Another embarassing sequence

[GMATCa]

What a comeback win, they must have read my post and pulled the 180 for me

Two important lessons, or reminders, from the comeback victory:

A) When this team commits to playing defense, it is much more effective because it possesses a talented fastbreak offense yet an erratic and problematic half-court offense. The Suns need to be able to run off their defense.

B) Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight need to use their quickness to constantly penetrate and live in the lane rather than settling for threes and tough jumpers that they can get at any time. When they are on the attack, the defense compresses and the game becomes easier for guys like P.J. Tucker and Marcus Morris.

 

[johnson]

Bledsoe, Keiff, Knight...they are the best talent on the team and they are all the same type of player: One night they might look like all-stars and the next they are just kind of there. The more consistent guys just aren't as talented (PJ Tucker).

No leader. Nobody is "the guy". No defense...No playoffs. Easy to figure out.

 

[GMATCa]

Bledsoe, Keiff, Knight...they are the best talent on the team and they are all the same type of player: One night they might look like all-stars and the next they are just kind of there. The more consistent guys just aren't as talented (PJ Tucker).

No leader. Nobody is "the guy". No defense...No playoffs. Easy to figure out.

There is a certain paradox at play with Bledsoe and Knight. On the one hand, they need to play more aggressively because the Suns are only dangerous as an uptempo offense that is flying off its defense and constantly on the attack. On the other hand, Bledsoe and Knight need to slow the game down—slow their minds down, at least—in order to show more discretion and make more effective decisions.

To start, both guards—like many in today's league—need to realize that a shot that you can take with five seconds or less on the shot clock is not necessarily one that you should take when there is plenty of time remaining on the shot clock. Just because you can shoot a shot does not mean that you should shoot that shot. Unless it is a great look (like Knight's two left-corner threes at the start of the Cleveland game, at least one of which was of the catch-and-shoot variety), I would like to see the two guards generally eschew the long two-point jumper and the three-pointer (shots that are, say, twenty or twenty-one feet and out) early in the shot clock when the time and space allow for something better.

What often happens with Brandon Knight, and sometimes with Eric Blesdoe, is that their defender tries to go over the screen, while the opposing big man defending the screener drops back a bit—but not radically—to protect against the drive. Too often, Knight and sometimes Bledsoe respond by almost hurriedly popping the long jumper, sometimes while their trailing defender pursues them from behind and bothers the shot at the last moment. Even if the trailing defender does not bother the shot, Knight and Bledsoe possess the time, space, and quickness to attack the big man's feet, cross-over on him, and get into the lane, either creating a higher-percentage shot for himself or drawing help defenders that create wide shooting openings for the likes of P.J. Tucker, Marcus Morris, and Gerald Green on the wings or in the corners. In overtime in Brooklyn on Friday night, Knight indeed made a crucial play where he kept his dribble alive, attacked the feet of a retreating Brook Lopez, and hit a high-arching runner. Too often, though, he settles for a three or some twenty-three-foot two-point jumper that misses.

As discussed on ESPN during that Brooklyn game, Knight may indeed possess the best court awareness and playmaking instincts of any of the Suns' rotational point guards this season—Bledsoe, Dragic, Thomas. Apparently, Hornacek feels that way. But what holds him back as a playmaker and an overall guard is Knight's tendency to take the long jumper whenever it comes along, even when he possesses ample time, space, and quickness to explore further and create something better, to generate a high-percentage shot rather than just a plausible shot.

So far with Phoenix (entering tonight's game against Golden State), Knight is shooting .322 on threes and .363 overall, averaging nearly as many three-point attempts (6.6) as two-point attempts (7.2). Even on two-point attempts with the Suns, he is only shooting .400, suggesting that a disproportionate amount of those attempts have come in the form of twenty-two and twenty-three-footers. For his NBA career, meanwhile, Knight is just a .417 career field goal shooter and—almost stunningly for someone of his quickness and in this era which is so conducive to guards—just a .445 shooter on two-point field goal attempts. Shot selection is what is holding Brandon Knight back from greater consistency and an All-Star level of play, specifically a too-quick trigger on the long jump-shot when he could be working to create something better.

