The REAL Phoenix Suns Are FINALLY Back For Revenge
Stephen, you disagreed with me when I labeled game one of the preseason a must-win, critical, do or die, got to have it. Now that it’s happened and we’ve seen the response, I think I was justified. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey. Psychos and sickos unite for a man we still really needed that preseason win edition of PHNX Suns presented by Bet365. Download the bet365 app. Use code PHX365. Deposit 10 place bet for five and get $200 in bonus bets. It’s me Eric back with Steven fresh off of covering the two Mercury Finals games. Back with us today to talk about some preseason action. We got the freckle mamba behind the Mac making all of the magic happen. And of course, the magic can’t happen without all of you in chat. Ashley, Andy, Shum Dog, Matt, No Good, Justin, who just became an MVP. So many of our friends hanging out with us as the real Phoenix Suns are finally back in our lives, Stephen. So, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, become a member today as we gear up for Friday’s showdown against the Nets in China. A programming note, we will be doing a postgame show for that 500 a.m. tip off. So, of course, these psychos and sickos will be in full force on Friday. We’ll have live shows every day leading up to that. But Stephen, you did not get to share your thoughts on a critical do or die, must-win, got to have it preseason, cuz there was no must-win, got to have it preseason game. I know I’m joking, but like as a Suns fan, as a Suns fan myself, nope. If they went out there, No, let me let me cook. N I took away all your utensils, the pots, the stove. Guess what? I’m still going to find a way to cook a way to microwave the toaster cooking unless you Flintstone style. Okay, I’m starting a fire like it’s on Survivor. Okay, listen. Oh my god. As a Suns fan, I’ll say like, yes, it’s preseason game one. As a Suns fan, yes, they gave us what we needed in that game for sure. They gave us hustle, heart, grit, determination enough so to say, okay, this long wait, this this PTSD that we have, while we don’t know if this team will be good this year, we are thrilled with the idea of what they could be. That’s why this was so important. Even if the game itself wasn’t wasn’t a quote unquote must-win. Yes. But to take what my definition of my phrase and my introduction was and is and to twist it is very lawyer. You created must win. It’s very lawyeresque. I brought it to the show. That’s what I’m saying. Okay. It’s very lawyeresque and I’m not allowing it. I’m not allowing it. Those are reserved for games of high magnitude. And no matter what preceded a preseason game, it would never be a must-win or got to have it in any capacity. It can still be important, which it certainly was. It absolutely was. It’s a tone set. It’s a tone setting game. It’s an extension of training camp. All of the stuff you’ve been doing in scrimmage against one another, your first opportunity to put it forth and see what it looks like and see if it’s working. That’s the first live game reps to generate buying back. man, he had us doing all of these spacing principle moves and drilling this terminology into us and then you put it into the game and it’s like, oh, I’m not thinking as much. I’m just reading and reacting and we’re playing off of each other and we’re playing in good spacing and the tempo is good and defensively we’re in the gaps and the way we’re supposed to and things like that. That’s the that’s the payoff. That’s the payoff right there. I think that part is a step that’s very important to what it is they’re working towards. Was that your biggest takeaway from game one? Um, well, I got about 15,000 something notes. Good thing we got an hour and then another hour after that and then another hour after that and another hour after that and then a preg pregame. Well, not pregame. We’re not doing a pregame for Friday. We’re doing a postgame show. I think the the biggest takeaway is that um things were very refreshing. I think we didn’t see anything we didn’t see too much. Well, I I can’t even say that. We saw some things that we’ve seen Devin Booker do before be brought back into the fold. Like what? Simple elbow elbow action. Him starting at one of the elbows of the court in horns and flowing out of that into different concepts. There’s so much you can do. You can dictate to a defense. You can decide who’s going to be the low man and how you can exploit that person because of the setting of horns. You also can make that a threeon three. You got two players deep in the corner. Now you got all type of space you can operate with. You can get into a ton of different concepts in that slot pick and roll touch action and it turns into a flare for Deon Booker. You just get into a straight pick and roll from the elbow if he gets it there. You can flip that into inverted pick and roll for Oso Gadaro which we saw which I enjoyed a lot. There’s a lot of layers to what it is they’re laying as a foundation. Some of it is new. Some of it is also the return of some of the old stuff that made Devin Booker one of the most lethal scorers and the best rhythm scorers in the game. Yeah, I felt like the offense had a purpose. I felt like the movement had a purpose, the spacing had a purpose, the cutting had a purpose. And when when you look at like an individual player, right? So when when you watch film or when you break it down, do you like go kind of play byplay and say, “I’m going to watch Devin Booker this possession. I’m going to watch Grayson Allen this possession.” or do you kind of let it play out and then maybe you run it back and and focus on somebody based off of what you see? Um, well, it depends on how I’m watching. If I’ve seen the live game already, if it’s my first time watching, I usually let it kind of flow through. I’ll pause it a little bit and ask questions and try to anticipate things at times. But generally, yeah, sometimes you you look at one player to see what’s going on, but honestly, you get to a certain point where it’s been so many hours in it, you start to kind of get used to movement patterns out of where players are in certain pockets. So that allows for you to revert your attention elsewhere. You can kind of get a beat on what’s going on. And so obviously like you know when I went back and watched this game like you watched Devin Booker who had really good stats in under 30 minutes played, right? You look at Oso Gdaro. I think he had a fascinating game, right? Ryan Dunn doing the little things. I don’t know if there was a player that my eyes were drawn to more than Grayson Allen. Mhm. And I think Grace and Allen as far as all the things that we talked about, intentional cutting, intentional spacing, running, like, you know, moving with a purpose, and then obviously like taking shots and hitting threes as well. He might be the player that benefits the most from from what we saw this Sun’s offensive identity is, cuz we’ll get to the defense. Like the defense was the bread and butter. The defense was what won them this game, but it really felt like Grayson Allen was moving with a with a purpose out there. And I was that really excited me instead of just being like, “Oh, he’s out there to shoot. Go stand in the corner or go stand on a wing and wait for the ball.” Yeah. I I mean, I was saying Grayson’s going to be one of the most direct beneficiaries outside of Deon Booker and Jaylen Green to the offense and the principles and the actions that they’re going to be running under Jordan Kn. Um, largely because a lot of that stuff he’s already he already does as an individual player. some of the shallow cuts and some of the screens that he sets for guards and things like that. He’s been doing that stuff. I just gonna lean into it so you can get more out of it from him. But uh something else that stood out to me which includes Grayson. So the starting lineup, Colin Gillespie, Grayson Allen, Devin Booker, or excuse me, starting lineup Devin Booker, Grayson Allen. Um and then the what game did you watch? No, no, no. um you get to the starting lineup and what stood out to me with that group and this is something I talked about a little bit in the early stages of the summer as the roster was coming together all five players initiated offense especially I think the most fascinating of that was OSO and that was something that I spoke a lot about after summer league I was like okay Grace or Oso in college had some dynamic pick and roll tandemss but it wasn’t just a traditional version Tyler Kolick and I forgot The other guard is Cam Jones. I think that’s at he’s in uh he’s with the Knicks now. Those two players natural picking roles, but also very good offense. What added another layer to it is them also inverting net on the college level. Now there’s a lot less spacing and there’s different rules. So inverted pick and roll isn’t as effective on the college level, but on the NBA level, they got into it a lot with with OSO. Sometimes it was him initiating, sometimes it was him coming from a certain spot to get a catch in the slot and then get to it. But there’s layers to their offense that are already baked into the foundation and there’s a certain cadence at which they’re operating. It’s not arduous and slow and predictable. There’s a understanding and there’s a snappiness to it that is keeping them in advantage while also creating new advantage. Were you surprised that OSO started? He wasn’t the one that I thought would just because of what it feels like they’re working towards with presumably Mark Williams being their starting five when he’s healthy. But I wouldn’t necessarily say I was surprised because I feel like I think Jordan Kn is going to relish the opportunity and seeing OSO as a project taking what he already does well seeing what you can get more out of that while also in uh insulating some of his weaknesses as well. And I felt like the Oso, and we’re talking about offense here, and and I want to keep that up, but just while we’re focusing on Oso specifically, his defense, I felt like he played a little bit bigger than than what he is. He is not what he’s listed at, cuz he’s listed at 7 feet tall. I don’t think he’s 7 feet tall, but I I just felt like as a presence in the middle, he was big, he was physical, he