Official Game Thread: Suns at Hawks

[KB21]

I am very pleased that they pulled this out.  Taurean Prince needed to hit a big shot like that.  He had a great game.  

[Vol4ever]

stuck in mediocrity once again.  Some things never change.  

[lethalweapon3]

33 minutes ago, Guard said:

If Prince was a guy who had expectations of being a cornerstone of the franchise, I wouldn’t have minded the shot all that much. We currently don’t have anyone that resembles a player like that on this roster. That’s why the loss was so terrible. 

the "loss", lol!

~lw3

[Guard]

13 minutes ago, lethalweapon3 said:

the "loss", lol!

~lw3

Yep 

[High5]

We closed out the game with Morris, Dorsey, Prince, Moose, and Plumlee. We fouled Booker on a 3pt shot (again) to potentially give them a late lead. There's not much else we can do without facing punishment from the league. 

[benhillboy]

10 hours ago, Peoriabird said:

The Phoenix coach got 35 points out of TJ Warren! That dude can coach! Lol!

We all get your schtick but you at least gotta be sensible when you bash Bud.  Phoenix has 8 lottery picks (including Warren and not including Brandon Knight). The Hawks have 1 by way of the Jazz in a weak draft.

Edited March 5, 2018 by benhillboy

[Peoriabird]

4 hours ago, benhillboy said:

We all get your schtick but you at least gotta be sensible when you bash Bud.  Phoenix has 8 lottery picks (including Warren and not including Brandon Knight). The Hawks have 1 by way of the Jazz in a weak draft.

Bashing Bud?  I said nothing about Bud! Just thought it was kinda weird to brag about a player who went 4-12 from the field and was -8 for the game in a win and then credit his coach.

[lethalweapon3]

Looking at the head-to-head tie-breakers ("two-way ties" w/ nobody else involved), with each of Phoenix and Atlanta at 1-1, the next relevant tie-breaker would be in-conference records ("Conference won-lost percentage").

The Hawks (9-31) are 3.0 games worse than the Suns (13-29) in that department. The criterion appears to apply across conferences, since the prior criterion ("Division won-lost percentage for teams in the same division") is explicit. (i.e., the relevant criterion would otherwise read: "Conference won-lost percentage for teams in the same conference", but it does not).

So while a neat-and-tidy head-to-head W/L situation with the Suns would've been swell to have in-pocket, it would appear Phoenix has quite a bit of work to do in order to "lose" a theoretical two-way tiebreaker in the right-side up standings with Atlanta.

The closest to Atlanta's league-worst in-conference mark are Western Conference tank rivals Dallas (10-32) and Sacramento (10-30). The Hawks swept Dallas, so the Mavs would beneficially "lose" the two-way tie-breaker if it came to that. The Hawks also beat the Kings, but Sacto has a chance to even things up at home versus the road-tripping Hawks in a couple weeks, thereby moving the tie-breaker down to this particular one.

The team perched atop the Tank standings, Memphis (1-1 versus Atlanta), somehow has an in-conference record that's 6.5 games better than Atlanta's. So that would work well in the Hawks' favor if it came down to a two-way tie at season's end. All ifs are big, certainly, the way the Grizzlies have been lately, but it's nice to have.

In the event of a multi-team tiebreaker scenario that includes division rival Orlando (2-1 vs. ATL, final TankBattle on April 1), the only relevant criterion that would precede in-conference records would be the in-division record screening mentioned above. As it stands, the Magic's Southeast record (4-9) is a bit better than the Hawks' 3-8.

~lw3