Late stuff (Clemson game 2)...

[gary-7]

...and the old coaches' cliche is that you don't win or lose a game in the first half, but this time we kinda did. We got ourselves in a hole that meant everything had to go right in the second to ultimately prevail. It almost did, but again, just almost.

Anyway, I apologize for the lateness but I decided to watch the Auburn game afterward, and just let this game simmer for a bit... plus I really wanted to sit down with the replay and break it down qualitatively as opposed to the obvious numerical stuff, and see if it matched what I noticed in real time. These observations may sound random, but it is what it is.
Here ya go:

- Starting with the elephant in the room, the barrage of 3-balls. I charted each of them vis-a-vis our defense. Clemson made 15 for the game (10 in the first half). Viewing their makes in context with reality (not emotion) and our defensive concepts, 7 of them (5 in first half) could be deemed as relatively or very open because of over-help. and 7 were just from making tough shots (closely guarded and/or very deep), and 1 (the last and a very critical one) was the result of an obvious uncalled illegal screen.

- Obviously, that first-half number above (7) is too many (plus they actually missed 3 that could fall in that classification). Now again, taking the emotion out of it, a few of those attempts are gonna happen in the fog of war. But the ones that make my (and I'm sure Roy's) head hurt are the mental errors, in particular guys in back-side situations "2 passes away" are running toward the ball (e.g, Cam and BRob), so suddenly a simple skip-pass, back-side kick-out, or long rebound finds a wide open shooter. We also are having guys getting too deep in the paint on ball-side help on drives and losing close-out range (Kenny, Luke, Andrew & JB all got stuck at least once). Now, that latter category is understandable and can be adjusted, and is something we worked on, and I'm sure will continue to work on in practice. The good news is we were much better with that part in the second half, and that's a sign that we can continue to adjust.

- I am still seething over that shot on Theo. When you wait for a guy to jump and then 2-hand undercut him from behind, that is a flat-out dirty play (and will usually start a fight in a pick-up game), the sort of thing that gets people seriously hurt. And they don't call that a flagrant? In the same game Sterling gets one for an inadvertent neck contact on a post-up? Sorry, had to vent on that, but flagrant or no flagrant, losing Theo was an early gut-punch. I don't want to use that to excuse our poor first-half play but it sure as hell didn't help. Theo after all was coming off the best offensive game of his career, and I think it's fair to say we may have defended better as a team with him in the rotation.

- It was great to see Cam stepping up (literally) and getting his feet in shooting position. He was "catching with a purpose" and his offensive outburst reflected that. I also love his attacking, but he still needs to pick his spots. He still sometimes makes the mental mistake of driving without a path (like the last drive that got blocked when he had an easy kick-back to Luke for a rhythm-3 that we badly needed), but overall I love the offensive aggression. I said earlier we need him to think like JJ and be a catch-and-score guy. On defense he at least plays hard. Hopefully he'll start playing smarter as well.

- I really liked our scrambles. We used both 30 and 40 attacks, and I especially liked it when we went 42 and forced TOs. I've always been a big proponent of being multiple and I've always preferred 40 traps over run-and-jumps coming up from the wing. Either way, I'd like to see more. Sure, you risk open shooters if they break the trap, but hey, if you're scufflin' getting out on shooters anyway? Why not?

- Speaking of traps, when JB got that late steal at mid-court and lost it back trying to bust out, that was painful. He had a lay-up for our first lead. Arrrggghh. But there ya have it... as I said above, when you dig a hole everything has to go right to finish climbing out.

- As for things going right, mental errors do not help that cause. In addition to the defensive ones mentioned above, there were a couple of crucial failures to block out, some late rotations and not balancing the floor on defense, along with guys going to the wrong places or getting caught in no-man's land on offense. BRob made a couple of boners on each end of that, and you may have noticed JB coaching up Manley and Brooks during dead balls.

- Speaking of JB. Wow. Dog played 39/40 minutes and all 20 of the second half and willed us into damned near pulling that one out. He did a masterful job of getting Cam going and keeping guys moving and when it got to crunch time just took over. I also love the irony of him calling for all those late high ball-screens and flat wearing Clemson out trying to stop him. Oh, and if you haven't read this already, here: http://goheels.com/news/2018/1/30/adam-lucas-lucas-the-testimony.aspx

- Finally, going back and close-watching the replay just pointed up even more just how fine the margin is between being really good and being very beatable and mediocre. Wringing hands over talent is misplaced because we still have the capability of being the former. If we don't dig that first-half hole, we win that game --- even without Theo, even without Jalek, even with an inexplicable 27-14 FT disadvantage vs a team that jacked up 30 3s , even with multiple uncalled travels (6 alone from #14), even with Clemson shooting lights-out from deep --- if we play even decent Carolina offense in the first half we still win that game vs a ranked team on the road.

