From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

You're looking like a seasoned team now with big wins over Pels and especially Jazz... Should have guaranteed playoffs now. What a start to the rebirth of the franchise..Nice balanced roster you have, I always find its not always the team with the best superstars that does well, its the team with the most 70 -80 rated guys...apart from Warriors!

Yes, we are thankfully in the playoffs for sure now -- but we could drop as far as the 7th seed depending on win/losses of ourselves or other teams.


And I am vastly enjoying using this team, they're fun, but definitely a few pieces away from being title contenders ... free agency this summer will be a big factor in where we go from here. On one hand, I want to continue to progress with this roster and develop my young guys.


On the other, I might have a shot at Marc Gasol/Whiteside, and they'd represent a major upgrade over Noel in the middle (though I prefer Gasol to Whiteside, I'm just not sure if he leaves Memphis depending on where they pick). Adding such a major piece this soon might upset things and send the team spiraling back down to Earth ... so I need to be careful.



I have the contracts and draft capital to make a move, though, and the free agent market of 2020 looks dry, so the pressure is on. We'll see how we do in the playoffs -- if we get past the first round, it could be a bonkers offseason.

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

Rapid Reaction: Suns 122, Rockets 118

By Sam Gray







The Suns are now 45-33, sending the Rockets to 52-26, after a neck-and-neck game against former Suns' coach Mike D'Antoni. It was a game that initially looked like the Suns would romp after a stellar first quarter, but the Rockets patented 3-point shooting -- they're league leaders once again -- came alive from that point on, sending the Suns flurrying around the perimeter trying to contain the many offensive threats.



In a potential playoff matchup, depending on seeding (Phoenix is sitting fourth currently while Houston is second in the West), the Rockets unleashed hellfire from behind the arc -- Trevor Ariza was lethal from deep as he was ultimately picked to be the least of all evils as the Suns desperately tried (and often failed) to rotate over a defender in time to get a hand in Ariza's face while stopping the patented Rockets' dribble-drive game of Harden and Paul.





It took to the final five minutes of the game for the Suns to find their three-point shot again and that shot came from one person: Serge Ibaka. Ibaka was a force on defense, stepping up as the secondary scorer Phoenix absolutely needed as Omar Pope (who had 38 points at that juncture) was constantly doubled anytime he touched the ball. Houston's strategy was clear -- deny Pope and force someone else to beat them.





That someone else was Ibaka, as he came alive in the final frame, knocked down triples off open looks, and generally made the Rockets pay for giving him any room to shoot. Pope would be fouled a few times before the game was over to prolong things, but Houston's fate was sealed and the Suns walked away with a close, clutch win in their final matchup with the Rockets this regular season.

[georgiafan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

nice win Pope is on a roll still

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

nice win Pope is on a roll still

When things get desperate, I go to the Pope and he delivers mercy to my team!




But for real, Pope is a STUD. Love playing with him (even if gets a little too fancy on his layups sometimes ... go strong to the rack young blood!).



I just need to find that second star ... he's basically James Harden back in his one-man show days on the Rockets. That can get you to 50 wins and a playoff berth, but I need someone else to lighten the load some and give Pope a big gun to go to when he's locked down.


Serge shows up sometimes and sometimes he doesn't. Noel is a defensive presence first, second, and third. Rozier can score, but he's inefficient and not a great passer. Hezonja can score too and he's reliable, but also streaky.



Free agency this season or a big time trade will be my salvation, but I'm not sure who or what to go after. I think a center, but lord knows I could use a good floor general (and those are harder to find). Lots to think on as the offseason approaches.

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

League Update: Regular Season Finale

By Sam Gray

Award Winners:

Standings:

Injuries:

Trends — Non-Playoff Teams:

1. The final day brought drama out East as the final seed was up for grabs between three teams — the Heat, Pacers, and Nets. If the Nets won, they were in, if the Heat won, they were in if the Nets lost, and if the Pacers won with a loss to the other teams, they were in. Both the Heat and Pacers won, leaving the Nets in a do or die situation against the 76ers … and they died. Spectacularly. Brooklyn came out and was hammered by the 76ers, who themselves needed to win to guarantee themselves the sixth seed as opposed to the seventh seed. Brooklyn just missed out and one suspects if they had a healthy Brook Lopez, they would have won that last game and gotten in.

