Markieff Morris rips Suns fans: 'We expect more from them'
The Phoenix Suns played at their worst Saturday night to expose all sorts of problems.
Markieff Morris said one of those problems is the Suns' home crowd.
After the Suns set a 47-year-old franchise low by scoring 24 points in a half and matching their worst margin of defeat this season, Morris used the postgame forum Saturday to complain about Suns fans at home games.
Morris has not been alone in recent murmuring about the lack of fervor from home crowds, but he was the first to be so publicly critical of it on the strangest of nights to do so.
"I don't think we have a home-court advantage," Markieff said. "It does not feel like a home-court advantage at all. Some games are going to be bad. You can't win every game. That comes along with sports. Nobody wins games. We need the support. We need, as a team, to know that our fans are going to be behind us and I don't feel like this year they're behind us enough.
"I feel like we do have those genuine Suns fans but, for the most part, I feel like we had more San Antonio than Phoenix fans tonight."
In the first Spurs visit of the season, Suns Managing Partner Robert Sarver apologized to fans and offered refunds for a preseason game in which the Spurs did not play their stars. After this Spurs 101-74 drubbing included their stars, the fourth sellout crowd of the season received only advice.
"They don't boo, but they don't cheer that much, either," Markieff said. "We feed off, for the most part, off the energy. I know we're a lot better than that. I know Phoenix fans are a lot better than that. Like I said, we have a lot of genuine fans that cheers for us – the ones that are in the first row, in the second row, in the third row. Once you go up, you feel like people were just at the game, just watching."
Markieff made a point to say the sentiment was not specific to Saturday night. The Suns are 17-13 at home this season with six of the home losses coming to losing teams.
"I speak for me and my teammates," Markieff said. "It depends on who's playing here. When we have the LeBrons and the D-Wades, we need to be heckling them. We need the fans to win games. We need the energy from them to win a lot of games, and we need that every night, not just certain nights.
"Every night is not going to be a great night. It's going to happen. Stuff like that is going to happen. We expect more from them because I know they expect more from us."
Some of the Suns were frustrated that the crowd had not been more into the game during Thursday night's home victory against Oklahoma City. At one point, the Suns had a 10-0 run that was capped by an Alex Len dunk and an Oklahoma City timeout. P.J. Tucker and Eric Bledsoe raced onto the court to greet the players in the game and waved for the fans to join the celebration and stand. The fans did not follow.
"When we stand up and we're fighting and I've got to do this (waves arms) 15 times to get the fans up, I don't think that's fair to us, putting our heart and our soul out there, trying to get to the playoffs for this organization, for this city, to try to bring this city back to where it was, with that kind of treatment," Markieff said.
"Even when I hit the jumper in the middle (Thursday night), I had to do this 15 times just to get the fans up. Even when they got the and-one, everybody's just sitting down, like we're not trying to make a playoff push here. We need every single game. When guys are diving on the floor, guys are playing their hearts out for this city, we need that support. That's just how it goes."
His twin, Marcus, also commented about fans after Saturday night's game.
"We didn't have no energy, building wasn't energetic," Marcus said. "I saw more Spurs jerseys than Suns jerseys, so sometimes when you come out flat you need your fans to pick you up and we didn't get that tonight. We can't blame them for the loss, but if they can help out a little bit."
Suns crowds have been less raucous than last season, when a 48-win season greatly exceeded expectations. But Markieff said the bigger difference is in comparison to other NBA arenas they visit.
"You're damn right I feel the difference," Markieff said. "It just don't feel like we got a home-court advantage. It don't feel like that. It just feels like we have fans from all over and they cheer for everybody, especially the great teams, the great players."
Paul Coro writes for The Arizona Republic
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