Guarding the 3…..alright Coaches answer this.

[Grover Thomas]

Against Alabama we all agree we didn’t defend the 3 well. However, Bama guards constantly ran our defenders into a hard screen….and that gave them the separation they needed to get off a 3

Sometimes they went under the screen and and a few times over. But usually the screen slowed then down enough to give the shooter enough space and time to get off the 3 ball cause our defender couldn’t recover fast enough.

Ok tell me how to fix this? If the refs would allow us to belly up against the ball handler would help I know….but the refs are against us.
This also makes it’s hard to fight over the screen. So what would you do?

 

[arshadali8888]

You make great points and you are absolutely correct in making your points. In our losses, I found out something very encouraging - for teams to potentially beat us or hang with us, they have to score the three ball at a much higher rate. Example, Iowa State (9) threes (27 points) to Carolina (3) threes (9 points) and we lose by 5 points. Alabama (16) threes (48 points) to Carolina (7) threes (21 points) and we lose by 2 points. Percentage wise, we should have won both games, had either of the opposing teams shot slightly lower from the three. I will bet everything that neither team (opponents) will duplicate their three point shooting efforts.

I strongly believe that in the future, we must rotate more players in the post to prevent having our guards to attempt to help out in the post. When we collapse on the post, our guards are too far away to recover to defend the open shooters. I saw this happen too many times in both games. We should probably give Shaver, Styles and McKoy more minutes to keep Bacot and Nance out of foul trouble. In essence, what I am saying is that no team will beat us shooting two point baskets or foul shots. If we leave our guards to guard straight up, with no help to the post, I strongly believe that we can defend the open threes better and position ourselves to rebound better also. Leaky will shut down most prolific scorers, rebound, etc.

McKoy plays excellent defense and he does not turn the ball over. Offensively, he won't give us much, but we need help defensively. Shaver is a big body that can give us a few good minutes, get some real live experience, help defend the post and he looked pretty good from the free throw line. Styles is athletic enough and has the toughness to rebound. Styles also has the jumping ability to do good things in the post, (both offensive and defensively). With Bacot having foul and ankle issues, along with Nance having foul issues, in order to prevent the urgency to play the aforementioned players out of desperation, would it not be better to spell our big men for a few minutes, to save them for winning time? I believe that this is the answer to our concerns with the three

 

[imajericho]

3 defense is fine. Iowa state made hard as heck contested shots. Alabama shoots 3s regardless if open or not and the game was literally 4 ots also to pump the numbers up.

 

[arshadali8888]

Alabama made (10) threes against Liberty, (8) threes against Michigan State, (6) threes against UConn and (16) threes against us. For us to reach our potential, we must improve our three point defense. Against good teams, this has to be shored up.

 

[Grover Thomas]

You make great points and you are absolutely correct in making your points. In our losses, I found out something very encouraging - for teams to potentially beat us or hang with us, they have to score the three ball at a much higher rate. Example, Iowa State (9) threes (27 points) to Carolina (3) threes (9 points) and we lose by 5 points. Alabama (16) threes (48 points) to Carolina (7) threes (21 points) and we lose by 2 points. Percentage wise, we should have won both games, had either of the opposing teams shot slightly lower from the three. I will bet everything that neither team (opponents) will duplicate their three point shooting efforts.

I strongly believe that in the future, we must rotate more players in the post to prevent having our guards to attempt to help out in the post. When we collapse on the post, our guards are too far away to recover to defend the open shooters. I saw this happen too many times in both games. We should probably give Shaver, Styles and McKoy more minutes to keep Bacot and Nance out of foul trouble. In essence, what I am saying is that no team will beat us shooting two point baskets or foul shots. If we leave our guards to guard straight up, with no help to the post, I strongly believe that we can defend the open threes better and position ourselves to rebound better also. Leaky will shut down most prolific scorers, rebound, etc.

McKoy plays excellent defense and he does not turn the ball over. Offensively, he won't give us much, but we need help defensively. Shaver is a big body that can give us a few good minutes, get some real live experience, help defend the post and he looked pretty good from the free throw line. Styles is athletic enough and has the toughness to rebound. Styles also has the jumping ability to do good things in the post, (both offensive and defensively). With Bacot having foul and ankle issues, along with Nance having foul issues, in order to prevent the urgency to play the aforementioned players out of desperation, would it not be better to spell our big men for a few minutes, to save them for winning time? I believe that this is the answer to our concerns with the three

I agree with this 100%. We help on the big man no matter who he is….I would have a rule, if the opposing center is not on the same level as Kareem or Wilt..no help!

