock then it's no better than a regular iso possession. It's different if they end up with a missed shot where they don't have to create but if it's still the same type of iso shot that one can create at the start of a possession then we've run down 18s of the shot clock just to get the same shot.

The careless turnovers I can't put on the coach but the execution in the 4th is

[Sunlight]

Weak Lakers just erased OKC. Time to rebuild.

[Frank Lee]

Ishbia has been AMAZING for the organization, literally doing amazing things for the Mercury and the Suns.

Only one team can win it all every year, we have a very nice chance like another 10 teams in the league.

The championship is wide open and that's great for the league. No tanking and teams fighting harder than most years.

So many great teams are equal contenders, like I said I wouldn't be surprised with the final win from at least 10 teams. 9 of them will not win it...are they doing the wrong things? No, it's not like that.

Hopefully Book is back in less than a couple weeks and we can go to the final sprint with the team at full strength.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, a positive troll

a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, an online video game) or in real life, with the intent of provoking others into displaying emotional responses,[2] or manipulating others' perception, thus acting as a bully or a provocateur. The behavior is typically for the troll's amusement, or to achieve a specific result such as disrupting a rival's online activities or purposefully causing confusion or harm to other people.[3]


Or may be this description fits…

A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with said person or organization. Shills can carry out their operations in the areas of media, journalism, marketing, politics, sports, confidence games, cryptocurrency, or other business areas.


Perhaps even this applies as a less diabolical dubbing

Delusional
Firm and fixed believing based on inadequate grounding
A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some other misleading effects of perception, as individuals with those beliefs are able to change or readjust their beliefs upon reviewing the evidence

A) troll
B) shill
C) delusional
D) all of the above


Sorry Sabes, But the sunshiney cotton candy routine just isn’t taking hold anymore. Yeah… I get it… It ain’t over til it’s over, because sure, there are plenty of games left. And yes we’ll get in the playoffs… But the harsh reality says that not only is this year likely over (I’ll give you a likely for a few more games) but given the front office self administered challenges, maybe the next two as well.

Seriously, sometimes I think this site has been invaded by an optimism bot

[Frank Lee]

BTW , I vote B.

[Stix]

OPTIMISM ONLY if you are talking about this year's squad.

We can write all the pessimism we want about the teams of yesteryear... like how bad Chris Paul was for this franchise, Charmin-Ayton, ShamWow, J. Chowder, Taylor Griffin.

This is what they want to hear...

Vogel is going to turn this team around and Beal will reach MVP levels with Book out... Top 4 seed here we come!

[Saberestar]

Ishbia has been AMAZING for the organization, literally doing amazing things for the Mercury and the Suns.

Only one team can win it all every year, we have a very nice chance like another 10 teams in the league.

The championship is wide open and that's great for the league. No tanking and teams fighting harder than most years.

So many great teams are equal contenders, like I said I wouldn't be surprised with the final win from at least 10 teams. 9 of them will not win it...are they doing the wrong things? No, it's not like that.

Hopefully Book is back in less than a couple weeks and we can go to the final sprint with the team at full strength.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, a positive troll

a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, an online video game) or in real life, with the intent of provoking others into displaying emotional responses,[2] or manipulating others' perception, thus acting as a bully or a provocateur. The behavior is typically for the troll's amusement, or to achieve a specific result such as disrupting a rival's online activities or purposefully causing confusion or harm to other people.[3]


Or may be this description fits…

A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with said person or organization. Shills can carry out their operations in the areas of media, journalism, marketing, politics, sports, confidence games, cryptocurrency, or other business areas.


Perhaps even this applies as a less diabolical dubbing

Delusional
Firm and fixed believing based on inadequate grounding
A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some other misleading effects of perception, as individuals with those beliefs are able to change or readjust their beliefs upon reviewing the evidence

A) troll
B) shill
C) delusional
D) all of the above


Sorry Sabes, But the sunshiney cotton candy routine just isn’t taking hold anymore. Yeah… I get it… It ain’t over til it’s over, because sure, there are plenty of games left. And yes we’ll get in the playoffs… But the harsh reality says that not only is this year likely over (I’ll give you a likely for a few more games) but given the front office self administered challenges, maybe the next two as well.

Seriously, sometimes I think this site has been invaded by an optimism bot

LOL

You can read all the good stuff that Ishbia has done already for the organization here.

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