Jordan Ott Postgame Media Availability | Phoenix Suns

Jordan Ott Postgame Media Availability | Phoenix Suns

Hey coach, uh just looking at Grayson Allen, a career night, set a new Suns franchise record with 10 made threes. Did you consider at any point leaving him in for longer for potential 50 piece? No. No, not with that score. Uh you know, it’s amazing. He’s got denied three times, three other times. So, his teammates knew it on the bench uh with the franchise. I mean, Book definitely knew um he needed one more there to start the fourth, you know, early in the fourth. So, yeah, he makes it look pretty easy. I mean, when when you have that kind of range where he was shooting it from Yeah. career night, obviously, great night, very efficient night. Yeah. Awesome. Spoke on it, but I’ll ask anyway. What impressed you the most about the way he shot the ball tonight? He just shoots it from so far away with ease. Um, you know, we’re trying to get him to shoot more. You know, his career numbers are, you know, he always shoots at a high clip. We want him to take some ones where he he doesn’t feel quite as comfortable all the time, but we know what he shoots. We need him to shoot more. So, we’ve tried to stress him shoot tougher ones, more contested, off the dribble, um, as well as get downhill, get in the paint, make plays. So yeah, I mean it was was awesome awesome to see awesome to see how his teammates push for him. Such an unassuming, quiet um yeah, well-mannered. I mean, organized like he’s just he’s always the adult or another adult in the room. So yeah, it’s great to see it come. Quick quick follow that second quarter. It was a 22 to five run. He hit two threes. Royce hit two threes. Livers did. And when you were putting together the roster and looking at it, were you thinking, “Okay, this is a group that can have this kind of night more consistently in terms of the spacing and the ball movement and guys you you know, you’ve had situations where it’s three or four guys out there that’s capable of knocking down threes.” Yeah, I’m not going to take credit of putting the roster together, Dwayne, but uh yeah, the roster is filled with shooting. And again, we just have to create enough paint pressure and then move it. And when your best player moves it like he does, I know the assist numbers don’t add up tonight, but a lot of times he hits the first trigger and then the next guy gets the shot. So, 29 assists, 39 field goals. Um we’re going to keep shooting them. Um, yeah, I thought our defensive intensity there in that second quarter really picked up. I I thought even from the jump, I thought our defensive intensity was really good. Uh, we were really good with our ball pressure tonight. Now it’s just about maintaining it for as long as we can. Coach, you just kind of touched on it there, but do you feel like everyone is really tied together more than you have been all year defensively? Good question. that you know the couple games that stand out was was early in the game early in the season um where our defensive activity just wasn’t good enough. Um I think always some of that shot making in LA that first time was an incredible shot making. Denver on the second night but back to back. So I think overall our season overall this season we’ve been a really good halfcourt team defensively. Transition I think we still need to clean some of that up but part of that’s our offensive turnovers. So I think overall we’ve had pretty good stretches of our defense. Probably more recently we felt that that it’s been at a high level. Now it’s just about maintaining it for 48 minutes. Jordan, during that stretch that Dwayne was talking about, you guys had a possession where the ball just moved effort effortlessly. You had 10 passes uh hardly any dribbles and it ended up with a Grayson three. But what really stood out was that unselfishness. Um, how important is that when you have and how hard is it when you have all these new pieces? It’s not like these guys have been playing together for a while come in and then to be able to share the ball like that. It was almost a shot clock violation, I think. Um, yeah, like we we we never want to get that deep into the shot clock. Obviously, your your first trigger into action hopefully is early in the clock and if you have the advantage, go ahead and use it. I just think with how much um the defense is focused on book, I think that um you know, we’re just going to continue to look for the advantage. If it’s not that first initial one, we’re going to keep going, but we’re we play with high level shooters, high level IQ guys. Um and offensively, we just try to space try to space and make the right play. And again, at times Mark has to suffer at some like he’s in the pick and roll. into pick and roll. In the pick and roll and tonight he gets one shot. So, it’ll be interesting to take a look at some of that. Could we have hit him a couple times? Um, again, we’re going to still seek the rim. We have to find rim