 

[ChiShankCity]

Against Alabama we all agree we didn’t defend the 3 well. However, Bama guards constantly ran our defenders into a hard screen….and that gave them the separation they needed to get off a 3

Sometimes they went under the screen and and a few times over. But usually the screen slowed then down enough to give the shooter enough space and time to get off the 3 ball cause our defender couldn’t recover fast enough.

Ok tell me how to fix this? If the refs would allow us to belly up against the ball handler would help I know….but the refs are against us.
This also makes it’s hard to fight over the screen. So what would you do?

The only way to truly not get beat by the 3 is to not allow 3-point attempts. It sounds nonsensical but that's the only way to guarantee that you won't get beaten by it. And it probably should be the strategy for UNC because we've had a history of allowing good looks from 3 routinely.

The defense should be designed to allow opponents to shoot open 17 footers, as opposed to a high rate of 3-point attempts. The Alabama game was a little bit different from that theory, but if you allow a team to shoot 40 3's in a game, even if you hold them to 30% from 3, then you're allowing 12 made 3's and those will add up. I would much rather give up 40% from 3 if you only allow 6/15 as opposed to 12/40 30%.

We ran into this issue against Duke at home a while back when Rivers hit the walk off. Ignoring the bad officiating in the game, we allowed a ridiculous number of 3-point shots in that game and it ended up biting us. I don't think Duke shot a particularly high percentage, but the pure volume of attempts led to the 3's (at a bad percentage) to still adding up. We also drastically outshot them in FG%, but it didn't matter because Duke had a high volume of makes and attempts from 3.

Ken Pomeroy wrote an article saying that 3-point percentage defense is closer to being as useless as free throw percentage defense rather than an indicator of good overall defense.

There is probably a flaw in our defense, but it might be a flawed gameplan. If you limit your opponent's 3-point attempts and free throw attempts in a game, you're probably going to be difficult to beat if you have some talent on offense.

 

[TarHeelFanWV]

3 defense is fine. Iowa state made hard as heck contested shots. Alabama shoots 3s regardless if open or not and the game was literally 4 ots also to pump the numbers up.

Regardless whether this is true or not, I would not want to be ok with this and we lose because we can’t play a little bit better 3 point defense.

There will be other games that the teams are lighting us up from 3 point land. I don’t want to have to “hope and pray” they don’t make more than 10 just so we can win. I want to be confident our team can play some lock down defense when that time comes.

We shouldn’t want to be the team that has to out score our opponent just to have a chance. We need to rely on our defense and actually blow someone out for once.

Take away 1 or 2 three pointers in either game and we would’ve won.

 

[DaveChapelle]

Against Alabama we all agree we didn’t defend the 3 well. However, Bama guards constantly ran our defenders into a hard screen….and that gave them the separation they needed to get off a 3

Sometimes they went under the screen and and a few times over. But usually the screen slowed then down enough to give the shooter enough space and time to get off the 3 ball cause our defender couldn’t recover fast enough.

Ok tell me how to fix this? If the refs would allow us to belly up against the ball handler would help I know….but the refs are against us.
This also makes it’s hard to fight over the screen. So what would you do?

You ignored all the wide open 3s Alabama got because a guard penetrated, a defender helped, and the result was a pass to a wide open shooter.

Those were the biggest problem with our defense Sunday, and you didn't even mention them. Considering all your previous posts are just gaslighting, it seems likely you intentionally chose to omit these.

 

[imajericho]

Alabama had a game earlier this year before us with 46 3pointer attempts and only 20 regular fg attempts.

This is just how Alabama plays. The thing is that we regularly berate our players if they take some 3s saying these are bad shots. Some things shoot these regularly. You can't realistically extend a defense out to 30 feet unless you are dogging relentlessly man to man. Meaning no one can be beat 1 on 1, cuts become dangerous, and rebounding becomes more difficult.

You have to shoot 33.3% from 3 to be equivalent of 50% from 2. Usually layups, dunks, and shots within like 2 feet of the goal by big men can be 60-70% But 50% is acceptable as far as effiency goes. Below 50% from 2 or 33.3% from 3 is inefficient.