was rebounding the ball. He had a team high and nine rebounds. But the most important things came after that after he grabbed the rebound and he pushed the ball up the court. It wasn’t get the ball to a guard, walk it up, getting your set, getting your action a little bit later. It was skip aheads or it was grabbing and going from OSO. And if you are doing that, it is 10 times more effective if everybody who’s on the court with you knows where they should be and where they shouldn’t be. Mhm. And my biggest takeaway on offense, like we talk about all the things, the intentional movement, cutting and everything. In tandem with that is nobody looked lost, nobody looked confused. I thought the ball movement was extraordinarily crisp, especially when OSO was in the game. So you basically had a player that could pass at every position, but even when he wasn’t, even when it was Nick Richards who was in the game, right? It to me, I felt like I was watching a team that had played a lot of basketball together. And you heard JJ Reick’s comments after the game talking about how the Suns have had this advantage of being in the gym together and working together. And that’s what we heard in the offseason. It’s what we heard at media day. It’s what you heard at training camp. And the first time and the only time so far they’ve had a chance to really let that show. From the tip from the moment that the game started, they were on the same page and it looked like they had been playing together for a really long time and especially cohesively offensively. to me, Stephen, I then look ahead to, okay, when you get to the regular season, let’s say you get to December, well, let’s hope we get to December, January, February, March, April, how much better are some of the things that we saw crisply executed in game one of the preseason going to be by then? And that’s the that’s why this foundation setting, foundation, laying portion of training camp is so important to me. Um, which is why I didn’t disagree about preseason game one being important, a must. Um, no. Critical, important, do or die. Got to have because it’s like your audition. You’ve been working on all of this stuff for this stage play you’re work you’ve been working towards. And your first opportunity is to kind of go through kind of run through the script, if you will. Kind of get a feel for things. And when everything feels that comfortable, you feel more like yourself. You feel more like yourself. You start to play less with thinking and more with just reading and reacting. It becomes like knowing the back of your hand. So, I think they’ve done a great job with that. Um, and I think another indication point with that, he was 25 assists on 31 field goals made through the first three quarters. That is, and every starter had exceptional. And every starter had an assist. Exceptional. That’s exactly what you want. Jordan, I talked about moving it players and the ball. I feel like we saw a hefty amount of all of that at again just a certain cadence to where it was felt like it was less thinking and they were just playing off of each other. And that’s what you want to see. So, we’ll get into comparing because what I did is I I pulled obviously the numbers from this preseason game one and compared them to the averages from last season, which obviously is a super unfair comparison, but I’m going to do it anyway because I wanted to. And we’ll get to that here in a second after we take a break. But let’s talk about assists like you mentioned. Okay. Devin Booker, 25 minutes, seven assists. That is without Mark Williams. That is without Jaylen Green. Probably the two best offensive options outside of Deon Booker on the team. Okay. Grayson Allen, two assists. Osu Gadaro, two assists, which by the way, two very crisp, very clean assists, but his ball movement outside of the assists was also great. Okay, you go to Dylan Brooks, three assists. Ryan Dunn, three assists. That’s 17 assists in the starting lineup alone where two of your starters were out. when you are playing on schedule, when you are playing with guys that you understand their rhythm and their cadences and you understand that, hey, maybe a play isn’t going to be called here, but if we’re here on the court and we have these matchups, I know how we’re going to attack. I know what we’re going to do. Stephen, essentially, sometimes you can walk into assists. Colin Gillespie had four assists. Royce O’Neal had two assists. Nigel Hayes had an assist. Nick Richards had an assist. You had guys out there that would just walk into an assist because the offense and the offensive system was so crisp and they knew where somebody was going to be. It wasn’t like Steve Nash was out there making plays. A lot of it were simple reads, but the right reads. I think the other layer to that, which I’m sure we going to get to shortly, and if not, I’ll be introducing it now. Um, offensive rebounds, man. You talk about intentionality. watching players where last season they would have just got back in transition. Ryan Dun in the corner as a shot goes up. He’s running along the baseline with intention and hitting that outside shoulder of somebody to then get into position to joust for a rebounding opportunity. I’m seeing Colin Gillespie go and get a tip on something and then also cleans it up and he kicks it out to a wide open three-point shooter or someone else that passes it to someone that’s ultimately wide open. Offensive rebounds are the third best advantage outside of shooting free throws in transition because everybody usually turns and watches turns and goes towards the basket or they’re getting back to start a transition break which means that the numbers are distorted and there’s an advantage somewhere in there. Usually the highest quality threes come in transition or off of offensive rebounds because of that. And I think they got for the three or four offensive rebounds they got through the first half, I think they scored. They knocked down a three on like three of those. That wasn’t by accident. It was by intentionality. Multiple guys crashing with multiple efforts. 14 players touched the court for the Suns on Friday. Do you know how many of them had offensive rebounds? 14 um about seven or eight. Nine players collected an offensive rebound for the Suns. Ryan Dunn, Oso Igodaro, Devin Booker, Royce O’Neal, Nigel Hayes Davis had two. Uh Nick Richards, Kaman Malawatch, Jared Butler, and Jordan Goodwin. That is a lot of individual players grabbing offensive rebounds. And your hustle and your heart and your determination can’t come from one guy. We’re going to talk about Dylan Brooks here in the second segment when we talk about defense, right? We’ll talk about Nigel Hayes Davis and his extra efforts. We’ll talk about Ryan Dunn. You can’t just have a couple of guys out there having this type of grit and determination and say that’s your team identity, right? Your team identity is how your team plays. And from a team element, offensively, it was smooth, but it was also gritty. There was hustle. And a lot of these big plays that they had that made up for some of the deficiencies they had, whether it was in the free throw department or beyond, like came from they just gave an F more than the Lakers. They tried harder than the Lakers. They weren’t just smarter. They didn’t just execute better. They didn’t just have more talent, which they did. I think they had more talent on the court than the Lakers in this game, despite Reeves and his almighty whistle getting getting burned. The Suns outgrit their opponent for what I felt like was the first time in years. And yes, I get that in part is because the personnel is different. But just because you have the personnel to do it doesn’t mean you have the mindset to do it. And offensively, it felt like everything meshed together well. And for preseason game one, Stephen, you couldn’t ask for anything more than what you saw besides the free throws. You could have definitely hit more free throws. Yeah. Um they they did a lot of what Jordan has been preaching as far as their their habits, their daily gamely habits. Um we heard a lot about them wanting to take advantage of that early third of the shot clock, whether they get a shot on goal from that or not. They want to be in advantage getting into that. You get into advantage with that by employing for some of your bigs to just grab and go. Nigel Hayes Davis, Dylan Brooks, um obviously also Gdaro, Ryan Dunn as well. Y’all grab a board, don’t look for a guard to outlet it to, get the break going because that lag of transition or rebound to outlet and then getting into transition. All that’s doing is allowing for the defense to get back and get set. So, if they don’t have that opportunity, now you’re playing against mismatches and now you can manipulate without having ran any action. That’s what you want. Yeah. That’s going to save them a couple of seconds and you get a couple more seconds or you fight for offensive rebounds. These are the small things. The Suns lost so many games on the margins last year. An incredible ungodly unspeakable amount of games on the margins last year. If you can flip a lot of those in your favor, you’re going to pick up more wins than people expect. And a big part of that is the defense. It’s the hustle. It’s the heart. That’s the true identity of this team. And that is what the true identity of this franchise is going to be. But before we get to a break, I want to read Rich Bass’s comment because I find it hilarious. In all caps, like Jay Crowder says, I’ve been watching Suns fans happy something over Dylan Brooks overlazing. Wait till he starts thinking he Jordan and start jacking shots and getting cooked on defense. Well, we are going to glaze Dylan Brooks and we’re going to do it right after our first break. If you’re in our comment section and all caps over a preseason game and Suns fans being happy, might I recommend Pure Edibles for you so you can calm the f down. Listen, Pure Gummies are not covered in sugar like all their other competitors, but they are a full-fledged candy company delivering you delicious gummies, kicks, which is their version of Starburst, Chews, and Hard Candies. The effects are clearly listed on each tin, so you know what to expect. Like for rich, there’s a