2. In the West, the final day of the regular season was a ho-hum affair as a week ago the Mavs guaranteed themselves a playoff spot thanks to a Portland loss and a win of their own. The rest of the West watched the season play out and the teams in the hunt for first overall proceeded to try and lose as gracefully as possible; the Spurs perfected that, officially giving themselves the worst record and best chance at the first overall pick, followed by the Hornets, Bulls, and Grizzlies.

3. Speaking of the Grizzlies, this looks like the end of the Grit and Grind era. Marc Gasol is a free agent and Mike Conley is trade bait as Memphis prepares to reboot the team via the draft and free agency; the NBA has officially announced that Memphis will be moving to the East, joining the Southeast division, and that will at least allow the Grizzlies to get out of the bloodbath that is the West.

4. The Pacers fell just short of returning to the playoffs and one has to think it was the unfortunate timing of Boban Bogdanovic’s injury that occurred in early January, forcing the bench scorer to miss two months of action as the Pacers fell off. Indiana will have decisions to make on a number of players this year — do they bring back Isiah Thomas? Greg Monroe? Bogdanovic and Collison? The Pacers were unusually aggressive in free agency last summer and that has not paid off.

Trends — Playoff Teams:

1. The final seeding out West was decided with a week to go in the season as the Thunder, on a hot win streak, overtook the Rockets for the second seed and assured themselves the higher seed, though potentially the tougher matchup as Houston will be dealing with an injured Jazz team (without Rubio, still hurt) and the Thunder get a fully healthy Pelicans team starring Anthony Davis.

The Warriors get to face off against former Warrior Harrison Barnes and the Mavericks, a team not likely to win a series but Dallas fans are openly hoping Dallas can do to Golden State what the Warriors did to them in the infamous 2007 upset of the Mavericks during Dirk’s lone MVP year.

2. The Suns get the unenviable task of taking on the LeBron James Lakers, fully healthy and locked in. LA beat the Suns in the final game of the season by 18 points, but Phoenix was resting most of their starters so the game barely counts; despite that, the Suns have homecourt advantage and the reigning ROY in Omar Pope, but playoff basketball is a different beast than the regular season; many expect the Lakers to win in five or six games.

3. Out East, the Raptors survived the absence of Andrew Wiggins but will now have to reincorporate him back into the offense after he’s missed the last six weeks. They face a dangerous squad in the Miami Heat, a team that was built to lose this season but instead witnessed the revival of Carmelo Anthony — 23.5 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 48 percent from the field and 40 percent from deep. Melo has fully embraced the South Beach life and what was once nearly a guarantee that he would leave now becomes a question — does Melo stay if the Heat upset the Raptors? The Miami faithful are torn on the question and this playoff series will provide an answer one way or another.

4. The Wizards and Celtics square off again, as two teams that don’t like one another meet for another bout. Washington performed about as expected based on their personnel — Boogie Cousins and John Wall have been exactly as advertised. The Celtics come into this as mild disappointments as many pegged Boston to be the best in the East, but the Celtics have had issues all year finding enough minutes for all their good players and the rotations have constantly been switched up; that kind of unpredictability hurt them in the regular season but, in the postseason, the lack of a defined rotation will allow them to adapt on the fly to their opponents. Boston is deeper and more talented on paper, but barely showed that during the regular season — unlike the Wizards who were, unlike past seasons, very consistent.

5. The Bucks face off against the Knicks and they want an easy round one. After getting swept out of the playoffs in the second round last season by Boston, the Bucks refused to panic and instead double-downed on their roster — that’s resulted in a 50-win season and high expectations to make it to the ECF in a noticeably weaker East. New York, for their part, is totally focused on the task at hand — they want to get deep into the postseason and are desperate to prove their big trades for Butler and Walker were a success. The lack of Noah, a key defensive presence off the bench, has been noticeable since he went down with injury and the Knicks know they’ll have their hands full against the Greek Freak.