The problem right now is we are just missing shots lately. Caleb has never been an efficient shooter, but he usually makes up for it at the FT line. He hasn't lately made up for it though. RJ Davis has usually been efficient, but he is missing a lot of shots lately he normally doesn't miss often. We berated the high shot totals, but for many of these shots, RJ especially, these were exactly the shots he normally makes and would want him to take. The shots we don't want are the wild contested shots. The open mid range jumper from RJ is normally a consistent shot. And if he makes 1 more of these in the game, the game is iced.

One thing Hubert said correctly was... good offense is usually judged by whether the ball goes in the hoop or not and a lot of the shots we missed today usually go in. He isn't wrong in that. I would argue his coaching xs and os isn't very good so far, but if the guys make shots they normally do, we beat Alabama by 20 and beat Iowa state.

Iowa state had a guy go off who isn't a shooter while being contested all night. Was just his night. Everyone who has played basketball has those days.

We just happened to get those better days last year in the 2nd half of the season last year. At one point last year, we had 4 40+% shooters and 2 50+% shooters from 3. They tailed off some, but that's kinda absurd. Right now 2 of those same shooters are like 16% and 26% last time I checked as of now. They will come up at some point. But, we also have a lot worse spacing and threat without Manek. They can play the screens differently and not have to worry about the constant movement Manek had along the perimeters, baselines, and his willingness to pass back out to others that some of our other bigs tend to not do when they get the ball.

 

[Grover Thomas]

You ignored all the wide open 3s Alabama got because a guard penetrated, a defender helped, and the result was a pass to a wide open shooter.

Those were the biggest problem with our defense Sunday, and you didn't even mention them. Considering all your previous posts are just gaslighting, it seems likely you intentionally chose to omit these.

You are right. I intentionally focused on when the guard used the hard screen. I heard the commentator talk about not going under the screen to try to go over the screen. Easier said than done. So I was asking how to address this because the refs was not going to let our guards defend closely enough to go over the screen.

 

[Grover Thomas]

Alabama had a game earlier this year before us with 46 3pointer attempts and only 20 regular fg attempts.

This is just how Alabama plays. The thing is that we regularly berate our players if they take some 3s saying these are bad shots. Some things shoot these regularly. You can't realistically extend a defense out to 30 feet unless you are dogging relentlessly man to man. Meaning no one can be beat 1 on 1, cuts become dangerous, and rebounding becomes more difficult.

You have to shoot 33.3% from 3 to be equivalent of 50% from 2. Usually layups, dunks, and shots within like 2 feet of the goal by big men can be 60-70% But 50% is acceptable as far as effiency goes. Below 50% from 2 or 33.3% from 3 is inefficient.

The problem right now is we are just missing shots lately. Caleb has never been an efficient shooter, but he usually makes up for it at the FT line. He hasn't lately made up for it though. RJ Davis has usually been efficient, but he is missing a lot of shots lately he normally doesn't miss often. We berated the high shot totals, but for many of these shots, RJ especially, these were exactly the shots he normally makes and would want him to take. The shots we don't want are the wild contested shots. The open mid range jumper from RJ is normally a consistent shot. And if he makes 1 more of these in the game, the game is iced.

One thing Hubert said correctly was... good offense is usually judged by whether the ball goes in the hoop or not and a lot of the shots we missed today usually go in. He isn't wrong in that. I would argue his coaching xs and os isn't very good so far, but if the guys make shots they normally do, we beat Alabama by 20 and beat Iowa state.

Iowa state had a guy go off who isn't a shooter while being contested all night. Was just his night. Everyone who has played basketball has those days.

We just happened to get those better days last year in the 2nd half of the season last year. At one point last year, we had 4 40+% shooters and 2 50+% shooters from 3. They tailed off some, but that's kinda absurd. Right now 2 of those same shooters are like 16% and 26% last time I checked as of now. They will come up at some point. But, we also have a lot worse spacing and threat without Manek. They can play the screens differently and not have to worry about the constant movement Manek had along the perimeters, baselines, and his willingness to pass back out to others that some of our other bigs tend to not do when they get the ball.

All true!

 

[Grover Thomas]

Regardless whether this is true or not, I would not want to be ok with this and we lose because we can’t play a little bit better 3 point defense.

There will be other games that the teams are lighting us up from 3 point land. I don’t want to have to “hope and pray” they don’t make more than 10 just so we can win. I want to be confident our team can play some lock down defense when that time comes.

We shouldn’t want to be the team that has to out score our opponent just to have a chance. We need to rely on our defense and actually blow someone out for once.

Take away 1 or 2 three pointers in either game and we would’ve won.