calming one, there’s a sleeping one. These are all things you probably need help with. Plus, who says that you got to chew your edible when you can drink it as well with Nova Road’s new Tower Station IPA all-in-one. It’s happy hour all the time with a smooth THC twist all in one. It is wonderful. Combining CBN, CBG, CBD with marijuana derived THC pure edibles not only is a local company, but they are one of the best and we love them here at PHNX. So, go find yourself some Pure Edibles products from one of the over 130 dispensaries across Arizona. Not only do we love Pure Edibles, but man, do we love Circle K. I stopped at Circle K yesterday, picked up some gas. Of course, I’m a member of the Inner Circle, so I got 5 cents off per gallon like I do in every Philip. And I walked in and they had my favorite electrolyte drink and they had it on sale because of course they do. It’s Circle K. Not only can you get deals on gas, but you can get a 79 cent Polar Pop. You can get a 99 cent pro uh froster, you can do meal deals, a $3 meal deal, $4, $5 with any combinations of pizzas, hot dog, breakfast sandwiches, hash browns, and drinks. It’s all there for you at Circle K. But you’re asking yourself, Eric, how can I get these deals? It must cost some monthly subscription or membership cuz you got to pay to get deals nowadays. Not at Circle K. You can join the inner circle for free. It’s so easy. All you have to do is download the Circle K app. You put in your phone number, you put in your email, and boom, that is it. Terms and conditions do apply at participating locations. Visit circlek.com for full details. Big shout out to Shum Dog, Deborah, Kaye, Melissa, Sean, Matt, Freckled, Mamba, everybody in the chat. I guess you’re in the chat, but I don’t really care. Hanging out with us here on a on a victory Monday. on a victory. You until you say until you say it was a critical got to have it must win game. Well, get comfortable then. Then I don’t care that you’re in the chat. You know what is a get got to have it must win. What? Game three for the Mercury. Yeah, game three for the Mercury. You want to talk about Got to have it. It’s both of those. The second most must-win game in in in the in the state. No, it’s second to the China game against the Brooklyn. I’m kidding. Of course. Of course that. Listen, Stephen and Erica have been doing a great job over on Murk, but brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal. All Vegas did was ho serve. Now you got two games back to back at home over this next five days. You got your chance to do the same. I thought you said ho serve and I was like, you can’t say that. Um, speaking of brutal, the Arizona Cardinals, the Arizona Cardinals had the most singular brutal loss I’ve ever seen in my entire life. You know, I I have something very u decorated to say. Oh. A losing team is going to find the most creative ways to not finish a game in the win column. That game was wrapped up and in the bag and they found a new way to just not do it. Yeah, I know. That was I was genuinely impressed. Okay. It was a very creative way to go about doing so. From a non-Cardinal perspective, it was objectively hilarious, but it does suck. Sorry to Cardinal fans out there. Sorry. Sorry to Cardinals fans out there, but you can make it up for everything with a watch party over at Hila River Resorts Casino’s Wild Horse Pass for the road game watch parties with PHNX Cardinals. There’s no better way to get through a brutal season than with PHNX Cardinals. Bo, Johnny, and the crew out at Wild Horse Pass this Sunday. So, make sure you go check that out. You can check out all the details on our events at gophnx.com/events. Can we talk about the damn defense? I wasn’t done with offense, but yes, we can go to the defense. Oh, okay. What do you have to say about No, no, no. I know. I didn’t even I don’t want back around. I don’t want to. This man see what I got to do with I don’t want to do it. Eric can attest. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to talk about I don’t want to talk about defense. Okay. So, anyway, yeah, the defense um very very fun, very active. No, I’m sorry. Can we talk about players? We saw players getting picked up full court after timeouts. Double dude, we saw people getting picked up full court off a tip off. Two to three player. Yeah, correct. Two to three players at a time potentially spending time on the opposite side of where the defense usually gets set from. That all matters to me. I imagine teams are going to start to try to press the Suns or try to set screens in the back court for the Suns to alleviate that pressure. But depending on who it is that’s playing kind of around half court that’s kind of lurking around. You try to throw that pass over the top and they’re containing the ball. Well, all you’re doing is shrinking the shot clock. That 24 seconds that a team every team is given on every possession starts getting closer to 16 and you start flirting with a 8-second count in the back court. Then you finally get across the half court. But it’s like no, it’s not getting across the half court to get to the finish line. That’s where offense starts at. So you still got to get into an actual action. And what advantages are you creating when you’re getting that much pressure? Now you start playing more aggressive off the ball. You have more opportunities and things like that. They’re just that’s that was very impressive. It it was extraordinarily impressive on defense. If they play defense like that and now granted no not overreacting, but we’re talking about the foundation and set. Yep. Well, and that’s and that’s the thing, right? Is like listen, I think there’s a balance between overreacting to something and reacting to something. I think the the fact that we’re coming from having watched 82 games of what was called defense last season. I’ve seen defense before. That was not it. What do you mean, man? Walk down Tus Jones. And then immediately in the most foundation type of game, the first game, actual game for the team, they defend that way. Yeah. It’s very fair for Suns fans to feel um gratified for it because how could you not listen? The Suns won a singular preseason game. Yep. But it’s not just the fact that they won the singular preseason game. It’s how. And how matters. They limited the Lakers to 81 points. And not only did they limit the Lakers to 81 points, do you know how many free throws the Los Angeles Lakers took in that game, they didn’t take that many free throws? They took 37. They took 37. They took 37 free throws. Jesus Christ. I didn’t realize it was 37. They took 37 free throws to the Phoenix Suns 26. And And yeah, the Suns hit 14 to 26, which is bad. That foul must have happened late in the fourth quarter. That was just when Austin Reeves is on the court, they basically just start blowing the whistle either way. You know how that goes. the three-point defense, the close outs, the switching, the communication, the the fullcourt pressing, the halfcourt pressing, the interior defense, the playing strong, the playing up. Like, yeah, no Luca, no LeBron. That obviously matters. That’s a that’s that’s the entire offense for the Lakers essentially. But you did have Austin Reeves, right? Who Austin Reeves is a good NBA player. You saw it two other starters and that you had from last year and Rihachimura and Jared Vanderbilt. Jake Laravia, who I think is a good player, and then DeAndre Ian, right? and and DeAndre Aton was completely shut down despite what he wants to say. He was not an effective player in that game. Your heart, your hustle, your determination is without a doubt the identity of this Phoenix Suns team. Right. We spent almost 20 minutes talking about the offense, Stephen. And through one preseason game, to be able to speak that much and that positively about the offense is incredible. And in order for this team to shock a lot of people, their offense is going to have to overachieve and surpass expectations. their bread and butter. How they are going to win games in the middle of February, how they’re going to win backto backs, how they’re going to win on the margin margins starts on the defensive end. And I don’t give a crap what Rich Bass in the chat has to say. Dylan Brooks is a culture setter. Dylan Brooks is a great defensive player. Maybe he’s not the best defensive player in the league, but he is a good defensive player. He is somebody that you want on your team and the Houston Rockets will sorely miss this year. And I do think that if anything is infectious in basketball, it’s two things. Three-point shooting because when somebody’s hot, everybody’s kind of got a little bit of groove. But the number one thing is defense. And you saw that cascading effect. You saw what Dylan Brooks heart and hustle and Ryan Dunn’s heart and hustle and Colin Gillespiey’s heart and hustle and Oso and Nigel and Royce and Book and Grayson. It was everything that you could possibly want on the defensive end. And that’s the identity of this team. Point blank period. It just is. Yeah. He He’s a guy that um I think the best way to put it is probably the way Oslo put it coming into the coming into the league. Um coming from Marquette, energy generating behaviors. There’s guys that defend well and then there’s guys that share energy with the players on the floor to where you pick up the baton off of that energy that that guy’s defended with. There’s a elite group of those guys. Dylan Brooks is in that group of guys. He raises the floor of the defensive success for the teams that he’s on the court with those other four players. I mean, you talk about the loose ball he dove on the floor for in the third quarter. We talk about picking up full or picking up across the half court line after the jump ball immediately. The aggressive switches where a player knows a switch is coming and they come off of the screen or the handoff that takes place and because of the aggressiveness of the switch, the angle at which he cuts the angle off from the ball handler. They get sent going south away from the basket towards the half court line. Those little things add up over time. And now what might have been someone that was a little bit lax, they’re like, “Oh no, he just dove on the floor for a loose ball in the third quarter of a preseason