6. The Cavs got the matchup they may not have wanted. Cleveland finished with a much better record than anyone predicted fielding just Kevin Love as their lone all-star, but Love (21.9 PPG, 9.3 RPG) showed up all season and got huge help from the development of both Clarkson and Hood (roughly 17 PPG respectively). But they’re matched up, once more, against the 76ers who underperformed relative to their expectations but still have the matchup they want. Philly is confident facing the Cavs after last season’s surprising second round win against LeBron and Co, and facing a LeBron-less Cavs now only makes their confidence more pronounced. The 76ers are without Fultz, however, so they’ll be forced to start McConnell who’s no slouch, but doesn’t offer the scoring chops of Fultz … an important distinction in this type of series.

Suns’ News:

1. The Suns are back in the postseason for the first time since the 2010 playoffs and face a longtime foe in the Lakers — the last time these two teams met in the 2010 WCF, the Suns lost 4-2 as the Lakers went on to face the Celtics for the title. Once more, the Suns find themselves facing a great Lakers team, this time led by LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard, and will be the underdogs.

“You can’t be the best without beating them,” ROY winner Omar Pope said at season’s end. “I want to measure myself against the greatest and those two, LeBron and Kawhi, they are the best in this game today. I want to be that — I want team to be that — and the only way to do that, to earn that, is to go out there and bleed for it. I’m not gonna back down and we’re not gonna back down, and that’s just it.”

(Random number generator has assigned me Games 2 and 4. LeBron is gonna do damage.)

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

Super Mario Leads Suns to 2-0 Series Lead

By Sam Gray










The LA Lakers have been one of the most fascinating teams in the NBA this season, but Game 1 didn’t go according to script — the Suns took a commanding lead into the final quarter and the Lakers fell just short of coming back, the Suns getting by 116-113. In Game 2, everyone expected LeBron James to come out and dominate.



He didn’t. It was Mario Hezonja who did. Super Mario came off screens, went inside, and competed on every play as the Lakers were stunned in Phoenix; Omar Pope had 30 points, leading all players, and held LeBron to only 14 points with 6 boards and 8 dimes, but James looked a step slow all night long … at least compared to the youth of the Suns.



In the first, it was a neck and neck affair as the Suns couldn’t hit threes to save their lives — Phoenix came out cold from deep, shots rimming out or just hitting the back iron. But whereas this would have doomed past Suns teams — notably the Nash Suns of the mid-2000s — this Suns team went into the paint, bulling their way inside and forcing physical contact. The fouls and the bruising play from Pope eventually got the Suns a precious, hard-fought ten point lead.










"We knew we were in a fight from the tip and we just didn’t bring our best effort," said James after the game. "It’s just one game, we’re gonna put it behind us and we’re gonna learn from it."



LeBron struggled just as much in the second half as he did in the first, and that neutered the Lakers offense — without King James to draw attention away from the rest of the team, it was up to Ball and Leonard to lead the team to victory; they were unable to. Leonard was forced to play Hezonja tight, resulting in multiple fouls against the former Finals MVP and making him passive in the final frame. Ball got his shots, but also tried to make too many risky passes, resulting in just as many turnovers as assists.




“We took away what they wanted to do,” Coach Kidd said after the game. “It’s not rocket science, but it’s also not easy. I’m proud of how we performed out there, how hard we battled, and I think we can do this again.”




















Around the League



1. Out East, the Raptors lead 1-0, the Celtics lead 2-0 (Boston thrashing the Wizards 103-81 behind Hayward’s 29 points), the Cavs are tied up 1-1, and the Bucks stomped the Knicks 117-83 after Jimmy Butler left the game with a neck injury — he’s expected to attempt to play through it, but the Knicks chances aren’t looking great.



2. In the West, the Warriors barely pulled out a victory against the Mavs, 110-102, the Rockets and Jazz are tied 1-1, and the Thunder lead the Pelicans 1-0 after a near-Westbrook quadruple-double (29 points, 7 assists, 9 rebounds, 6 steals).

[Sreister]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

This is AWESOME! I'm a long time lurker of these message boards and an even long time digital basketball fan, believe I used to run my Suns back in NBA Live 98 on my parents Gateway 2000 and this is the coolest, albeit most morbid way to run a Dynasty I've heard of. What makes it more interesting is you took what could be the Suns' most interesting season in recent memory and wiped it clean! Having a story like the one they are having RIGHT NOW would have been more than enough for me to read this, and then you turn it on it's head to do this? Can I ask what made you go this far with it?



