After a rough showing against the Hawks in Atlanta on Tuesday, the Suns bounced back and played much better against the Mavericks in Dallas on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Dirk Nowitzki happened and the Suns were eliminated from the playoffs with a 107-104 loss.
“I thought we competed and played hard,” Lon Babby said Thursday on Bickley and Marotta. “The game ended like so many of our other games this year – we fell short in a close game. I thought the effort was better, particularly after the Atlanta game which was unacceptable.
“I felt good about how hard we played and competed, and put ourselves in a position to win a game on the road against a good playoff team.”
Although the Suns will miss the postseason, Babby still feels optimistic about the future and the leadership in place.
“The whole organization has to improve as we do every year,” added Babby. “We have to take a cold, hard look at what worked this year and, more importantly, what didn’t work. None of us are satisfied with not making the playoffs. We have to keep getting better and build a championship culture.”
Babby feels that as the offseason approaches, new decisions will certainly have to be made based on new facts. However, he cites the improvement the team has made over the past two years and expects that to continue.
“I’ve been preaching patience for too long,” he said. “Everybody’s in favor of patience unless it takes too long. I understand why there’s frustration. To me, the same people who were flying high last year, who were doing a terrific job, who were being lauded among the very best and certainly could’ve won those awards – Jeff [Hornacek] and Ryan [McDonough] – those are the same people we have in charge now. We have the right people in place and they are hard-working.
“All of us are going to look at what went wrong, what mistakes we made and correct them and move forward.”
Listen to the entire interview with Arizona Sports below