game. I gotta give some extra energy.” They have multiple guys that were playing in the main rotation minutes wise in his first preseason game that give that. He’s at the top of that list. And again, for someone that you said is a culture starter, a culture setter, that’s very much it. I think the most indicative moment we saw over the weekend wasn’t even on the court. It was boss man9. Yeah. Yeah, chiming in on Twitter or Instagram or whatever that was, giving him basically a vote of confidence in a salute. That’s a baton passing that you want to see because that guy is not going to go out of his way to acknowledge it if it’s not there. He’s not blowing smoke. He sees some of himself in Dylan and that’s something that helped that Sun’s team get to the finals. Yeah. Can I just recognize uh how many people are in here with us on a Monday? Thank you all so much. Hit the like button, hit the subscribe button. If you’re new around here, maybe you’re fans of Dylan Brooks and Jaylen Green and the new Rockets on the Suns, or maybe you’re a Suns fan who’s finally getting back into it with the start of the season. Just a reminder, we’re live five days out of the week every single week, even during the offseason. We’ll have live shows at 3 p.m., plus pre and postgame shows for every regular season game. We’ll have a postgame show for the 5 a.m. tip off this Friday. We’re not doing a show on Sunday for a 4 a.m. tip off. We do have to draw a line somewhere. And then of course we’ll do a pre- and postgame show for the final preseason game of this month. But we are super excited for Suns basketball to be back. We’re super excited for you to be here. Let’s keep diving into the defensive side of things. Obviously Dylan Brooks, that DB was great. He was awesome. He was everything I could have expected and wanted him to be. Plus, he hit threes, right? Ultimate three and D. Didn’t play outside of his role. Made good reads. Picked up a couple of assists and and got in everybody’s face defensively. Let’s talk about the other DB defensively. Lots of eyes are going to be on Devin Booker this year on both sides of the ball. It’s his team. He’s coming off his worst season of his prime, especially on that end. I know it’s preseason, but from what you saw, did anything stand out to you defensively from Devin Booker. Uh yeah, the first thing that stood out was who he was guarding. So, you look at the Lakers starting lineup, he’s guarding the worst shooter on the court. So, he’s crossmatch guarding Jared Vanderbilt who was in the starting lineup for the Lakers. and not cross match and just chilling on defense. Crossmastered in making help decisions, communicating from the backside around actions to keep his players that are on the ball or one pass away in position to be successful because they know where he is and what he’s anticipating based off of what’s going on in terms of movement patterns and things like that that the Lakers like to get into. Uh, so the communication piece for Deon Booker, as important as anything, I think I spoke in detail with that last season. people wanted to um talk about the deficiencies of his defense, but one of the things I wanted to bring up to the forefront was the communication piece. You can’t show me a good defender if that person’s not in a high level communicator. Yeah, Evan Booker is never not talking on defense. Calling out the low man, telling somebody else they should be the low man because of what actions being ran and anticipating what’s going to come from that. Letting people know I’m in this pocket here to your left, I’m in the gap here. um communicating X outs, all of the little things that you need to do to be successful defensively. From a communication standpoint, he’s a high level communicator. Yeah. Now, it’s when he puts the athleticism in tandem with having impact and just guarding the ball is when he’s at his best version of himself there. Well, and we’ve seen and that’s the thing with Book and why why I’ve never really wavered or or doubted him. We’ve seen him play some pretty elite level defense and now granted it’s in the playoffs in a small sample size and we can’t have him I guess assumably defend at that level for an entire season. I think Remy is neat is bringing up some great points in the chat. Uh in response to some people kind of downplaying Dylan Brooks’s effort and energy and just saying that’s all he brings. He’s not actually that good. Remy says, “We watched the Suns get out hustled by teams with way less talent last year, but now there’s a desire to minimize the impact of effort. We would have lost to a lucalless brunless Lakers last year.” And then follows it up by saying, “Book will defend as well as the players around him.” I would agree with that. And then also add he will only defend as well as the players and the system around him. Because when you have a star player who has to exert that much energy on the offensive end, who has to to carry the load that Devin Booker does have to carry, you don’t want him thinking too much on defense. Yes, you want him communicating, analyzing, reading, and and making smart decisions, but you want him to know, hey, I know if Ryan Dunn’s on the court and he’s guarding that person there, I know what he’s going to be doing. I know where he’s going to be trying to siphon off this player into. I know that the big behind me is going to be in a certain position, whether it’s drop, whether he’s playing high on the screen, whatever it is, depending on who who the offensive talent is on the court. You know, it to me, the easier that you make Devin Booker’s life defensively, in turn, the better defense he’s going to be able to play. Yeah, I think that part is important. Um, especially because like I mentioned last week when Jordan not was speaking about the Mercury and Alyssa Thomas and how they play the brand of basketball they do because of the ways that their best player wears those qualities that the head coach desires to see. Obviously, he’s saying that but in respect to what the Mercury have. You can’t tell me that’s not something that he desires to have from his team that he’s coaching. Now, obviously Alyssa Thomas and Devin Booker are two very different players. They’re not comparable in that sense. But what Devin Booker can do is wear those qualities and show that he’s willing to go the extra mile. He’s willing to dive on the floor for loose balls. He’s willing to play with multiple efforts defensively to be successful. If he’s doing that, no one else has an excuse to not do that on the team. And I think the other part with that is there’s some things he will need to clean up. He did get caught in limbo a little bit as the low man Jackson Hayes. Pick and roll. Hey, that didn’t happen. Got to be on time as a low man. You got to be not even on time. You got to be Jackson Hayes doesn’t deserve to be in the league uh for a variety of reasons. So, that never happened for sure. But generally speaking, um low man defensive principles is something that they’re leaning into heavily. They want to be early with their low man help. Deon Booker, I can’t remember if he was just kind of moving because his matchup moved or he was trying to reset the 29 so he didn’t get caught for 3 seconds in the paint call. Mhm. Either way, he was going the other direction. Ended up being a little bit behind. Step, maybe a half second behind schedule as Hayes got the ball and that ended the way it did. That’s easily correctable though. I think that’s something I’m not worried about. Outside of that, I feel like that was the the loudest quote unquote mistake that I saw from him defensively. He was very engaged. He was very active. Didn’t feel like he got lost off the ball. I think that’s the part that is maybe the biggest pet peeve when watching him defend. Sometimes he kind of gets lost in the days watching the ball at times or just loses track of his matchup on the weak side trying to communicate. Uh but yeah, that was it. I think he was I think he was fine. I think all you need for him is to be better than he was last year. If he’s the weakest quote unquote weakest defender, but he’s actively engaged and he’s also a high level communicator, it makes it hard for teams to find somebody to target in that starting unit. Sure. And again, when you’re a smart basketball player, and I would consider him a smart basketball player, you’ll end up just being in the right spot and making the right plays. Sure. Is there anybody else you want to highlight defensively here before we kind of compare this game versus uh the season last year and kind of look ahead at what do we want to see that we didn’t get to see in game one? Uh yeah. Uh just kind of rapid fire, Kylie Gillespie, first play I’m thinking about block shot. He’s in the opposite corner where the shot got blocked from. I think it was after inverted pick and roll with Devin Booker and Oso Gdaro. He sprints down the court and meets I think it was maybe Jackson Hayes or Dalton connect taps it from behind off of their leg and the Suns gain a possession. That’s a multiple effort. That speaks to everything that I spoke to last season about him being a blue collar boy. Uh Ryan Dunn, the pickup points were exceptional. I love to see them leaning more into that. He didn’t he had one play at the end of the or right before halftime where he got a bad foul. That can’t happen. I think he acknowledged it quickly, so they didn’t need they didn’t need to coach him up on that. Uh he was very active on defense. The switches, they were switching one through four. I imagine that’s something they’re going to do often in most of their lineup constructs. They were very good with their switches, communicating those on and off the ball. It didn’t feel like they got back door or they lost leverage too much. Um also Egodaro. Yeah, I that’s that’s when I asked that question. That’s where I was kind of setting up. Yeah, I was I was getting there. The communication sometimes having them keep players to the out of third, weakening them, icing them, keeping them to the outer third, kind of helping steer the wheel with his communication from behind the ball when he was on ball, doing a good job of just being active. And I think that activity, that versatility, that want to do so, it kind of just showed a little