Thanks for wasting a good hour of my day at work lol. I came here to check up and read about 2k news of the day (the MASSIVE franchise update OMG) and came across a few of your comments and decided to check out your suns Dynasty.



Anyway, VERY COOL! I just wish you were further along so I could keep reading it today. Thanks for the awesome read and look forward to following!

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

This is AWESOME! I'm a long time lurker of these message boards and an even long time digital basketball fan, believe I used to run my Suns back in NBA Live 98 on my parents Gateway 2000 and this is the coolest, albeit most morbid way to run a Dynasty I've heard of. What makes it more interesting is you took what could be the Suns' most interesting season in recent memory and wiped it clean! Having a story like the one they are having RIGHT NOW would have been more than enough for me to read this, and then you turn it on it's head to do this? Can I ask what made you go this far with it?



Thanks for wasting a good hour of my day at work lol. I came here to check up and read about 2k news of the day (the MASSIVE franchise update OMG) and came across a few of your comments and decided to check out your suns Dynasty.



Anyway, VERY COOL! I just wish you were further along so I could keep reading it today. Thanks for the awesome read and look forward to following!

Well, bless you good sir! Thank you for the many compliments.



I'm due for Game 4 versus LeBron's Lakers tonight and BOY HOWDY is it going to be a pivotal one. Once I get off work, I will play and then post.


As to what made me go this far: Bill Simmons and the book he wrote, "The Book of Basketball." In that book he has a section called "What if?" where he revisits the key, critical moments in NBA history and theorizes on where things might have gone if those moments turned out differently.


One of those moments involved the 1960 Lakers who, flying back from a game, had to ground their plane in a cornfield due to the engines giving out in freezing temperatures. The pilot managed to safely land them and the team was no worse for wear -- but because of that, in one of his footnotes, he explains about the "Disaster Draft" which would occur if an NBA team suffered a disaster -- like an airplane crash.


Once I read that, my mind took off. I spent a good portion of the summer of 2017 researching and figuring out who would go where and why ... originally, this disaster wasn't planned for the Suns; I was going to wipe out the Pacers.


But then the Vegas shooting happened just around the time the game came out and I couldn't write this story; the senseless death was too fresh, the images too raw, and I completely set aside the idea and adjusted, on the fly, to do a Pacers dynasty called "You Don't Know Jack."


But the idea was a good one and I picked at it over the months between then and now; once I finished Jack's story, I decided to really dig in and rework the whole thing and I found that I had a natural jumping off point ... ideas were flowing and quickly I decided on the Suns to be the unfortunate victims of this fictional disaster for a few reasons:


1. I dislike Sarver. He wasted Nash's best years, IMO.


2. I loved the iconic Streaking Suns jersey and wanted to re-engineer those for the modern era.


3. The Suns roster was just laden enough with youth, potential stars, and well-known veterans that their removal from the league would make my life quite hard; I wanted this to be a challenge and it has proven to be so in different ways than I anticipated.


All that said, that's why the story is the way it is -- there's potentially a lot of things I could do with this and we'll be jumping into some of the more interesting ones once the season ends (whenever that is, we're apparently a good team?!).



Anyways, thanks for the follow and feel free to keep commenting, I love feedback.

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

Rapid Reaction: Suns 103, Lakers 136

By Sam Gray

The Lakers staved off elimination as they came out and trounced the Suns from the second quarter on, avenging their three-point Game 3 loss and making this first round series feel all new. The Lakers made a crucial change to their starting lineup, staring Papagiannis over Zubac, and that set the tone early as Papa G made the life of everyone not named Omar Pope hard for the Suns. Pope managed to score but the effort on the offensive end contributed to frustration on the defensive end — every bucket he got, his teammates seemed to give up on the other end and Pope fouled out midway through the third; with him gone, so were the Suns’ chances at winning the game.

“We were god-awful,” said Pope after the game. “I was bad. The team was bad. We choked it.”

That was the only statement from the superstar rookie but it was more than enough to communicate just how bad the night was.

Around the League:

1. The Boston Celtics may be in trouble. Both Irving and Hayward left Game 4 with injuries, resulting in a close Wizards win, and both are expected to miss 1-2 weeks with their injuries. This could be exactly the break the Wizards needed to advance past the Celtics.

