Quote from: azfan on April 16, 2023, 07:59:16 PM
Truth hurts lol
Fashion bug
Reasons why the Suns lost -
Monty Williams is a terrible head coach when it comes to X's and O's as well as rotations. He is a good leader of men, but when the chips are down he is merely riding the back of elite superstar talent.
CP3 is finished. His 11ast 10reb or what not were the emptiest stats I have ever seen. His game play has become so bad I don't understand how he is justifying his minutes. Booker at PG with Landry Shamet at SG would be more effective. CP3 slows the team down way too much and in this type of matchup it only plays into the hands of LAC and Kawhi.
KD is and was worth the trade as elite as Mikail Bridges is, however there is no depth on this roster. They added some players like Terrence Ross and Bazley, but those guys aren't going to do anything in this type of series. TJ Warren should have been out there today. Another Monty Mistake.
Monty has never recovered from being reversed swept in the Finals vs the Bucks where he was painfully outcoached. The NBA is not like College, but somehow Monty has found a way to found his arms and stand there all wholesome-like just as Tommy does for us as we get our asses handed to us. Makes me sick.
LAC's gameplan is simple - guard 4 players with 5 guys and dare "Torrey Craig" or whoever is out there whether it be Shamet, Ross, Biyombo, etc to beat them. Live and die with it. Booker and CP3 deferred way too much in that regard. KD was slow to get going, but he got it going. Ayton does Ayton things. He will ultimately be the key to winning the series if Monty coaches properly and gets Zubac in foul trouble early in games. Plumlee isn't enough to stop the Suns size.
Kawhi will Kawhi. He can score 40 a game and the Clippers should lose if the Suns played even a little bit of defense. But CP3 is such a hinderance that last year's "Alvarado" pest from behind crap was working all night on the lackadaisical dinosaur.
You can bet this series will go to 6 games at minimum after this loss due to the Scott Foster effect. The NBA won't allow the Suns to play this series without seeing him at least once. This isn't LAC with Paul George. Kawhi is 10x better in the playoffs and unguardable by nature. I think the Suns did a good job on him for the most part up until the final 2 minutes allowing him to get off 3 or 4 easy shots. Those mental lapses cost them the game in one sense, but in another sense the game was already blown even when they had the lead due to the soft nature of a Monty Williams coached team.
The real moment the game was lost was when the Suns went up 7 and in UofA Tommy form decided to get complacent. The house was rocking and Monty put in JOKE Landale and Ish Wainwright, allowing the Clippers to hang around and get it back to basically a tie game tit for tat instead of putting his foot on the gas and getting the Suns up 15-20 with the momentum. Crazy to say that because the starters all played Heavy Minutes similar to a Tommy short rotation, but the 6th man tonight, Landry Shamet played 24 minutes I believe and scored 4 points. CP3 38 minutes or so with 7 points. If that's the way Monty wants to beat his horses into the ground, then they need to score buckets, not defer shots. There was a moment toward the end of the 3rd where Monty had 4 of his best players on the bench and the Clippers took full advantage.
That's the write up. That's the analysis. The Suns deserved to lose this game. Not because they came out sluggish and unprepared, but because they are not better than the Clippers the way they are coached. The only way they are advancing is if something happens to Kawhi or Zubac injury-wise, or if the Superstars KD/Booker decide they have had enough of Monty and take matters into their own hands putting up huge numbers and not being bogged down by slow ass CP3.
On a Footnote - The Lakers played the 1st Play-In game early last week I believe Tuesday, got an uncanny amount of help from the Refs in disparity, barely scraped by in overtime, then had 4 or 5 days off or so until Game 1 and they somehow don't play Game 2 until Wednesday... (and also Scott Foster reffed today's game). The bag man for the league always helps the narrative. I just don't think preferential treatment of extra rest is fair. But the Grizzlies are going to Grizzly. They are choke artists as it is. The Warriors vs Kings is far more entertaining.