Agreed…..we can’t adopt the old way of thinking about the 3…..you know….let them shoot it because it’s a low percentage shot. You do have to actually defend the 3 now.

 

[jrhessey]

If you can't get over the top and going under is giving them time to shoot wouldn't you just switch or at least hedge the screeners player over until the screened player got back to his guy.

 

[arshadali8888]

When basketball players put in extra time in the gym, they practice shooting and perfecting the three ball. With exception to most centers, from position 1 to 4, everyone is practicing shooting the three ball. Both the European and NBA games have evolved to have more athletes develop the ability to make threes. These players are getting thousands of shots off in practice daily, so that the possibility of makes when wide open are more possible because they practice shooting the shots on a regular basis. Guarded, made threes, I will happily accept, but wide open threes have to be shored up with proper defensive spacing, increased depth and attention to detail.

If we can limit the amount of open threes, we are pretty much unbeatable. It's still early and we have time. If we are going to make the run in the tournament, we must develop more depth and use players like McKoy, Styles, Shavers, Nichols and Washington, when he's fully healthy. Trimble, Puff and Dunn are slowly working their ways in on both ends of the floor. Each of those players are giving great minutes helping the team during difficult times. The more experience and depth we develop, the more productive and healthy our Iron Five will be for the long run.

 

[Grover Thomas]

If you can't get over the top and going under is giving them time to shoot wouldn't you just switch or at least hedge the screeners player over until the screened player got back to his guy.

I would love honk so but usually the switch leaves Bacot trying to guard a small and our guard on their big. Hedging might be it

 

[Grover Thomas]

When basketball players put in extra time in the gym, they practice shooting and perfecting the three ball. With exception to most centers, from position 1 to 4, everyone is practicing shooting the three ball. Both the European and NBA games have evolved to have more athletes develop the ability to make threes. These players are getting thousands of shots off in practice daily, so that the possibility of makes when wide open are more possible because they practice shooting the shots on a regular basis. Guarded, made threes, I will happily accept, but wide open threes have to be shored up with proper defensive spacing, increased depth and attention to detail.

If we can limit the amount of open threes, we are pretty much unbeatable. It's still early and we have time. If we are going to make the run in the tournament, we must develop more depth and use players like McKoy, Styles, Shavers, Nichols and Washington, when he's fully healthy. Trimble, Puff and Dunn are slowly working their ways in on both ends of the floor. Each of those players are giving great minutes helping the team during difficult times. The more experience and depth we develop, the more productive and healthy our Iron Five will be for the long run.

Shavers looked real calm shooting those free throws.

 

[DSouthr]

I agree with this 100%. We help on the big man no matter who he is….I would have a rule, if the opposing center is not on the same level as Kareem or Wilt..no help!

There ya go, you are over the target there! This team drives me crazy at times, they will play great defense up to about 5 seconds left on the shot clock only to see it totally break down in that last 5 seconds. We will take a shot at a steal and miss, a guard will feel the need to help out a big in the paint so deep that he can not recover back in time to hinder the shot, guys will leave their feet for a clear pump fake.

The other thing is these guys don't seem to really understand what a good passing lane is and how to rotate thru the passing lane back out to a open player. Guys are driving on us and yeah, screens are set so tight now days it is near impossible to fight thru some and not get the whistle. Unless you have one of those great eraser shot blocking big men you may need back side help. But what is killing us is the driver is not looking to finish, he is looking to penatrate and have the passing lane open to kick it out to a open 3pt shooter, while his defender dove to far in to the paint to recover, we are not in the passing lane to stop it nor have a defender close enough to hinder the shot.

We seem to lack ball awareness at times, guy drives looking to kick, awareness to get in to the passing lane back out, shot goes up, awareness that not only did the ball go up but you know from where and can block out your man accordingly. If you are going to drop down and help in the paint, you better get there because if you don't your man is wide open and there is very likely a passing lane out to him for a clean look. We telegraph way to much of that, the guy with the ball can see the defender dropping down and can get a passing angle, they bait us to do that and we do it constantly.

How many of you either are or have been coaches, you know the very first defensive principle you teach is ball you man and to play ball you man, you have to know where your man is, where the ball is, and where you are and to my eyes, our guards are not great at that...

 

[DSouthr]

If you can't get over the top and going under is giving them time to shoot wouldn't you just switch or at least hedge the screeners player over until the screened player got back to his guy.