2. The other East series are as follows: Raptors lead 2-1 against the Heat, Cavs are up 3-1 against the 76ers, and the Bucks are up 2-1 against the Knicks.

3. Out West, the Rockets lead 3-1 against the Jazz, the Thunder are up 2-1 against the Pelicans, and the Warriors are up 2-1 against the Mavericks (who have lost DeAndre Jordan for the series with a severe ankle sprain).

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

League Update: The Playoffs, Round 2

By Sam Gray



The Bracket:




Injuries:






Trends:
1. For anyone claiming the first round is boring, they’ll need to find a new argument; the NBA watched near-upsets and comebacks in three series. Out East, the Raptors nearly choked it all away after a Kyle Lowry injury, but their bench came through in Game 7 (led by VanVleet with 21 points, starting for the injured Lowry) and the Raptors advanced. But their survival insures a matchup against a relatively well-rested Celtics squad, who’ll get back Irving and Hayward for this series.



Cleveland was not as lucky as Toronto — after a JR Smith injury in Game 5, the Cavs watched as the 76ers stormed back and won that game and the next two, upsetting the higher seed and sending Cleveland home earlier than many expected after they took a 3-1 lead. Joel Embiid and the 76ers will get the honor of facing the Bucks in a premier matchup between the NBA’s two brightest young stars.



In the West, the Suns nearly collapsed against the Lakers — Phoenix was trounced in Game 4, lost Game 5 by a mere three points, lost Game 6 by twelve and entered Game 7 as underdogs on their home court. Everyone looked to Omar Pope to win but it turned out it wasn’t his night — he scored only 15 points — but it was Terry Rozier’s night. The former Celtic scored 22 points, lighting up the Lakers from deep, and the Suns won 111-102, sending LeBron and the Lakers home.






Suns’ News:



Phoenix survived and advanced, their first series win against the Lakers since the 2007 playoffs. The Suns showed their youth in the final three games of the series, but the growing pains are to be expected.



“We’re young and, for many guys, this is their first taste of playoff basketball,” said Coach Jason Kidd. “I know you guys probably tire of hearing this from me, but we’re a growing team and this series, we witnessed guys growing up. Now we got to go onto the next challenge.”



That next challenge? The Warriors. Curry. Durant. Thompson. Green. The Lineup of Death.



Vegas has the Suns losing in five.

(The random number generator has assigned me Games 3 and 5 of the series … so we’ll see what happens. My odds are so not great.)

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

Pope and Suns Survive

By Sam Gray










The Phoenix Suns entered Game 3 down 0-2, losing both previous games by at least 20 points and looking exhausted after the grueling seven game series against the LeBron-led Lakers; coming back home, the Suns had to win this game or essentially the series — and their season — was over. Phoenix came out firing, confident, and without fear in the first, building up a 12 point lead before the Warriors went to their bench unit, who blitzed the Suns off the floor in a discount lineup of death.



The Suns were in a dogfight from that point on and the Warriors won the first frame thanks to a halfcourt Steph Curry triple — a patented shot for Curry.



“When they hit that, I was like, ‘*uck my life’,” said the Suns’ Lance Stephenson. “Video game move, man.”



The second quarter saw Phoenix struggle to shoot for the first half as the Warriors opened up a 7 point lead, but the Suns bench unit — led by Stephenson, whose aggressive game got him to the line and got fouls on key Warriors (among them Durant) helped staunch the bleeding. That’s when Pope took off, scoring 12 of his 18 first-half points in the second and creaming the Warriors inside with jams, yams, and floaters galore.



“They dared me to go in, so I went in and dared them to stop me,” said Pope.



At the half, Phoenix was nursing an unstable 4 point lead, but a lead nonetheless.







But the third quarter, much as it has all year for the Suns, was a struggle as the team came out cold and the Warriors came out firing. Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson came alive from deep as Golden State jacked up shots from behind the arc despite good coverage and made them. The Warriors quickly went up by 9 points, the game teetering on the edge of a blowout, but once more Pope came alive, got inside, and forced the Warriors to foul him — particularly Durant, who picked up his fourth and fifth fouls in the quarter as the Suns held on to take their lead into the final frame.



Up 89-86, their lead was just a triple from being a memory. The Warriors knew Pope was going to get the ball and covered him accordingly, forcing the Suns to find their scoring from somewhere else, somehow — and Terry Rozier, Mario Hezonja, and Serge Ibaka did so. Rozier had only three points entering the final frame, but he embraced the challenge and went at Curry inside.