attempts. Love it to be in transition. More rim attempts. Um, but if it’s not the rim, we’re going to definitely try to search for those high quality threes. So, yeah, just an unselfish group in general. Jordan, with uh players like Grayson that you can get so many different types of uses in off the ball. uh in terms of off ball movement, not always just off of pin down variations. Do you feel like with the shot making talent you have off of catch and shoots, this is something that can maybe not necessarily the 10 threes, but as a team getting the number that you did be somewhat repeatable off of the quality you create? Yeah, we we just try to put them in closeouts. Whether that’s a pick and roll to the first gets get you to that close out or an offball screen, we just try to get you to a closeout. Um, Grayson always has that ability to stretch the defense when he’s on the floor. You can feel his gravity. Um, but yeah, any if if they’re going to pack the paint, we’ll take the three. Again, if they’re going to stay home in our shooters, hopefully we can get to the rim a little more. And I did think we got to the rim at times and get get 31 free throws that comes from our drives. So, yeah, we’ll take a look. Um, we’re just trying to find a solution out there to whatever defense it is. And tonight, obviously, we’ve had a good shooting night. Some nights those things aren’t going to fall. We’re going to need some second chance points. We’re going to need some rim attempts. We’re going to get to the free throw line. So, makes it easy when a guy hit goes 10 and 15 to to tell them to keep shooting. Some of that even at the end was on the zone zone. We found the threes. We found some good looks. Um, yeah. So, whatever the defense has, we try to find the next solution. Sorry if this was asked already, but Colin only two minutes for him in the second half. Did he come up with anything or or is he good? Yeah, and he did have some type of back like just stiffen up. It was actually in the first half. In the second quarter, um I think about six minutes left when we took him out there in the second quarter and then as the game got got to where it got to there in the third quarter, we just decided to play it a little safe with them. Um nothing serious. Um I just thought overall like those nights help you. Your bench plays well. I thought our bench stretch early in the second quarter really helped us and it helps you save some minutes for those guys that have logged a lot of minutes. So, you know, we’re heading into that was the first night of a three and four. Um, we know what is ahead. We tried to stress that with our guys, like let’s take care of business to save some minutes. Um, but yeah, any any anything like that, we just hold them out and get ready for the next one. How do you think Nick and Oso did with the swap that you did there? Yeah, I think it’s going to be a night toight thing. Um, I thought in in LA in the second half, uh, Nick had really good minutes. Um, OSO’s first half stint I thought was good, especially there in that second quarter when he played with that group. We’re going to try to mix and match and again feel we have a plan going into it, but we’re going to feel some of that out. Um, if Looney happened to be out there more in the end of first, beginning of the second, we’re going to go with Nick. So, we’re going to have to feel some of that out. Um, we need everyone. And with the backtoback up next, do you expect Mark to still sit for one of those two or is he is he improving in there? I think that’s why some of these nights are good, you know, just to see how he comes out of it. Obviously, you look at his schedule and you see a three and four. Um, again, we have a plan, but that plan could be adjusted based on how he comes out of tonight. So, yeah, we’ll take a look. Coach, um, speaking of that second quarter, I mean, it was a 258 run, but Grayson, it feels like throughout this entire season, has been more of a playmaker, sort of leading that second unit. Um, have you seen him as a playmaker? You know, how have you seen that sort of help him when it comes to scoring and getting downhill and getting easier looks? He’s one of those guys that can get downhill and, you know, I don’t think we quite had all that planned early in the season and but, you know, Jaylen comes back who was going to lead that second unit. Now it’s now it’s Grayson and Colin. Um, that just shows how high level these guys are. literally very few practice reps back into that same same role. He’s able to flip the switch and probably a lot of that was his other guys making plays. You get you get 15 threes up a lot at that time. You know, a lot of those are catch and shoot. So, we have multiple guys that can do multiple things which which makes things a lot easier. Good. Thank y’all.

Head Coach Jordan Ott speaks with media following the Phoenix Suns 121-98 win over the New Orleans Pelicans. #SunsUp

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