I feel the compulsive need to point out that yet again, our win can basically be attributed to poor 3-point & free throw shooting by the Suns. Yes, the Blazers did a much better job than in games 2 & 3 in nearly every phase of the game, but if the Suns shoot decent percentages from the line and behind the arc, we still lose. It's not like those are contested shots they're missing. At some point, I just want to see us win a game because we play our game really well, as opposed to just because they play theirs poorly. Am I alone in this?
It isn't as if we had our own free throw problems. The Suns are mainly a jump shooting team, they will live and die by it. They lived by it in games 2 and 3 and died by it in games 1 and 4. If we can play our game really well (particulary in the next game) I think we win the series. Right now we don't have much outside shooting, Rudy is garbage and Webster just doesn't look all that great. Batum has been our best shooter and Miller and Bayless aren't the greatest of shooters. Roy may be able to help us with outside shooting. I also think our defense was much better today as well which had to do some making the Suns miss. Perhaps it is because Rudy wasn't in there to let Richardson have all day to shoot wide open.
Wow, I think our D was good but that we did shoot all that well either, way to take the negative view.
Is there a difference between contested and rushed? Because, there were defenitely a lot of rushed 3 point shots taken in the second half. The Blazers did well at rotating out today and flying at the shooter. Several times Frye had what appeared to be an open look and had to shuffel his feet to move away from a defender closing out on him. I'm not sure what you expect, the Suns offense is predicated on the 3 pt. shot and the pick and roll. I'd much rather (and we discussed this ad naseum after game 1) have Phoenix shooting 25 plus three pointers from 23 feet out then then having Nash pick us apart with the pick and roll game. Forcing the Suns to make "rushed" 3 point shots is a solid game plan. Today it worked as it did in game1.
If the Suns hit all their 3-pointers, there's no team in the league that can beat them. It's impossible to prevent a team from taking deep shots, so (as jwhoops points out) the best we can do is make those shots as tough as possible, and hope that's good enough. What we CAN prevent is easy buckets in the paint, and I thought we did a good job of shutting that down and racing out to the shooters after the kick out.
The Blazers actually played defense this time around ... yeah maybe the Suns didn't shoot great when they were open, but I think you have to look at the fact that Rudy wasn't out there getting burned by Richardson and Barbosa constantly (except in his brief run when he did just that) and the bigger thing was actually winning the battle on the boards and not surrendering so many offensive rebounds and not allowing the Suns to get into their transition game (which is where they frequently do a ton of damage on their three pointers).
I'm thrilled by the win as well; I was just hoping to be able to take something from this win to provide further optimism for Monday. True, but we shot better from the line than they did. Yes, our defense was much better, but I think their offense was much worse, independent of our efforts. We had a horrific 0-13 stretch to begin the 4th quarter. Outside of that, we shot 35/66 -- 53%. For the most part, we shot pretty well. I still don't know how we only got outscored by 2 points in that stretch. Hadn't thought about it that way. Thanks for providing a well-reasoned alternative perspective.
I wasn't even talking about them hitting above their season average. They went 6-23 from 3 (26%). If they shoot 39%, that's 9 more points. I guess my point is that I was under the impression going in to this series that we were pretty evenly matched teams, and what it seems like is that if we play well and they play poorly, we win a close game, but if they play well and we play poorly, it's a blowout. It suggests to me that Barkley was completely correct when he identified the Suns as the clearly superior team, and that if they play well, we have no shot regardless of what we do. The idea that our destiny is basically in the hands of the opponent is disturbing to me.
You want some optimism? How about this. Roy is back and could potentially be the difference in the series for us to win. We are geneally a better road team than home team (our home record was better than our road record this year, but we seemed to play much better on the road) and yes, we did get blown out on the road, but we also got blown out at home and still responded with a win. So I think we can win on the road as well responding from our last blowout loss at there place. And even though some may disagree with me on this, I think Rudy not playing much helped out big time. Rudy literally was not doing anything for us in the first 3 games and basically made it 4 on 5 both on offense and defense. We are still in this, Roy being back, either by returning to his old self or being an excellent decoy is the wild card in how this series turns out.
I guess I see what you're saying, but I would counter with if Portland can play well two more times and if their defense can contribute to the Phoenix offense having two more off nights then scoring margin doesn't mean diddly poo. I've been guilty of it in the past, but I'm trying to get to a point where I don't pick apart wins ... especially in the playoffs where you are guaranteed to be matched up with a good to great opponent.
Exactly. It only takes a few percentage points shaved off, a few shots altered by a closing defender to make a big difference against a heavy three-point shooting team. It's where the old adage about living by the jumper and dying by the jumper comes from -- if they are willing to bet the game on 30 three-pointers, that's their choice. It is bound to work sometimes, but when it doesn't it almost guarantees fewer free throws and longer rebounds. I'll take that trade off, as long as we can keep them closer to 30% than 40%.
I'm sorry that you all disapprove. I'll do my best to leave the "negativity" to others going forward...
Uh, I'm of the thought that the Suns' performance in Games 2 and 3 were due to their quick transition from D to O. This was enabled by the Blazers' lack of prowess on the offensive side. The Suns had their way and dictated what the Blazers could do on offense. With Miller and Bayless attacking, and with Roy back, the Suns had to be a little more honest on D, which effected their transition from D to O. The Suns weren't given as many easy shots as they've had in the previous two games, and thus, they didn't shoot as well. They did, however, receive some gift calls on the flops. And Portland helped with missed free throws. But that wasn't enough to beat the Blazers.