Steph Curry had no answer and the Warriors bigs — too worried about leaving Pope, Hezonja, or Ibaka open — stayed out of his way as Rozier dropped in mid-range jumpers and layups nearly at will. With Ibaka and Hezonja hitting key triples, the Warriors were unable to grow a lead — only able to get up by a bucket before another Phoenix score would tie the game.



Midway through the fourth, Pope drove inside for a dunk and was fouled by Durant, marking his sixth and final foul — Pope sunk his free throws and the Warriors were now without Durant. That proved to be key in the final minutes as Golden State could not rely on Iguodala to draw the same attention as Durant, which allowed Pope to help off and snuff out multiple plays.



The game came down to the final minute as the Suns trailed by three points — Serge Ibaka hit a quick jumper to narrow the lead to one and then, on the other end, Noel came up with a big block, which gave the ball to Phoenix with just a shade over 30 seconds left. Down just one, the Suns Rozier rushed down the court, passed Curry, and into the lane.







Ball in. Suns lead.



The crowd roared as the Warriors spent a timeout. They inbounded the ball and attempted to get a shot off from Thompson, but the deep ball rimmed out and the ball found its way to Mario Hezonja, who was promptly fouled. Hezonja went to the line and sunk both his free throws before the Warriors took their last timeout.



Suns 128, Warriors 125.



Golden State drew up an inbounds play and again attempted to get the ball to Thompson, but Hezonja was all over him — Curry couldn’t get open and so the Warriors, who had subbed in Livingston for Iggy, passed the ball to the veteran.



Except Omar Pope mugged him.







Pope was promptly fouled as soon as he got the ball and, as he made his way to the line, the arena broke out into chants of MVP.



Pope sunk both his free throws. The Warriors wasted the final seconds of the game trying to get a quick shot that missed.



Pope’s 44 points places him fifth all-time for Suns scoring in the playoffs, marking his second straight all-time Suns record (as, in Game 2, he recorded 7 steals, placing him tied for first with Charles Barkley in all-time playoff steals per game).



Phoenix has survived and heads into Game 4 with a chance — a slim chance — to tie the series up.








Around the League



1. The other West series, Thunder against Rockets, has turned into a 3-0 Thunder lead; Houston has collapsed defensively in the playoffs and cannot contain Westbrook in the least. OKC goes for the series sweep in the next game.



2. Out East, the Celtics are pounding the poor Raptors — whom, without Lowry, are offensively inept. They lead 2-0 and look to have no competition with Toronto, who can’t crack 100 points without their star guard.

In the other matchup, the 76ers lead the Bucks 2-1 after a defensive Game 3, where the 76ers won thanks to a triple double of 12-10-11 from Ben Simmons and a double-double from Embiid, 24 points and 11 boards.

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

Warriors Send Suns Home

By Sam Gray







The Suns entered Game 5 down 3-1 after a massacre in Game 4 -- a 140-108 loss in Phoenix. To say the Suns got embarrassed would be an understatement, but Phoenix once again came out firing in the first and, unlike in the games they lost, they hit their shots.



The Warriors spent the first frame forcing anyone not named Omar Pope to beat them and Serge Ibaka, along with Mario Hezonja, stepped up to the challenge -- but the Suns' bench unit came in and were quickly taken apart by the Warriors bench unit, as the Suns couldn't keep up on the fast break and couldn't get a stop.



Their lead quickly narrowed to just three entering the second, but thankfully that's when Pope was able to break free -- scoring 17 of his 21 first half points in the quarter, helping the Suns secure a halftime lead.






But the Warriors didn't allow Phoenix to get any further ahead than that. In the third Golden State showed it was unwilling to entertain a Game 6 and shot the lights out -- and they continued to do that and more in the fourth, where Phoenix couldn't find a stop to slow the Warriors down.


The firepower of Golden State overwhelmed the Suns and Phoenix, after a miraculous season, went down swinging, but went down all the same.



"It's raw right now," said Pope. "I'm angry, but I'm sad ... I feel like *hit to be honest. We went against the best and lost, and it sucks."


