Certified bucket getter.

dawg how did we scam the suns for Grayson Royce and a unprotected first for Miles Bridges

Quick notes on Oklahoma City Thunder-Phoenix Suns last night, which the Thunder controlled pretty comfortably. Also, a follow up tweet about future plans for these Game Notes. -Shai is a dominant force. Just totally took over and got to all the spots he wanted. No issues, didn't feel rushed at all. When he got blitzed, he hit the short roll player consistently. When he got one-on-one matchups with Brooks, he attacked and just relentlessly got to that 8-to-14-foot area and buried jumpers. Typical Shai game. Brooks couldn't do anything with him. 26 points on 11-18 from the field in just 30 minutes because he dealt with foul trouble. Simple game, dominant game. -Ajay Mitchell was terrific. Phoenix's defensive scheme against Oklahoma City's offensive plan of empty actions and angle screens just fed directly into what makes him so great. Phoenix just let Mitchell snake back to the middle on every screen it felt like, where he can just be utterly lethal. Hit a bevy of midrange shots early, then also started to get to the rim late when he got switches against Luke Kennard. Also liked some of the Iverson action they ran to get Mitchell downhill going toward his left. Ended up getting 10 free throws. Also played well on defense. -The bigs also totally dominated the game for Oklahoma City, Both Hartenstein and Mara had double-doubles, and they went a combined 10 of 13 from the field. It felt like without Chet or JDub, Oklahoma City used a lot more Hartenstein hand-off action to initiate sets, especially when Shai was out or when they wanted to run him off of the ball to get a clean look. Nine offensive rebounds between the two of them and they totally controlled the paint defensively. Phoenix only had 38 points in the paint. Also thought Hartenstein was really good in short-rolls with Shai. -Oklahoma City's defense was interesting. Thought that their aggression in blitzing Booker to get the ball out of his hands was really sharp, and they really did a great job making his life harder off of the ball. Even when he caught with one defender on him, their gap defense was spectacular. He only ended up with three points, which meant Phoenix was more reliant on Jalen Green to initiate. More on that later. Mitchell particularly made life very hard for Booker, getting into his chest and making his life hard. Just was a really physical presence. I will note that I thought their off-ball work was a little bit messier than normal. Jared McCain got back-cut twice ball-watching leading to easy dunks. They also went to a 2-3 zone more regularly than I've seen them do in a while. They've been experimenting with it in the early part of the season, but it felt like they went to it for like 20 or so possessions in this game. Fascinated to see if that continues or if that was just a strategy against the Suns. -I hate everything about what this Phoenix team has done to its starting lineup. They were without Mark Williams and Oso Ighodaro tonight, so Maluach had to start. But really, the problem here is that Jalen Green and Miles Bridges are the antithesis of what made this team fun last year. They were so selfless and played for one another on defense last season. They moved the ball quicker and made better decisions. This group doesn't do that with the starters. Coming into tonight, Phoenix's starters had a negative-35.5 net rating and tonight might make that slightly better, but not much better. They got their ass kicked. -Green's stat line looks about as good as it could. He had 20 points, four assists, four rebounds, only one turnover and shot 8 for 13 from the field. I wouldn't say that he played poorly, but I didn't love his game. I counted at least five possessions where he brought the ball up the court and shot the ball without passing, one of which was a pretty egregious one at the start of the second half where Phoenix clearly set up a Spain/stack action with Maluach and Booker, and Green just rejected the screen, drove to the rim, overpenetrated, and got stripped by McCain. Midway through the first, he had another no-pass possession where he settled for a contested midrange shot with 15 seconds left on the shot clock without trying to create anything for his teammates. When Green keeps it simple, attacking driving lanes when they come available as a slasher with his athleticism, taking open catch-and-shoot 3s, and cuts to the rim, he's an effective player. He can attack mismatches well. The problem is when he tries to isolate or play in ball-screens against high-level defenses or defenders. He also doesn't process it quickly enough and holds the ball too long upon catching it, allowing rotating defenses to catch up while he surveys. I don't think he's a fit with Devin Booker in the starting lineup. -Bridges was even worse largely because he can't defend anyone. He gets caught in no-man's land in help way to often. He can't move his feet quickly enough on defense to deal with guards in switches. He ends up having to play too passively and is too far off of them, allowing them to get space and time to shoot. He also isn't a good enough shooter to take advantage of when he's open. He's made 33 percent from 3 over his last four years, and only has one year in his career over 35 percent despite taking six per game over the last six years. He did a nice job moving without the ball, particularly in some moments where OKC was in zone coverage. Again, he had 17 points, eight rebounds and four assists. The box score looks great. He did not play well. -My real issue with everything Phoenix is doing here with this group is that none of it is in service of accentuating Devin Booker or the scheme Jordan Ott found success with last season. Gillespie makes life easier for Booker by spacing the court, being an aggressive point-of-attack defender, and making good decisions. Goodwin and Brooks take really tough matchups on defense and are physical. Ighodaro was out tonight, but he moves the ball quickly. But Green and Bridges just have not looked like a fit at all. Maybe it gets better as the season continues, but their careers to this point would not suggest it. -I also haven't really loved the Khaman Maluach as a starting center experience so far. I just don't think his hands, screening or offensive processing skills are good enough yet for such a large role. Tonight he had to play 25 minutes because Ighodaro missed the game. But four turnovers in 25 minutes for such a low usage player is a killer. I also haven't loved his positioning on the glass, and even around the rim he has moments where I feel like he can get pushed around. There was a specific one at 4:14 in the third quarter where Shai just put his shoulder into his chest and drove him backwards before throwing down a dunk on him that ended up not counting because the refs called a strange foul prior. I am definitely in favor of him being a backup this year, I think he's shown enough to be useful there. But I'd probably start Ighodaro over him when he's back healthy because I think they need someone who can process the game quickly and move the ball with this starting lineup.

Starting the week in Oklahoma ☄️ 🆚 @okcthunder 🕔 5PM 📺 @azfamily | Pregame at 4:30PM 📻 @AZSports | @az_mejor 💻 azfamilysports.com/suns

A good example here of how damaging off-ball mistakes can be. Neutralizes a good possession and all the hard work that goes into it with an open layup. Also going to be asking way too much out of Maluach’s awareness if he has to watch for these + everything else.

Devin erased another of my records. 👍👍👍👍🙂