bit more. He’s stronger. he’s able to take on some of those rollers and those matchups and be a little bit more aggressive there. Very, very good showing from Oso Gdaro in the first game. Um, other name that I I’m blanking on, Nigel. Nigel was good. That was expected. Um, Nick Richards. Nick. Yeah, communication. A little bit more active of a defense with Oso on the floor. With Nick, they were doing more on the outer thirds of the court and keeping things there. And he was he was very good with his communication in that as well. very very solid showing from them. Yeah, I was happy all around. I didn’t really look at anybody defensively and and thought, “Oh, well, nah.” Right. And that alone is going to go a long way where I don’t know how many weak links defensively they’re going to be putting out uh on the court. Woo. Uh let’s calm down the the beef in the chat, folks. Uh we’re going to take a break. We’ll come back and we will break down comparing the first preseason game versus last year’s team. We’re going to do that right after this. Got to love Desert Financial Credit Union. If you’re an Arizona Sports fan, there’s no better place to do your banking than Desert Financial Credit Union. It’s the only place that you can show your team spirit. And for over 84 years, DFCU has been around. They’ve been helping you out. They’ve been helping everybody out right now because Desert Financial Credit Union is the place to be. I know that my family has used Desert Financial Credit Union for a long, long time. Uh, and I know that you could use it as well. Whether it’s checkings and savings accounts to mortgages, loans, credit cards, investment options, and more. DFCU has you covered. And they are committed to giving back to the community. So much so that they want to give you $200. That’s right. When you open up a free checking account, get $200 in bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinanicial.com/200. Open up your checkings, your savings accounts, get your mortgages, loans, credit cards, and investment options, and more all in the same place. They are committed to you, so why not commit to them? So, once again, get $200 in bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com/200. Also, big shout out to Heila River Resorts and Casinos. Of course, you can see uh Bo and Johnny out there on Sunday for a Cardinals away game watch party as well. Plus, you can just go hang out, whether it’s Wild Horse Pass, Lo, VQA, and Santan Mountain to experience the best that the Valley has to offer. You can go all in with 4,500 slots in live table games, or catch all the action at any of our sports books. You can go big and go home a winner from upscale to approachable, casual to classy, from bar to bar none. Their selection of dining options is always in good taste. case with an unprecedented level of entertainment and excitement that you won’t find anywhere else in the desert. They’ve set an extraordinarily high bar. So, belly on up and let them show you what Next Level is all about at Hila River Resorts and Casinos. Plus, we can see you there Sunday once again for the Cardinals watch party, all of their way game watch parties at Hila. We’ll be doing some events at Hila as well. You do you at Hila River Resorts and Casinos. Visit playhila.com for more details. All right, everybody. We’re going to take a deep breath. Uh, that guy is banned. Well, at least put in timeout for 24 hours. If he comes back, we’ll we’ll see what he does and then he can get banned after that. It’s okay. Let’s breathe. Let’s talk about basketball. Let’s hit the like button. Let’s hit the subscribe button. And let’s just Suns just won a game. Let’s just We got all this positivity going on and people coming in there with the nonsense. It’s crazy. I didn’t even see what happened. I just saw Internet’s not a real place, guys. Internet’s not a real place. Trust me for tough people. That is that is something that we uh we have learned. But what is real is basketball and we saw that on Friday and we saw it a lot last year. So, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to look at the stats from Friday and then we’re going to compare them to the stats for the entire season last year. So, let’s look at Friday’s stats. Uh, good showing from the Suns. Interesting picture choice from Freckled Mamba for sure. Scored 103 points, allowed 81 points, 29 assists, which was really good. 48 points in the paint, which was really good for them. 16 turnovers, and 41 three-pointers attempted. All in all, a pretty well-rounded great showing. I mean, yeah, I think the the turnover number wasn’t as bad as it looks at that at the um the graphic that we had up. Felt like they were very sharp with the ball, especially in that top kind of six players if you took the starting lineup. I guess seven if you add Colin and you add Nick Richards to that mix. Mhm. They were they were all solid with the ball. I think they got it on time and on schedule where it needed to be, but it was also with accuracy in terms of passes being made. Um, Eritton, if we could get the graphic back up real quick one more time for me, please. Thank you, sir. That 29 assist number. I don’t know if it’s going to be a consistent thing because that takes shots being made at a certain volume, but I don’t think they won’t. I don’t think it will be because of a lack of process that they don’t get close to flirting with that number consistently. Mhm. Because of the ways that I’m I’ll get to speak to in a little bit. the way that they’re operating in the offense half court. Um, and you see the 19 assists in 10 with 41 three-point attempts, they’re going to be able to generate those shots and it’s just going to come down to if they’re making or missing. I hate the make or miss addage, but it honestly comes down to that at times because you can have the most flawless process ever. If you’re not making the shots, not putting the ball in the basket, you don’t have much to show for it. Yeah. Do you know how many assists per game the Suns average last year? They were up there last season. They were, I think, top five. I don’t know if they were top five. Uh 27.8 yeah assists per game. Check that. So that was it’s pretty good. So they had 29 assists last night. They averaged 27.8 assists per game last year. Obviously 103 points is relatively low on starters didn’t play a long time. The Suns average 113.6 point per game points per game last season. A point opponent’s point per game they allowed 116.6 per game. Obviously they only allowed 81 in preseason game one. Points in the paint 42.2 2 points in the paint last season per game, 48. So that’s a six-point increase in the paint last season. And then three-point attempts, 38 to 41 last season to Friday. And then turnovers, the Suns averaged 14.1 turnovers per game last year. Not a lot at all for which the turnover fuss that we heard. That’s why I tried to steer discourse from talking about turnover volume and talk about timely turnovers. That is more so what the issue was than volume because they didn’t turn it over much. They turned it over in droves though. Fourth quarter trying to make a comeback or trying to hold off. Double check. I went to like three different websites. I’m like this can’t be real. I’m like no way they only averaged 14. The ones they had were loud. Fourth quarter you’re at a deficit. A team just went on a 100 run and you come out of a timeout and you turn it over four times in a row. Like stuff like that entrenched in your memory. Yeah. Yeah. It was It was not in there was a couple Nerk passes from earlier in the year. Some really really bad unnecessarily trying to thread the needle when you got Kevin Durant and Deon Booker on the backside. Why are you trying to thread a back door pass point? Dude, I still remember man. It was before I even worked here. We talked about Nerkich and uh the trade for him and it was oh who’s the Suns point guard? Well, duh. It’s Yousef Nerkitch. Oh man, it was it was bad. And part and part of that we talked about the offensive process at the beginning of the show, Stephen. Part of the reason why those turnovers felt so bad is because they all felt avoidable, too. And when when you have a team that knows where they’re supposed to be, that has an offensive identity, that that is on the same page, has been in the gym working together for over a month now at this point, those dumb turnovers, those dumb passes, those just aren’t going to happen as much. They’re still going to happen. It’s an 82 game season, long games, right? But that’s not going to happen as much as it did before. And again, that is yet another margin that we are checking off that the Suns should hopefully be winning this year that they lost in either dramatic or loud fashion last year. Yep. I think because their process will be a whole lot better. There will be a lot more clear-cut read and react decisions to be made to where there’s going to be less thinking things through and it’ll be more so them being able to just again just play off of read and react. You simplify things. It allows for players to be more successful. So they can kind of anticipate things a little bit more rather than it being laying on one or two or three specific guys to do all of the creating because of the principles they’re playing off of. Anybody can be a playmaker at any given moment and they’ll understand how those players are going to come about because of it. Yeah, the Phoenix Suns are going to have to rely on their depth on both sides of the ball. They’re going to have to rely on the hustle and the heart and that’s going to be the true identity of this team. But that doesn’t mean that they were perfect. Obviously game one not perfect. Still a 103 81 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. We like that. We enjoy that, especially when it’s the Lakers. Stephen, what didn’t you see in game one that you need to see through the rest of this preseason? Um, let me double check the box score to make sure I’m speaking appropriately. I want to see more guys finding ways to get to the free throw line outside of Deon Booker. And that’s why I wanted to double check it. Devin Booker alone had eight free throw attempts. Um, that was more than a third of the team’s free throw attempts on the game. The team finished with 