Our struggles with their defense and then closing the game strong.
One of your best yet, Thank you!
This quote gets to one of mine and DTW’s recent hobby horses:
“Far too often, like you saw so many times above, when one of our guys would attempt to drive the switch or in isolation, three other guys would just stand around the arc typically with one of the Centers stationary around the hoop. Move without the ball! Playing off of these drives by moving to empty space away from the help was effective but hardly utilized.”
But seeing how Odom schemed to stop Wiggins and free up Ugo to be a “one-man zone” as you so brilliantly illustrate, I’m really hoping he spends a lot of time these next few weeks working on purposeful movement with and without the ball. But also, pound on these guys to take those open, rhythm threes!
5 Likes
My question is: Why are we passing up these open looks in rhythm? Offensively, this is the thing that’s changed most from early season to now. I appreciate the ball movement, especially as an emphasis after Butler.
It honestly feels like something psychological going on, or a point of emphasis that is taken to the extreme in an unhelpful way. We’ve seen it glaringly with Dallin Hall, which seems to have been fixed. But it’s also showing up with everyone now. FSU game was a great encapsulation. We let a few of those fly 1-2 passes before we ultimately shot and I think they have a better chance of going down, and then FSU is on their heels and interior opens up.
3 Likes
Thanks! The few times we cut in sync with a drive it worked really well… was surprised we didn’t try it more and kept running ball screens.
3 Likes
I agree.
I don’t know! We passed on quite a few looks of have wanted us to take and it does beg whether some guys are second guessing the ability to make them.
1 Like
I think there’s an inherent spacing/player movement trade-off that is present, kinda like how Odom was talking about not wanting to drive immediately after a drive-and-kick couple of games ago. But the dial is probably shifted a little too far over to preserving spacing in recent games and we are leaving some cutting-based scoring equity on the table. Cuts off of TDR post-ups is another thing Odom has flagged.
I think we’ve gotten away from the dribble handoff game too much too; those are turning into standard high ball screens too often and we don’t try to hit the guy curling off the handoff very often.
4 Likes
This is a good point. I think that teams are scheming their defense against us, like FSU did, with little fear of the cutter. But to Cuts’ point about not taking the open three, it seems like we have been driving frequently after a drive and kick rather than shooting the damn ball.
I realize that we haven’t been shooting as well lately as earlier in the season. But part of that has to be the reluctance of a bunch of good shooters to take a good shot. Maybe Jacari heating up will be contagious.
2 Likes
Swing swing without touching the paint aren’t actually open rhythm looks … they look like it to fans but it’s an uncomfortable shot for players.
1 Like
Not sure who you were responding to, but I was referring specifically to shots not taken after a drive and kick. As Cuts emphasized in his piece, while we missed a number of these open looks, we passed up on a lot more of them. My reference to drives after drive and kicks was a comment on AQ’s point about Odom not wanting to drive too soon after a drive and kick to maintain spacing.
To my eyes, it seems that we’re getting those tough shots you are referring to because we drive and kick, drive and kick, and then pass around the perimeter until someone has to take a contested shot late in the clock. Would much prefer that we take the open shot off the first kick.
3 Likes
Plausible reason (albeit a bit indirect) for why our free throw rate has tanked as well.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 4 days. New replies are no longer allowed.