Eric Bledsoe suffers from some of Knight's problem, but he does explode to the basket often enough. The problem with Bledsoe is sometimes that he goes to the rim too much—meaning not that he should be shooting more deep jumpers like Knight, but that he lacks a mid-range game, traditionally defined as eight-to-fifteen feet (although one might say ten-to-fifteen feet, especially to accord with a certain statistical split at Basketball-Reference.com). This issue was a problem last year, but Bledsoe has actually regressed from last season in this area. In fact, entering the Golden State game, Bledsoe was shooting .326 from the field from three-to-nine feet and .288 from ten-to-fifteen feet.

Eric Bledsoe 2014-15 Shooting | Basketball-Reference.com

In other words, Bledsoe has no classical mid-range game—no consistently effective runners, floaters, baby-hooks, or quick-stop short-to-middle pull-up jumpers, none of the tricky shots that Steve Nash or Jeff Hornacek possessed, or that Tony Parker utilizes. The result is that he constantly looks to get to the rim, and he is effective there, shooting .653. But he is so desperate to reach the rim that too often Bledsoe is out of control, he turns the ball over while trying to pass in the air in a last-gasp attempt to avoid forcing a shot, or he indeed forces the shot. Consider that in his final season in Phoenix, Nash shot .740 at the rim.

Steve Nash 2011-12 Shooting | Basketball-Reference.com

Worse, while Bledsoe's assists-to-turnover ratio is currently a career-best, it is still well under 2:00:1.00 (1.81:1.00).

In addition to needing to be able to slow himself down—mentally, at least—to the point where he develops a classical mid-range game that will help him reduce his turnovers and misses at the rim, Bledsoe needs to look for the seventeen-foot and eighteen-foot pull-up jumper more often, especially in transition. He hit two such shots in the first quarter against Cleveland, but then went away from it. Not everything needs to be a deep jumper or a rim assault.

By the way, Knight's shooting percentages from three-to-nine feet and ten-to-fifteen feet this season mirror Bledsoe's: .281 and .323, respectively.

Brandon Knight 2014-15 Shooting | Basketball-Reference.com

In other words, we are basically talking about two guards who lack an in-between game, which helps explain their inconsistency. If your game is hit-or-miss, you will be hit-and-miss.

I was thinking that what the Suns need is someone like Kevin Johnson or Steve Nash, who—even if playing an uptempo game—was patient and cerebral and would look to create superior opportunities, not just passable opportunities. The most similar player in that regard nowadays is Chris Paul, and although Paul is a tad too dribble-heavy for my liking (which may help explain why he has never reached the Western Conference Finals), the following list for the most assists per game in NBA history as a starter is revealing:

1. Magic Johnson 12.2
2. John Stockton 11.2
3. Kevin Johnson 10.0
4. Chris Paul 9.9
5. Oscar Robertson 9.5
6. Steve Nash 9.4
7. Isiah Thomas 9.3

(Note: the records for how many games Oscar Robertson actually started do not exist, but based on his minutes played per game in each season, one can safely say that he started virtually every game of his career, if not every single one.)

So in K.J. and Nash, one is probably talking about two of the half-dozen best offensive point guards and playmakers in history—one cannot expect Bledsoe and Knight to measure up. The best alternative, then, might actually be someone such as Kevin Love. One could certainly argue that his time in Cleveland has proven that Love was never the genuine superstar that some people imagined while he was recording huge numbers for lottery teams in Minnesota. Indeed, I always had my doubts. Whenever I saw Love, he never seemed all that impressive to me, but I could have just been catching him on the wrong nights. On the other hand, his mediocre field goal percentages left a lot to be desired for a power forward, even if Love shot a high volume of three-pointers.

But even if Love was overrated, he is a rebounder and a passer along with being a "stretch four." And when you lack a point guard with that cerebral quality and high degree of discipline and discretion, you need to surround your guards with more high Basketball IQ players who will move the ball quickly and effectively in order to create more of a collective flow and rhythm that everyone can tap into and that will create a life of its own. Hindsight should not be confused with foresight, but in retrospect, perhaps the Suns should have offered, say, Goran Dragic, Gerald Green, and the first-round draft pick that they used on Tyler Ennis for Love, even without a contract extension for him. Without a cerebral point guard, the Suns need faster ball movement and a better defensive rebounding-and-outlet game in order to create greater consistency.