26. Um, so I want to see players not named Deon Booker find their way to the line. You start with him though, 19 free field goal attempts. Solid 24 points. Cool. Six for eight from the free throw line. I think that free throw attempts number is the one in tandem with his pullup three-point percentage. That’s going to be the barometer for for me if he’s getting to 30 or more a game on average or if he’s just below a cut below that 28 29 and a half points. That’s going to be the separator for him. But naturally, that puts us in a perfect position to talk about both Mark Williams and J um Jaylen Green. Both of those two players are going to add a element that this Suns team just didn’t have last season. That type of rim pressure. It’s not going to be the same between those two. Mark Re is going to be more of a cutter, roller, playing out the dunker spot. Obviously with Jaylen is going to be as a cutter, getting downhill and picking roll and just generally getting downhill in isolation and just getting paint touches. Yeah, I I do want to talk about Jaylen Green because there is a chance that we see him in the preseason. Mark Williams, I don’t know if everybody in here saw it, but spoke to Dwayne Rankin uh over the weekend and just said, “I will be there opening night. I’ll be ready for the regular season.” And to me, that kind of feels like, yeah, he’s not going to be playing in this preseason as he gears his body up for hopefully a long fruitful season for him. Before we get to Jaylen Green, though, you talk about getting to the free throw line, let me present you a sad hypothetical. Would you rather as a collective unit the Suns free throw attempts go up or free throw percentage? Because free throw percentage was bad. They shot 53.8% 8% as a team. Of course, a lot of that coming from the big man room. One of six from the free throw line from Oso. Igodaro is the big glaring one as well. One of three for Nick Richards, two of four for Kaman Malawatch, one of two for Dylan Brooks, six of eight for Devin Booker. Would you rather them get there more frequently or have some players who are on the lower end of their percentage like Anosu Gadaro hit a higher percentage when they actually get there? So, last season the Suns shot 20.8 eight free throws a game. That was number 22 in the league on average. Um, I air on volume because if you’re getting to the line more, that means you’re playing with a certain type of force. You’re not allowing for a defense to dictate to you. And naturally, you give yourself more chances to shoot the ball. You hope that that means the percentage is going to go up, but you can’t get to the percentage going up and the overall impact shifting positively. and that if you’re not getting to the line. So, I would like to see them get to the line more. And I think that’s where Jaylen Green and Mark Williams add to the math for them on that. I need Oso to be better. For sure. I He’s got to He he won’t be able to be on the court. He won’t be able to stay on the court, especially at the end of games if he can’t hit his free throws. It’s bad. There’s other reasons we’ll get into as the season comes around, but there’s there’s some things to watch for with Oso. Um, and it’s kind of leading to some of his deficiencies, but I I still think there’s ways for them to navigate around it. But the one thing you won’t be able to do, especially in fourth quarter stretches is Hacka Oso coming up and having to live with that. I can’t live with with Hacka Oso. I could I could live with Jaylen Green not playing in preseason because it’s preseason, but I do really want to see him play. We saw him warm up before the Lakers game. He looked good. Taking step back threes. Yeah, he looked he looked fast like he didn’t look like he was holding back. at all. He was also in practice getting sprints in over the weekend. All that is great. If Jaylen Green plays, let’s say we know Mark Williams is out. So, Grayson Allen out of the starting lineup, Jaylen Green in the starting lineup. So, it’s the starters plus OSO. How does that change the dynamic of what we saw on Friday? Or how would you like to see it change the dynamic of what we saw on Friday? Um, I wouldn’t say I would like to see him change the dynamic too much. I think it’s just him playing in unison with what they already did. Naturally with him, there’s going to be a little bit more dribbling. There’s going to be a little bit more intent to get downhill, I imagine, being employed from Jordan. So, I would like to see him impact in a positive manner the free throw attempt, the volume for the team. The general pressure that they’re putting both on the paint and on the rim. Get deep scoring threat type of paint touches to where a defense has to react. If you’re able to flatten them out, the kickout passes are going to be there. Dylan Brooks, Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neal, Nigel Hayes Davis, Ryan Dunn, Devin Booker shooting all these open threes because they have someone that can get downhill and collapse the defense and they have a certain type of gravity that comes with that. I would like to see him add to that everything that they already showed as a template route for success. Add to that with more downhill. And then the other thing for me with Jaylen is the the discernment on shots. So, we know he’s someone that’s never been shy about taking any shot because he has a shot making talent, but discerning between a shot that he can make and a shot that he knows he’s going to make and picking his spots within that. Is this a shot because I got this switch that I should be taking a step back on or should I put pressure on the rim to then either get myself to the line, get a midi up, or get a kick out pass? I think the discernment within that and him kind of playing to that more consistently is important. What do you want to see out of Ryan Dunn? Four points, eight rebounds, seven of those defensive, three assists, and a steal, five personal fouls in 22 minutes. Yeah, for Ryan, and I’m double checking his three-point attempts number one. Yeah, one two or three from the field. Just off of thinking back on the game, it didn’t feel like he took enough. Um, don’t want him to force the issue there. Just want him to be ready when the opportunity presents itself more than anything. But I still think he found viable ways to chip in on offense. They didn’t I don’t think they use him as a screener much on the ball in this first preseason game. But where he did get active is on offensive boards like I spoke to. Whether he got the offensive boards or not, sometimes he didn’t get it because Oso just beat him there or Nigel Hayes Davis just beat him there to the punch or something like that. But his effort there was intentional. I liked it. And if he’s going to be getting crossmatched and they’re going to be putting smaller or less significant defenders on him to try to keep their shell intact in certain ways, you got to make those defenders, those smaller guys, make them pay by putting pressure on them to go get boards cuz that player is probably not going to be as athletic as he is and they’re not going to be able to beat him to the punch in terms of getting to the glass. I’d like to see him force it a little bit more in in preseason. I say no in preseason. I still say no because habits are habits. I get it, but I want to see him try to do a little something. I hear that. I hear you. I just don’t want to see him forcing it and then taking shots away from, okay, I got it on this kick out and it’s a twoon-one and right next to me is Devin Booker, Grayson Allen, or Royce O’Neal or Dylan Brooks. All players that flirting with 40% or more from catch and shoot from three. But because I’m being aggressive, I’m taking shots away from the people that we want to be taking shots. That’s why I’m saying I just don’t want him to be forcing it. make that plus one pass or make that cut that’s going to get one of those guys an opportunity in the corner off of something else that’s happening which he was good with. And I know he can do that, right? I have I have no doubts that he can do that. I I think the reason why at least in preseason I would like to see him force it just a little bit more is because if anybody’s offensive is going to be more critical to this team’s offensive jump, it’s going to be Ryan Dunn. We have a lot of known quantities on this offense and some not so much like a Jaylen Green. What could he do? But realistically, he’s been a relatively similar player for his entire career. Ryan Dunn, if he is able to take a little bit of an offensive leap is he if he’s able to do a little bit more creating, if he’s able to, you know, maybe he forces it a little bit and it works. And if it works, then that’s habit building. That’s habit forming in a positive way. I don’t want to automatically assume that that can’t be a positive for him to force it a little bit more. I just like to see him take more than three field goals, however that might come. Right. And and again, can he impact the game beyond that? Sure. But do we have really high expectations and high standards for him? I would also say yes. Like he is the second face of this franchise as determined by us talking about it on this show over the summer. That could easily go away and stop if his growth doesn’t continue to go up like we all think that it will. I would just like to see him try it now when like it’s not your must wins where it really doesn’t matter as much versus once you get in the regular season. Okay, we’re not going to try to do something that’s out of your comfort zone. That’s why it’s kind of important for me to see it in preseason. For sure. I I I understand the train of thought with it. I just don’t want again for bad habits to form from that. And I think there’s a for every bit of value that you get out of him being more aggressive and experimenting. You also get value in trying to build this foundation layer for the way that the team desires to play. And I I feel like there’s a there’s a middle ground that could be met there with him forcing the issue a little bit more, but also not taking them out of the things that they want to do when they’re creating the shots and the type of flow that they want. Yeah. If you are watching on TV, the party does always