So... all I'm gonna do now is hope for things to work out for Jalek, hope like hell Theo is all right, and in general, hope the guys really did get a taste for grinding and doing things with a purpose all the time instead of just part of the time. Time to move on and start getting some damn Ws.

 

[dadika13]

.Clemson made 15 for the game (10 in the first half). Viewing their makes in context with reality (not emotion) and our defensive concepts, 7 of them (5 in first half) could be deemed as relatively or very open because of over-help. and 7 were just from making tough shots (closely guarded and/or very deep), and 1 (the last and a very critical one) was the result of an obvious uncalled illegal screen.

I rewatched the condensed version...and this is just simply not true.

The first three 3's were over help. The fourth was Cam playing 4 feet off Devoe. The fifth was JB having 2 feet in the lane when the corner was one pass away, extreme over help. The sixth was a tough step back that was well guarded. The seventh was both Platek and Maye helping WAY too much on the same freaking dribble penetration. The eighth was JB again having 2 feet in the lane without even being near the penetration. The ninth was off a help but the help was fine and the shot was deep, so not on us. The tenth was the buzzer beater, not our fault.

So 1st half...I count 7 of 10 were because we either over helped or just played way too far off a shooter. That's on us.

Don't sugarcoat it gary, our defensive rotations are AWFUL.

 

[gauchoheel]

...and the old coaches' cliche is that you don't win or lose a game in the first half, but this time we kinda did. We got ourselves in a hole that meant everything had to go right in the second to ultimately prevail. It almost did, but again, just almost.

Anyway, I apologize for the lateness but I decided to watch the Auburn game afterward, and just let this game simmer for a bit... plus I really wanted to sit down with the replay and break it down qualitatively as opposed to the obvious numerical stuff, and see if it matched what I noticed in real time. These observations may sound random, but it is what it is.
Here ya go:

- Starting with the elephant in the room, the barrage of 3-balls. I charted each of them vis-a-vis our defense. Clemson made 15 for the game (10 in the first half). Viewing their makes in context with reality (not emotion) and our defensive concepts, 7 of them (5 in first half) could be deemed as relatively or very open because of over-help. and 7 were just from making tough shots (closely guarded and/or very deep), and 1 (the last and a very critical one) was the result of an obvious uncalled illegal screen.

- Obviously, that first-half number above (7) is too many (plus they actually missed 3 that could fall in that classification). Now again, taking the emotion out of it, a few of those attempts are gonna happen in the fog of war. But the ones that make my (and I'm sure Roy's) head hurt are the mental errors, in particular guys in back-side situations "2 passes away" are running toward the ball (e.g, Cam and BRob), so suddenly a simple skip-pass, back-side kick-out, or long rebound finds a wide open shooter. We also are having guys getting too deep in the paint on ball-side help on drives and losing close-out range (Kenny, Luke, Andrew & JB all got stuck at least once). Now, that latter category is understandable and can be adjusted, and is something we worked on, and I'm sure will continue to work on in practice. The good news is we were much better with that part in the second half, and that's a sign that we can continue to adjust.

- I am still seething over that shot on Theo. When you wait for a guy to jump and then 2-hand undercut him from behind, that is a flat-out dirty play (and will usually start a fight in a pick-up game), the sort of thing that gets people seriously hurt. And they don't call that a flagrant? In the same game Sterling gets one for an inadvertent neck contact on a post-up? Sorry, had to vent on that, but flagrant or no flagrant, losing Theo was an early gut-punch. I don't want to use that to excuse our poor first-half play but it sure as hell didn't help. Theo after all was coming off the best offensive game of his career, and I think it's fair to say we may have defended better as a team with him in the rotation.

- It was great to see Cam stepping up (literally) and getting his feet in shooting position. He was "catching with a purpose" and his offensive outburst reflected that. I also love his attacking, but he still needs to pick his spots. He still sometimes makes the mental mistake of driving without a path (like the last drive that got blocked when he had an easy kick-back to Luke for a rhythm-3 that we badly needed), but overall I love the offensive aggression. I said earlier we need him to think like JJ and be a catch-and-score guy. On defense he at least plays hard. Hopefully he'll start playing smarter as well.

- I really liked our scrambles. We used both 30 and 40 attacks, and I especially liked it when we went 42 and forced TOs. I've always been a big proponent of being multiple and I've always preferred 40 traps over run-and-jumps coming up from the wing. Either way, I'd like to see more. Sure, you risk open shooters if they break the trap, but hey, if you're scufflin' getting out on shooters anyway? Why not?

- Speaking of traps, when JB got that late steal at mid-court and lost it back trying to bust out, that was painful. He had a lay-up for our first lead. Arrrggghh. But there ya have it... as I said above, when you dig a hole everything has to go right to finish climbing out.

