Jan 18, 2010
Suns Leaky Defense in Need of Stopper! 4 Straight Losses
Big Al,
You read my blog didn’t you? I love it. I am in love with this starting line-up and RoLo picked up a foul within 9 seconds…
Robin seems to have an really great awareness of Leandro’s timing, and how to rebound his misses. It’s weird. I think he has 3 tip-in dunks off Leandro misses in two games. including the hammer he just threw down.
The Suns are actually playing defense… UH OH! Let’s see how long it lasts…
Those turned out to be my famous last words. I am updating today’s post after watching the Suns allow 120+ points for 3 straight games. While it was good to see Rolo and Loooou play together (20-5 run with these players in the second quarter),
Big Al, wouldn’t go to Lou late. I don’t like taking Amar’e out of a game for “defensive reasons” and I have posted that I don’t think it will work.
One thing seems obvious here, Jason Richardson, can not play defense. I know that this isn’t news, but with Channing and J Rich on the court together, it seemed that the Suns dragged and was desperately looking for someone to hustle. The problem is, although Leandro adds speed and hustle to the court when he is in, he is not a GREAT defender by any means.
Amar’e picked up stupid fouls to force him out of the game. It’s no good at all. The Suns need to think about moving channing to the 3 or something because right now, opposing SF’s are absolutely devastating us. Rudy Gay was crushing tonight and so was O.J. Mayo.
Obviously Steve Nash is someone who you can live with being a defensive liability. But the only reason teams like the Lakers get away playing defensively limiting guards (Derek Fisher) is because they surround him by great perimeter defenders. (Trevor Ariza, Ron Artest, Kobe) The Suns playing J Rich and Leandro makes the perimeter defense nearly non-existent and OJ Mayo hit 5 3-pointers. I don’t even mind a player hitting a bunch of threes against us, I hate when I don’t see people jumping or running out full-speed to contest shots. Right now, the Suns have no Hustle
Tim Kempton was genius on the post-game saying, “Defense is a mind-set, and the Suns don’t have it.” He is absolutely right. The effort from our players other than RoLo, Lou, J Dud, and Goran is embarrassing. SOMETIMES, you can catch J Rich or Grant Hill hustling extra hard on the glass, but for the most part. It’s just terrible.
Amar’e had only 9 FG attempts. This is some of Amar’e being in foul trouble, and a lot of people not focusing on allowing Amar’e to create lanes for Nash and open shots for shooters. I don’t understand the movement to get rid of Amar’e, but there is more on that in the trade rumors.
The moral of this story is… if the Suns don’t play D, this season isn’t going to be pretty anymore.
Good Luck Big Al!
GO SUNS!
It is clear this post was written early in the game. The Suns returned to their porous defense and gave up 125!
While it is tough to find silver lining after a 4-loss road trip, I really like what we are seeing out of BTW star RoLo. It was the activity of Robin and Lou on the offensive boards in the first half which kept us close in the game. It was nice to see Robin continuing his offensive output in the second half, and hope he can put up a few more boards if he continues to log those type of minutes (only 7 in 29 min).
An even more pressing issue is how to fill the backcourt minutes – other than playing Nash 96mpg. IFTP has been puffing the Dragic for a while and would love to see more minutes go there. I don’t support inserting him in the starting 5, but you have to throw more minutes his way. He should be on the court the 14-15mpg Nash is on his back, and an additional 10-12mpg with MVSteve. I’m not ready to give up on LB, and I don’t think Big Al should either. I hope the captain sticks with the new starting 5 for another game or two. Leandro has always been a streaky player, we just hope he finds his touch soon! Oh yeah, and trade J-Rich.