continue over at gophnx.com where you can also find Steven’s film study of Jaylen Green. That’s up on our YouTube channel right now. You can catch it on our website, catch on our YouTube channel. We’re going to do a whole episode talking about Jaylen Green. Is he misunderstood? What can he do in this offense? Especially from what we have seen so far tomorrow. Big deep dive coming on that. But but Stephen, you had just an incredible incredible film breakdown from the people. You want to give them just just a little teaser on on what they’ll get if they they tune in with that right after this show ends? Yeah. Uh a lot was made of Jaylen Green’s playoff showing against the Golden State Warriors. I don’t know if the context of everything was presented appropriately. So, what we did was have a nice healthy conversation over film about decision- making. Was this a bad decision from him? If it was, what was the why behind that? Was it because he didn’t see something right? Was it because the lack of process from the Houston Rockets in the half court offensively? Was it because of lack of spacing that they were working out of in terms of the respect that certain players got when they were spaced? Golden State was packing driving lanes. He had to play chess with Draymond Green in his first ever playoffs. That’s not something that was an advantage for him at all. Most players aren’t going to be able to win and playing chess against Draymond. But one way you can is if your coach or your team or your system puts you in position to be successful. It felt like it was a lot more of him having to create than him being put in position to then do and play to his strengths. And I feel like that maximizing of his individual talent is what Jordan not as well as being able to play in tandem with someone like Devin Booker is certainly going to do. And we saw some of the reasons why even while he wasn’t on the court in game one of the preseason, you can hear about it, but you really don’t get the full picture unless you watch it. Incredible basketball stuff. We talked about the negatives. We talked about the positives. We talked about the culprit in unbiased Houston. Correct. We talked about it comprehensively. And I feel like that’s the best way to have these discussions because if you only talk about one side of it, you’re not painting the entire picture. Yeah. And I don’t think you understand exactly what’s going on without doing that. You get unbiased hoop talk from Stephen. You get very biased hoop talk from me. That’s balance. In a biased way, I’d really like to see Kobe Brea play. I’d like to see more Kaman Malawatch, more Rashier Fleming. Uh, especially Rashier I thought just really flashed a couple of great things on defense and he just like zeros basically all around except for a block, but he just kind of looked like uh that he belonged. He had two points, too. Um, I feel like they’re saving Kobe Brea. I think Kobe Brea plays with her in China. You gotta play You got to play Kobe Bryer sometime this preseason. They will. I don’t know when, but I think it it probably happens definitely in that last preseason game. You better believe that for sure. Um I don’t know how much they play in China if you get a blowout situation like game one was maybe. But I don’t know. We got to kind of wait and see on that one. But I think he’s going to find opportunity for those guys. Any final thoughts on what we want to see next before we do a quick game of Ottle and then get everybody out of here in time to go watch the Cardinal show that says no changes coming for Arizona Cardinals coaching staff following Titans loss. Oh boy, that’s going to be a that’s going to be an interesting one right there. Gross. Um I would like to talk a moment about the spacing part. So, didn’t get a chance to get around to doing the Jordan film session before preseason started just because of the way that the schedule was laid out for us and the way that things happened in the kind of last month and some change with trying to get things out and whatnot and me going on vacation and everything. So, didn’t get a chance to get to that to put the visual to everything. I’ve been speaking to since they hired Jordan not, but we saw the bones of what he’s working towards offensively for them. um talked a little bit about Devin Booker and some of the old actions returning for them that we’ve seen him customarily work in. Um the part with the spacing for me and the dynamic nature of it. So you got all of these baseline cuts, guys cutting into corners, guys cutting out of corners. It’s one thing to see it and understand that’s what’s going on. The other part of the conversation is what is it doing to the defense? And what it’s doing to the defense is for one is creating space for the ball handlers. For two, it’s aiding the person that’s on the ball to get opportunity, creating double gaps to get downhill. But the number three part is maybe as important as anything, which is opening up opportunity for the rollers and the person with the ball. And that’s changing who the low man is. So, if you get into this situation where Deon Booker’s in a pick and roll on the left side of the court, comes across, goes off of the screen, let’s say it’s Grayson Allen, one pass away, and it’s someone else, Dylan Brooks, on the baseline, he cuts to the opposite side, the opposite corner. When that happens, usually there’s heavy nail help. NBA teams love to be heavy at the nail. If you show that nail help to keep Deon Booker from um getting downhill and Grayson sliding to the corner, you’ve taken away that person that’s going to be able to help the person that’s helping at the nail and Deon Booker. So now Grayson now got a wide open three-point opportunity. In addition to that though, let’s say he doesn’t get that shot. It’s changing who the low man is. So as that roller gets downhill, because it’s not the person that was setting doing all the communication from the backside, if they’re not on time and on schedule, there’s a price to pay. And if you are on time with that, then that means the person that you’re leaving is open in the corner. Then someone else has to rotate to help you. You’re keeping yourself ahead of the defense. And that part is very important as a foundational habit for them. Because Jaylen Green and Deon Booker saw similar coverages, couldn’t always get downhill because of things going on around them that wasn’t enough. Jordan not removing that and kind of imploring them and read and react. It’s going to greatly benefit those two. And that’s why I feel like Devin’s going to get to 30 and Jaylen’s going to get to 24 25 on game a game on average. Can I translate what you just said in one sentence? Basketball is fun. Well, yes. Um guys will be open. Yeah, we’ll have a film session coming out on that later part of this week before um before the first preseason game or second preseason game, first one in China. Uh, Aiden says, “I genuinely cannot wait to watch Jaylen Green in an offense where the goal is to create spacing with cuts and movement and working for each other. Sounds like it will benefit him the most.” I hope so, and I do hope we get to see him on Friday, and I hope we get to see all of you tomorrow while we break down Jaylen Green’s game after you go watch the film study. What do you say? Uh, seems like Aiden really wants to do Kaylee disrespectfully. Nothing needs to be respectful about these. It’s all in the line right now. All the respect is out the window. He trying to go get dubs. No respect, no reverence, none of that. We don’t like y’all. That’s what That’s what the energy is. Speaking of dubs, I think Aiden wants to get a dub in and u. Do you think should Franklin Mamba? Should we do uddle? What do you think? Let’s do it. Yeah, we can run a quick round. You think you think we do it for Aiden? You think so? All right, let’s let’s do a little Otle here. Want to explain to the people who are new around here what Otle is as you also take down the chat so that we can’t cheat off of Aiden’s answers. Yes, you close your laptop, too. We now cannot see Aiden giving us the right answers. But Otle is just a little trivia game I came up with. I don’t care. Stephen thinks I’m cheating. I don’t even know. I see how it is. I see how it is. Let’s run it. I see how it is, bro. I thought we had trust and whatever. But I’m doing, bro. If I’m putting my laptop away, you put Bro, sure, bro. Yeah. Yeah. You trust me for sure. Anyway, what were you saying? We got four questions going from hardest down to easiest. It’s about a former Suns player and or current Suns player. Could be either of those two. And I mean, it’s pretty self-explanatory. We can get into it and people can catch on when they see. But we’re starting to keep track now. It’s a new week. It’s been a couple warm-up rounds. Yeah, it’s We got the hang of it. We’re starting to keep track now. So, good cuz Steven’s kicked my ass. So, I’m glad we’re starting from zero zero. No, wait, wait, whoa, whoa. I missed that part. Yeah, I zoned out for a second. Ain’t no way we started 00. Ain’t no preseason idle. Everything was serious off the rip. I do like the preseason model. He’s the creator of We don’t We don’t control this. I’ll give you five bucks later, Eric. Thanks. Good thing Aiden doesn’t have something up there or else you’d be leading. I’m I’m up 10 or 70 or whatever that was. Calm down. Let’s get into the first question. In my sophomore season, my averages were 24.9 points per game, 7.1 rebounds per game, 1.8 Eight steals per game. 25 24.9 led the conference. Alvin Adams. It is not Alvin Adams. Charles Barkley. It is not Charles. Oh, I thought I I thought it might. It is not. We’ll move on to the next one. Chat, make sure I’m watching the chat. The Anybody get it right in chat? No one’s got it right yet. No. 24 point. Moving on to the next question. Mhm. After being drafted to Phoenix, I averaged 13.8 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 26.8 minutes a game in six seasons with the Suns. I’m trying to There’s a I I always I don’t know why, but I always go to like old old school guys, but I think my biggest weakness is knowing if they were like drafted here, if they just played here. Why are you laughing? I don’t like how you’re laughing. I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all. Drafted