- As for things going right, mental errors do not help that cause. In addition to the defensive ones mentioned above, there were a couple of crucial failures to block out, some late rotations and not balancing the floor on defense, along with guys going to the wrong places or getting caught in no-man's land on offense. BRob made a couple of boners on each end of that, and you may have noticed JB coaching up Manley and Brooks during dead balls.

- Speaking of JB. Wow. Dog played 39/40 minutes and all 20 of the second half and willed us into damned near pulling that one out. He did a masterful job of getting Cam going and keeping guys moving and when it got to crunch time just took over. I also love the irony of him calling for all those late high ball-screens and flat wearing Clemson out trying to stop him. Oh, and if you haven't read this already, here: http://goheels.com/news/2018/1/30/adam-lucas-lucas-the-testimony.aspx

- Finally, going back and close-watching the replay just pointed up even more just how fine the margin is between being really good and being very beatable and mediocre. Wringing hands over talent is misplaced because we still have the capability of being the former. If we don't dig that first-half hole, we win that game --- even without Theo, even without Jalek, even with an inexplicable 27-14 FT disadvantage vs a team that jacked up 30 3s , even with multiple uncalled travels (6 alone from #14), even with Clemson shooting lights-out from deep --- if we play even decent Carolina offense in the first half we still win that game vs a ranked team on the road.

So... all I'm gonna do now is hope for things to work out for Jalek, hope like hell Theo is all right, and in general, hope the guys really did get a taste for grinding and doing things with a purpose all the time instead of just just part of the time. Time to move on and start getting some damn Ws.

Very good review, I agree. Can grind your teeth with how close we were after all of the fluky things that happened to turn against us. Hopefully we keep it up and things start going our way.

 

[gary-7]

I rewatched the condensed version...and this is just simply not true.

The first three 3's were over help. The fourth was Cam playing 4 feet off Devoe. The fifth was JB having 2 feet in the lane when the corner was one pass away, extreme over help. The sixth was a tough step back that was well guarded. The seventh was both Platek and Maye helping WAY too much on the same freaking dribble penetration. The eighth was JB again having 2 feet in the lane without even being near the penetration. The ninth was off a help but the help was fine and the shot was deep, so not on us. The tenth was the buzzer beater, not our fault.

So 1st half...I count 7 of 10 were because we either over helped or just played way too far off a shooter. That's on us.

Don't sugarcoat it gary, our defensive rotations are AWFUL.

Not sugar-coating anything --- just trying to be fair and thus restricted the critique to the 3s that we were clearly inviting because of whatever defensive shortcoming. The additional 2 you mentioned were very deep and likely would have gotten off regardless, and thus I classified them as just hot shooting. Our rotations were indeed problematic and there was plenty of criticism in my post without going overboard.

 

[dadika13]

Not sugar-coating anything --- just trying to be fair and thus restricted the critique to the 3s that we were clearly inviting because of whatever defensive shortcoming. The additional 2 you mentioned were very deep and likely would have gotten off regardless, and thus I classified them as just hot shooting. Our rotations were indeed problematic and there was plenty of criticism in my post without going overboard.

Ehhhh...They weren't really that deep.

And our earlier over help also allows shooters to get good looks and into a rhythm, thus making it easier for them to make even the tougher shots.

I say 90% of our issues in guarding the 3 is over help.

 

[gunslingerdick]

I just don’t understand why we feel the need to help so much on dribble penetration and double team the post. Why don’t we guard one on one and make guys make tough 2 point shots in the lane or close to the basket? We didn’t help a couple times last night and their big got a close shot at the rim...and missed it. The inability to defend the 3 ball is maddening.

I didn’t feel that the foul on Pinson was malicious. Dangerous for sure and if I’m Theo’s teammate, I might have smacked that dude in the jaw. But it didn’t look malicious to me.

We were getting the calls we deserve early and at one point, Clemson had 6 fouls to our 2. And then it’s like the refs got together and said “we need to even things out”. And then it was an onslaught of calls against us. The flagrant on Manley was ridiculous and the no call on the moving screen for the final 3 was disgusting.

I think we’re going to make the tournament but just barely. And I think we’ll be spent by then and this year will be Roy’s first exit in the opening round. Joel can’t sustain 39 minutes per game and now with Theo dinged up, we don’t have a lot of options. Cam won’t be that hot in future games and the lack of an inside game is really starting to show. All in all, it’ll be a decent season after two title game appearances. As long as duke or UK doesn’t win the championship, I’ll be fine until next season.

 

[gary-7]

Ehhhh...They weren't really that deep.

And our earlier over help also allows shooters to get good looks and into a rhythm, thus making it easier for them to make even the tougher shots.

I say 90% of our issues in guarding the 3 is over help.