Yeah, that is one of those questions you can ask 100 coaches and likely get a hundred different answers, LOL. Hubert seems to prefer the switch but that ends up having your 5 trying to guard a guard out in space, never a good deal there. Roy preferred to hard hedge to divert the ball handler up so the chase defender has time to recover and the big man can cut back down deep paint to defend the big screener. Problem is that is a timing thing and a lot of our bigs really struggled to execute the timing right. Meeks was a good example of this, thankfully he finally seemed to figure it out in his senior season that ended nice as I recall. If the timing is right that is the best way to defend it but if the timing is not spot on it opens you up bad. Meeks would get himself caught in no mans land, not head deep enough to divert the ball handler but also give their opposing big man a couple steps head start cutting down the lane. But Bacot isolated trying to defend a PG 35ft from the basket is not a better deal because there are a few hundred college PGs that can make Bacot look foolish 35ft from the basket and should.

As I said, I do like the way Roy taught it more than the switching big on little but would add that the chaser slightly bumps the screener to slow his cut down and still recover to the diverted driver. Lot of times Dean would trap from that hard hedge action with our big man and our chaser.

 

[Grover Thomas]

Yeah, that is one of those questions you can ask 100 coaches and likely get a hundred different answers, LOL. Hubert seems to prefer the switch but that ends up having your 5 trying to guard a guard out in space, never a good deal there. Roy preferred to hard hedge to divert the ball handler up so the chase defender has time to recover and the big man can cut back down deep paint to defend the big screener. Problem is that is a timing thing and a lot of our bigs really struggled to execute the timing right. Meeks was a good example of this, thankfully he finally seemed to figure it out in his senior season that ended nice as I recall. If the timing is right that is the best way to defend it but if the timing is not spot on it opens you up bad. Meeks would get himself caught in no mans land, not head deep enough to divert the ball handler but also give their opposing big man a couple steps head start cutting down the lane. But Bacot isolated trying to defend a PG 35ft from the basket is not a better deal because there are a few hundred college PGs that can make Bacot look foolish 35ft from the basket and should.

As I said, I do like the way Roy taught it more than the switching big on little but would add that the chaser slightly bumps the screener to slow his cut down and still recover to the diverted driver. Lot of times Dean would trap from that hard hedge action with our big man and our chaser.

Ok I get it….this is a hard situation to guard against. My coaches would make us switch….man on a man…didn’t care about the mismatch….body on body…..depending on the personnel worked out great…but if your bid is slow of foot….bad things happens

 

[arshadali8888]

I have played and coached football, baseball, ran track and basketball. In basketball, we were taught to fight through screens and stay with your man. If we switched, we switched to a player on the perimeter, not the post. Needless to say that I played in the 80's and coached in the early 2000's. Because we are helping on the interior, it weakens our ability to rebound too. We are losing on the 50-50 balks and giving teams additional opportunities for shots that they should not have.

Lastly, we definitely need to get tougher in the boards. For the first time that I can remember, most teams are not afraid of Carolina on the boards. Offensive and defensive rebounding has always been a strength for us going back to the Dean Smith days. Bacot should not be the only one that rebounds. Positions 2-4 should be in position to rebound and get the ball to our point guards to start the fast break and secondary breaks. This is and has been Carolina Basketball 101.

 

[DSouthr]

I have played and coached football, baseball, ran track and basketball. In basketball, we were taught to fight through screens and stay with your man. If we switched, we switched to a player on the perimeter, not the post. Needless to say that I played in the 80's and coached in the early 2000's. Because we are helping on the interior, it weakens our ability to rebound too. We are losing on the 50-50 balks and giving teams additional opportunities for shots that they should not have.

Lastly, we definitely need to get tougher in the boards. For the first time that I can remember, most teams are not afraid of Carolina on the boards. Offensive and defensive rebounding has always been a strength for us going back to the Dean Smith days. Bacot should not be the only one that rebounds. Positions 2-4 should be in position to rebound and get the ball to our point guards to start the fast break and secondary breaks. This is and has been Carolina Basketball 101.

Have to realize, the screens you see set a lot there just is no room for the chaser to fight thru the screen, many times when they try they get called for the foul. Yes, you do want to fight thru the screen if you can, I am just saying you can't now days as much as you used to be able to.

 

[Grover Thomas]

Have to realize, the screens you see set a lot there just is no room for the chaser to fight thru the screen, many times when they try they get called for the foul. Yes, you do want to fight thru the screen if you can, I am just saying you can't now days as much as you used to be able to.