to Phoenix, average after averaging 25 in college. What the hell? Do you have a guess? Yeah, I’m still thinking right now. Oh man. Drafted to Phoenix. Is this is the I think this is the hardest one yet. Do we have answers? We want to throw one out or we want to move on to number. Um, I you know, I don’t know if this guy was drafted by Phoenix, and that’s kind of where I’m struggling. I know he played Gail Goodrich. No. Oh, wait. Rebounds per game. I’m an idiot. I was thinking points. After being drafted to the Suns, averaged 13.8 8 4 and they averaged 24.9 points per game in college. College in their sophomore year. It’s not stat for sure cuz he didn’t go to college. No, he didn’t go to college. Sophomore year of high school. that that could a um I know it’s not Alex Len. Oh my goodness. Yikes, man. Uh was it one of the Morai? No, they didn’t average 24.9. It was not one of the Morai. No, he’s not average. By the way, that’s two guesses in one. That’s complete [ __ ] That’s complete BS. Are you ready to move on to the next one? I think so. Yeah. All right. I had one of the most memorable NBA bubble moments. This should be it. Oh, it’s TJ. Oh no. Oh, it is TJ Warren. Oh, man. He a 24.9 in college. I should have had that one in the second college. I should have had that one in the second shot. I knew he was a dog, but 24.9 points per game. I should have had that in the second. Anybody get that early? Oh my god, Aiden. What the [ __ ] Too good at this game. Good job, Aiden. Good job, Aiden. I should have had that. I should have had that for three points. So bad at this game, dog. I should have had that for three points. I’m tripping. So bad at this. I’m tripping. Maybe it was that noise behind us that was also Dude, I don’t know. I don’t know if you guys can hear it. A a whale is dying in our air conditioning system behind us. Dude, Aiden, I’m Aiden, I’m going to give you my number so that you can test. Hey, the leaderboard has two names. I think I’m going to put Aiden on the leaderboard. I think I have to put Aiden on the leaderboard. But what if Aiden’s looking it up? We don’t know if Aiden We don’t know if Aiden’s legit. We don’t know. Wait, so I have I think Aiden respects the game. You have two points. I have eight points now. You have two points now cuz I got the I got one. You have You have two points. I got one with four. The very first one, Ryan Dunn. And I got that one with four points. No, you have two points. I got a second one for You don’t make the rules. He makes the rules. And then this last one was one point today. Or was it two points? It was two points. And you have two. So I have nine. You have two. So I have nine. Chad, I’m sorry. Chad, what do you think? Should we start? Should we start on a Monday or should we should we add the last last few rounds? Chad, please let me know when you all go back to watch whether there was a instruction given that this was a trial or preseason run of Otto or if we said we were getting after it. Aiden is AI. The first two letters of his name even say it. AI allegations are crazy bees. Yeah. Uh but yeah. So eight eight or nine. Wait, four or seven. You have two points. I’m I’m up nine. You are complaining. It’s 9. What happened to What happened to Winners’s work, bro? What happens to what you know what happened? I put the work in. Keep my head down and I don’t complain. I just show up. Now you use You’re W. You’re taking W to a whole new level. You got two points. Deal with it. Cuz I want the points that I earned. He made the game. We didn’t decide. We were doing preseason auto. There was no preseason auto. We didn’t We didn’t establish that. I He made the game. Gave y’all all the space and opportunity. I wanted to do this. He made the game. So we started it last Thursday. He made the game. I don’t know. And now I’m up nine points. I you have two points is is what Eritton decides. So we gonna let we gonna let the chat vote or what? I don’t think so. I mean there’s no way to really gauge the chat. I mean we could technically pull the chat. We could, but I say we just give Stephen two points. Nah, we gonna take this to Twitter. We’ll take this to Twitter into Discord and we’ll we’ll come back with results on um tomorrow’s episode. The code open is Stephen’s up 91 auto and then we can go ahead and get into the countdown. You got two points, dude. I don’t know what to tell you, Eric. All you got to do is I don’t know what to tell you. All you got to do for the Cold Open tomorrow is just flash the leaderboard. It’s going to be nine for me and zero for Eric and then we can get into the Cold Open. I mean, we can just we can just run a poll and I’m going to make a bunch of bots and I’m going to vote against you. Sound about right. Yeah. In the meantime, you follow us at what? Nope. I said we can make bots. I think be great for us. You follow the show at PHNX_s. Let us know what you think about the auto scoring controversy that we have here. That’s on Twitter and on Instagram. Thank you all so much for tuning in. Good, if I may say, great turnout. I know he got to calm down. I say great turnout for a Monday show post pre-season dub. Thank you all for hitting that like button. Hey, thank you all for hitting that subscribe button. Thank you all to our members that are in chat as well. Soul Collector says, “Next question.” Well, Soul Collector, you just have to come back tomorrow because we we pace these out. We don’t we don’t, you know, get everything out there in one go. Okay. Uh that’s right, cuz nine points for Steven. Calm down. That’s biased. No, it’s not. That’s biased. No, it’s not. You just called her a cousin. He’s your cousin. No, it’s not. And you can follow Unk Steven PG3. Steven with a PH. She wanted to say cuz he balances us out. Except for right now. No, it’s not balanced on the leaderboard. You can follow the creator mastermind who created the best rules in the world and determined the right way to figure out points. You can follow him at freckledmamba and uh you follow me at r i k r u b y. Until next time, shout out to Wikcenberg and you only have two points. [Music] [Applause] [Music]
JOIN THE SUPPORTERS CLUB ➡️ https://tinyurl.com/yc6km2r4
The Phoenix Suns & Devin Booker started the preseason with an incredible outing against the Los Angeles Lakers without LeBron and Luka.
Erik and Stephen are back to discuss what powered Jordan Ott’s team to a decisive victory, how it stacked up to their process and output last year and why the real Suns are back with hustle and heart.
They then take a look ahead to the China games against the Brooklyn Nets and discuss what they would like to see that was missing from game 1. Follow the show @PHNX_Suns, @StephenPG3 & @FreckledMamba!
0:00 – Intro
2:00 – What are SPG’s Thoughts on the Suns First ‘MUST WIN’ Preseason Game
23:30 – The Defense Looks DIFFERENT
31:00 – Devin Booker is Going to Make Defensive Strides
42:00 – What Are The Numbers Compared to Last Season vs Game 1 of Preseason
48:00 – What Do We Want To See in China and Beyond
An ALLCITY Network Production
SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtube
ALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports
MERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-locker
ALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of Phoenix
PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/
ALLCITY — including us here at PHNX — is teaming up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for an exciting three-year partnership. To learn more, visit https://www.bbbs.org/allcity/
Branded Bills: Use code BBPHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 15% off your first order!
Zen Leaf: Visit our friends at Zen Leaf (http://zen-leaf.store/phnx) for 50% off using promo code ZENPHNX
Spencer’s Appliances: Visit Spencerstv.com and use code PHNX5 for 5% off appliances OR use code PHNX10 for 10% off TVs, audio and mattresses
bet365: https://www.bet365.com/olp/open-account?affiliate=365_03330244 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and bet $5 to get $150 in bonus bets!
Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/
Circle K: Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!
Visit Mountain America Credit Union to learn more about their Phoenix Suns Debit and Credit Cards!
Access Auto Insurance Agency of Arizona, LLC (Access Auto) is a renowned agency offering personal and commercial auto insurance options to Arizona residents. If you’re on the hunt for a new policy, call Access Auto today at 1-480-400-0546 or get a free insurance quote by visiting our website.
Phoenix Raceway: Tickets, hospitality and upgrades are still available for the NASCAR Championship Series October 31st through November 2nd! Visit the link HERE to get yours now!
APS: Find instant rebates, discounts and special offers on smart thermostats, energy-efficient appliances and more at https://marketplace.aps.com/default/heating-cooling/smart-thermostats
Chicken N’ Pickle: Family friendly fun awaits! Visit chickennpickle.com to plan your visit today!
Monarch Money: Use Monarch Money to get control of your overall finances with 50% off your first year at https://www.monarchmoney.com/phnx
Shady Rays: Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.
Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.
When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
#KevinDurant #Durant #KD #DevinBooker #Booker #Book #BradleyBeal #Beal #PhoenixSuns #Phoenix #NBA #basketball #Big3 #hoops #sports #BolBol #GraysonAllen #JusufNurkic
11 comments
Miss Gerald, ngl.
What happened to Gerald? Did he leave?
The first two games should count for Stephen in OTTLE
Bring back Gerald man, I wanted him to cover this exciting season so bad
YES NO SEXY SAX NEW TEAM GO ANGRY SUNS 😡😡😡
2:16 maybe not a must win.. but AZ fans needed a win this week 🥲
Jared butler needs minutes when the season starts!!
Great content gentlemen 👌🏾
22:18 I was really hoping not to hear anything about that Cardinals game 😅
2 years ago I watched the first pregame with The Big 3.. they were lights out the first quarter & then disappeared the 2nd half… that same season, they could NOT finish a 4th quarter to save their life! Forgive me if I’m a little optimistic about this preseason game
Any confirmation of Ayton to the G-League?