Pope, for reference, led all scorers with 36 points, but his supporting cast couldn't put up the same numbers as the Warriors.


"It's a lesson that we'll learn from," said Coach Jason Kidd. "We lost here today, but this season was a complete success ... I'm incredibly proud of this team and our organization. We'll come back stronger next season, I'm very confident of that."







Around the League



1. The Suns at least won a game in their series; Houston collapsed against the Thunder as key bench players (Nene, Powell) suffered injuries in Game 2 and were held out the rest of the series. Without those key reserves the Rockets' second unit could do nothing to slow down the Thunder and OKC waltzed into the WCF against the Warriors, as Westbrook looks to get revenge on Durant and Co.



2. Out East, the semis are competitive. Left for dead after going down 2-0, the Raptors won two on the road in Boston thanks to Andrew Wiggins, who scored 22 and 29 points respectively in the wins. In the other East matchup, the 76ers and Bucks continue to trade wins as it becomes a war between which team can hold their home court in the final two games -- Philly has a chance to advance to its second-straight ECF and face the winner of the Boston/Toronto series if it can win Game 6.

[RMJH4]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

Wow hard luck! Irresistible force vs Immovable object! I missed loads here!! Great win over the Lakers. Laying down the marker early on vs them is v important. Fresh start and erases all the old playoff stuff. Big things ahead for this Sun's team! What a great first season. Well done. Looking forward to offseason now, with a good move or two, this team could get top 3 seed in West.

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

Wow hard luck! Irresistible force vs Immovable object! I missed loads here!! Great win over the Lakers. Laying down the marker early on vs them is v important. Fresh start and erases all the old playoff stuff. Big things ahead for this Sun's team! What a great first season. Well done. Looking forward to offseason now, with a good move or two, this team could get top 3 seed in West.

Yeah, it was a tough loss against the Warriors but I vastly outperformed my expectations -- I didn't think I'd make the playoffs at all and I really through LeBron would beat me after I lost Game 4, but the sim engine (after giving me a near heartattack) was kind in Game 7.


The Warriors are just grossly overpowered -- but I have hopes the Thunder can dethrone them.



The offseason will be fascinating for the team in a lot of ways -- my schedule for building them up to a playoff squad was 2-3 seasons, but they're way ahead of that. Some tough choices in terms of how to improve my squad.

[trekfan]

Re: From the Ashes: A Phoenix Tale

League Update: The Finals

By Sam Gray



The Bracket:





Trends:
1. The Finals have concluded and the OKC Thunder are the champs — the Russell Westbrook revenge tour is complete. Westbrook beat Durant and the Warriors thanks to an unlikely hero in Game 7, Stephen Adams (25 points, 16 boards). But in the Finals, there was no better Thunder player than Westbrook — the Thunder won Game 2 because of his triple double (17/12/15) and dominated from that point on after Boston stole Game 1. The Celtics, after having gotten by the favored 76ers, must be asking what happened to Gordon Hayward — he virtually vanished in the Finals, being swallowed by Paul George (who himself was a star on the defensive end) and his highest scoring game in the series was just 16 points.



Already, there are calls for Boston to trade Hayward away as his disappointing Finals (and playoffs as whole, as he only averaged 14.2 PPG) makes it seem like his devastating leg injury he suffered at the beginning of the 17-18 season has sapped him of his scoring ability. Hayward’s season totals were down across the board (only 15.6 PPG) and Hayward’s lack of aggression, despite his highly paid status, is going to put pressure on the Celtics front office to move on from their big get.



2. The title for the Thunder is amazingly sweet — they beat Durant to get to the Finals and won with Westbrook leading the way, putting down the myth that he was a ballhog. George has also lifted a monkey off his back, proving that he can win a title and justifying his move from Indiana and his re-signing in OKC. Veterans Al Jefferson, Wayne Ellington, Shelvin Mack, Patrick Patterson, and Devin Harris finally have their rings — all contributed at one point or another in this playoff run.



3. With the Thunder’s win and the way they won — besting the Pelicans, obliterating Houston, winning a Game 7 at Oracle, and crushing the Celtics — the league’s power dynamics are primed to shift again. Multiple executives around the NBA expect there to be seismic shifts, especially with two new expansion teams slated to join next fall.

“Prepare yourself for a wild summer,” said one respected executive.