You are right…..the other night RJ dove through a screen like the window was closing on him. He made it through however and prevented the 3 ball.

 

[kjcooper]

The hardest thing for most players to comprehend is that defense will always have to be there, offense will go and come. If you play hard nose defense, you will win a lot of games. That should be the motto for the football team. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

 

[arshadali8888]

Let's look at basic math. With depth and even through fouls, three points hurt more than two. Even when players are going to the foul line, they are more likely to make one free throw (1 point, not three) and even if they make both free throws, those free throws don't do as much damage as multiple threes. If we use our depth and foul between the screens, we spread the fouls around so that our main five can stay in the game down the stretch. In the case of Alabama, let's say that they only make 7 threes (21 points and 10 free throws = 31 points). Alabama made 16 three pointers (48 points). If we lessen the threes to 7 threes and 10 made free throws, we win that game by 17 points. Math, like ball (thanks Rasheed Wallace) don't lie!!!! Purely from a mathematical point of view, 2 and 1 pointers are less lethal than three pointers. Both of our losses are because we have up too many open threes. Even great three point shooters mostly shoot poorer from two point and the three point range. Check it out and let me know what your research finds out??

 

[arshadali8888]

I meant free throw line.

 

[ChiShankCity]

Not sure if this is allowed. If not, please delete this.

But here's a Ken Pomeroy post that 3pt defense should not be defined by 3pt percentage.

https://kenpom.com/blog/3point-defense-should-not-be-defined-by-opponents-3p/

"With few exceptions, the best measure of three-point defense is a team’s ability to keep the opponents from taking 3’s."

Limit opponent's 3-point attempts = less likelihood of having poor 3-point defense. Also, a common complaint here is seemingly every loss, we run into some dude with the hot hand. Even more reason to limit their 3-point attempts.

 

[Grover Thomas]

Let's look at basic math. With depth and even through fouls, three points hurt more than two. Even when players are going to the foul line, they are more likely to make one free throw (1 point, not three) and even if they make both free throws, those free throws don't do as much damage as multiple threes. If we use our depth and foul between the screens, we spread the fouls around so that our main five can stay in the game down the stretch. In the case of Alabama, let's say that they only make 7 threes (21 points and 10 free throws = 31 points). Alabama made 16 three pointers (48 points). If we lessen the threes to 7 threes and 10 made free throws, we win that game by 17 points. Math, like ball (thanks Rasheed Wallace) don't lie!!!! Purely from a mathematical point of view, 2 and 1 pointers are less lethal than three pointers. Both of our losses are because we have up too many open threes. Even great three point shooters mostly shoot poorer from two point and the three point range. Check it out and let me know what your research finds out??

This is a good point.

 

[imajericho]

This is a good point.

Not really.

 

[arshadali8888]

Free throws from ACC/Big Ten Challenge tonight.

Maryland 14 - 24 56%
Syracuse 4 - 12 33.3 %
Illinois 3-10 30%
Penn State 12 - 15 (good) 80%
Clemson 13 - 19 68%
Louisville 13 - 24 54%
William & Mary 13 - 20 65%
NC State 11 - 19 58%

Math does not lie. Only two of the 2 teams are shooting a decent percentage from the charity stripe. These misses weigh heavily on outcomes of games.

 

[kjcooper]

The emphasis has been on 3 point shooting, and most players have forgotten about the basis two point shot, and FT shooting. Agree that it does decide the outcome on lots of games. The last time that I checked Carolina was shooting around 75% as a team, is this still accurate?

 

[arshadali8888]

You are accurate with our Heels shooting 75% from the line. The purpose of my earlier statement was to suggest that we should use our depth to prevent open 3 point shots. When necessary, by fouling the screeners or fouling on the floor, we lessen the onslaught of three point makes by the opponents. As stated, I believe that limiting three point attempts with free throw attempts will minimize our damage from the long balls. I used free throws percentages to show that basketball athletes today seem more comfortable and practice shooting more from three point range than the free throw line.

 

[Quest4Seven]

I feel that not only are the majority of defensive principles outdated but flawed. I think the conventional philosophy was centered around the idea that closer to the basket = easier shot and thats not the case anymore. In todays game a set shot from 3 is an easier shot than a midrange off the dribble or a shot in the lane over a 7 footer. I cant understand why teams collapse at the first sign of penetration instead of forcing the dribbler into making a play