Spot on. Improvement from last game for sure, but a lot of instances of failed help in the paint. The weakside perimeter defender really has to get in the paint to deter the entry pass to the roller. Woldo was excellent at it - early recognition and has both feet in the paint before the roller gets there. But also keeping a close eye on his man on the baseline perimeter with ability for a quick closeout on a skip pass. Other guys will get there - it’s a work in progress.
The defender who is hedging up top needs to hustle back into the lane with hands up to deter a pass. Primary ball defender also must have hands up to deter an entry pass. All those things working together is when the pack line is a well oiled machine. Most of the breakdowns I noticed were in the help defender having slow recognition or poor positioning/spacing. Very correctable with time and reps.
Oh they were aware of what’s missing. Badocchi was the guy tagged to be in that Wilkins role right now. In the Spring they were looking for someone like that. It was rumored that Boston College’s Steffon Mitchell might enter the transfer portal. They would have been all over him. Then Murphy came available and was close enough and just too good to pass on.
This season is convincing me that the team needs that helpside defense oriented big to function at full capacity. Having 2 offensive minded bigs is cool but is leaving holes in the D esp if they want to continue with the hard hedge. Need a road block in the middle
We need Casey to play with confidence. I think we had such high expectations for him as a first year, it was unfair. I still believe he can grow into an elite player for us. His defense, while may not have been the most noticeable statistically, was an obvious factor during the game. That one block he had…gracious
We’ll see if Casey can hold his spot. But it has the potential to be like Devon Hall’s insertion into the starting lineup was for the '15-16 team. Shayok, Thompson, and Dev were all splitting time until TB titled his way and stuck with him for the most part. (there were still occasional games with low min). Stats don’t show it at all, averaged 4ppg shot 37%, but he was a stabilizer. Was a real turning point for a great team that had some chemistry issues early in the year.
Plus having a 3 point specialist coming off the bench is a nice tool in the toolkit. He’s a specialized player; not a starter on a good team. Some games we’ll need instant offense and he can hit some big shots; other games like last night he’ll come in and miss his few opportunities and ride pine.
I’m firmly in the ride it out with Morsell getting starters minutes going forward
In my opinion, Kihei, Casey, Sam, Trey, and Jay all need to be in that 28-34 minute per game area and our other guys need to fill in the gaps based on matchups and who might be playing well on any given night.
I think if we keep Casey out there and let him play extended minutes through some of the ups an downs offensively that he’ll figure it out. As others have said, even though he missed a few good chances on offense last night, you could see his confidence grow as the game went on.
Yea and he done a good job getting the ball to Hauser in the right spot. He had several assists passing inside to Hauser and at least once for a 3 that Sam drilled
Hall was pretty bad offensively in 2016 - shooting 37% and 33% from 3. 33% would keep Casey on the floor likely. But Hall only took 4 shots a game. That would also likely keep Casey on the floor more.
Unfortunately Casey and Clark are virtually unplayable together on offense against good teams.
The best backcourt combo hasn’t seen the floor much this year, and I have mostly lost hope that it will.
May turn out that this year is a bridge year if that continues to happen.
Caveat would be if Casey suddenly raises his 3 pt % to 36% or better (currently 21%) the rest of the way. He is shooting 50% from 2 point land.
Nice breakdown. Small technical point: they were running a roll-and-replace ball screen (Nova has done this a ton for forever), as the Spain ball screen is when the third man (the guy not in the screening action) sets a backscreen on the screener’s defender. Same general idea of trying to confuse the coverage, but a slightly different action.