I'm not arguing with that at all... in fact, it was my point. Just trying to give a fair shake considering our defensive approach. Unless we encounter a Rashad McCants-level shooter our defense is only going to commit so deep. We're on the same side here, brother.

 

[FranktheHeel]

That second half was very impressive with the way that Joel took over and lead our team back, his play was what we all have been looking for out of Joel and it showed that he is very much capable of carrying our team. I thought it was a breakout game for him as the leader of this team, he did everything that he could and was getting our guys to buy into it. He did an awesome job of getting Cam involved as they both played off of each other and carried our guys on the offensive end. We need to build off of Joel’s effort from this game and to get him some more ball screens (which our bigs showed that they are capable of doing) allowing him to be able to get into the lane where he can pull up (which he is great at) or take it all the way to the rim. Before the under 16 stretch, he wasn’t getting that space he needed and when he did, we all saw the difference.

Cam also deserves a ton of credit, he was locked in and his shot was right on and it felt like he never was gonna miss. I very much enjoyed seeing him be aggressive by not only getting into the lane, but also getting into the right spots and wanting to take his shots. He is a very good shooter and tonight showed that he is very capable of being a big time scorer for us, we need him we need him to get his looks and to be comfortable to take them. Also, I would love to see him get to the line a lot more, he is really great there.

Something else that I noticed was that Joel's play started to pick up when we went to two bigs and having our bigs set screens for him, the reason I point this out is because it caused me to think that Joel's play was definitely due to will of wanting to get this one, but maybe more of it was him being comfortable in the offense that we were running. He has been in the program for four years and is use to playing a certain way, that being with two bigs on the floor, that creates a more balanced attack allowing him to have more room out on the perimeter with the ball in his hands. He also sees things that he is use to seeing from a defense because it is the offense that he knows how to run and knows how to attack, it is what he has been successful at.

It's definitely a loss that hurts, but seeing the fight from our guys with Joel and Cam at the forefront does give me some hope that if everything connects at the right time, we can get going and be a tough team to beat.
Keep working Heels!!

 

[gary-7]

I just don’t understand why we feel the need to help so much on dribble penetration and double team the post. Why don’t we guard one on one and make guys make tough 2 point shots in the lane or close to the basket? We didn’t help a couple times last night and their big got a close shot at the rim...and missed it. The inability to defend the 3 ball is maddening.

Yep. I would absolutely like to see us just play solid D on Post guys and the other guys just block out and get the rebound on misses. If we're gonna help it should come from the paint and across from guys who are already there --- NEVER help "down" in the age of 3s.

I didn’t feel that the foul on Pinson was malicious. Dangerous for sure and if I’m Theo’s teammate, I might have smacked that dude in the jaw. But it didn’t look malicious to me.

If not "malicious" then at the very least "reckless" and something you just don't do out of athletes' mutual respect for their health. And yes, I've seen that lead to altercations. Here's where the refs' job is to nip that garbage in the bud by calling the flagrant and sending a message.

We were getting the calls we deserve early and at one point, Clemson had 6 fouls to our 2. And then it’s like the refs got together and said “we need to even things out”. And then it was an onslaught of calls against us. The flagrant on Manley was ridiculous and the no call on the moving screen for the final 3 was disgusting.

Cannot disagree with any of that.

 

[wilsinnc]

Whatever the cause or reason we are dead last in the nation in 3 point defense

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

- I am still seething over that shot on Theo. When you wait for a guy to jump and then 2-hand undercut him from behind, that is a flat-out dirty play (and will usually start a fight in a pick-up game), the sort of thing that gets people seriously hurt.

As I posted at the time, why wasn't that a flagrant foul - and, really, a flagrant 2?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

I think we’re going to make the tournament but just barely. And I think we’ll be spent by then and this year will be Roy’s first exit in the opening round.

Your comment prompted me to look at the Bracketology page, where I saw this:

.
.
.
.

After I regained consciousness, I noticed the A&T part.

At the moment, Lunardi has us a #4 seed. I imagine we'll drop farther.

We play East Tennessee State. Then Florida. Then Villanova.

 

[heelmanwilm]

Unc is the worst p5 team in the nation defending the 3.

 

[alabamaheel]

As I posted at the time, why wasn't that a flagrant foul - and, really, a flagrant 2?

I missed the game. Do you know where I can find that play? Would love to see

 

[ajklum]

My local high school team has the same issue. Not much in the paint to worry the other team. But we have 4 guys that shoot over 50% from 3. Problem is when they are hot they score in the 80's, but when they arent...its a bad night. Their defense is putting points on the board and hoping the shots are falling and the opposing teams cant keep up with that firepower. Problem is... outside of Joel and Luke we dont have anything but streaky shooters. When a team gets physical with Luke, he is a none factor. We should be excited that we arent nursing a worse record.