Who would have thunk it?
- Thread starter mikeirbyusa
- Start date
When the ball stops in places it ain't supposed to odd things ensue.
You're exactly right and I think, to an extent, Berry and Jackson fight against each other at times. Don't get me wrong, Buckets should shoot and shoot often. With that said though, when he goes into hero mode, the offense grinds to a halt. The whole action HAS to run through Berry and when he gives the ball up go initiate the offense, he should get it back unless something is wide open. LOTS of hero ball today, and not just from Jackson.
From my vicarious perch I was hollerin' "reverse the damned ball!!!". You said it exactly right ---- if nothing's there on the first iteration the rock needs to swing back to JB. When you move the defense that's when the magic happens.
I'm hoping it'll get fixed because this is the first time this season I see some long-term concerns. Whether or not folks are into Xs-and-Os, if contemporary history has shown Carolina fans anything it's that our system cannot afford to have a ball-stopper. Because I gotta say, if that black hole stuff shows up in a win-or-go-home game in March there's a dammed good chance we'll be going home. That nonsense needs to stop... like yesterday.
One thing I really don't like is seeing 7th and Nate on the floor at the same time.
I agree but Justin shooting harder shots than he needs to does not explain Joel playing 31mins and not having a single assist. Our starting power forward got 4 assists in 19mins and only got 5 shots, had 5 offensive rebounds. Lot of folks talking about Justin's shot taking but the kid took 16 shots, not a crazy amount, had 8 free throws and only 1 TO.
I just felt that Joel had one of his poorer games and was disappointed that he didn't look more to spread drive and slip to a big or kick out to a spot up shooter. Combine that with Bowman lighting him up, not a great game by our starting PG. I know we don't like to negative critique Joel real often, frankly it is not often that he deserves some negative critique but this was just not a good game for him in any aspect. Not great by Justin either but his stat line is not as WTF as our starting PG with ZERO assists in 31mins.
Danny Ainge was in the building for that game, not the kind of game where our 2 leading scorers really help their NBA resumes with a NBA GM looking on...
Good for us then, Danny sucks.
Some of the play at BC could be attributed to the Eagles defense too.
As I watched the game head deep into the second half I kept wondering when is JBII going to shake free. Well he hit the one shot late but golly that was unlike our team.
Learn from it, grow, hit the gym for practice and keep improving.
Some of the play at BC could be attributed to the Eagles defense too.
As I watched the game head deep into the second half I kept wondering when is JBII going to shake free. Well he hit the one shot late but golly that was unlike our team.
Learn from it, grow, hit the gym for practice and keep improving.
Our leading scorers were 9 of 25 and had 2 assists between them. Yet we won on the road in the ACC. We shot 43% from long distance and 83% from the stripe. We outrebounded them by 12, had more assists, more steals, and less TO's. Not our best game by a long shot, but a road win nonetheless. I'll take it.
Now go to practice tomorrow and try to get better.
Now go to practice tomorrow and try to get better.
What's the alternative? That usually happens when Berry is on the bench for a blow. If you don't have Nate in with 7th, 7th could get in trouble and not have help. Basically Roy is using Nate as training wheels for 7th as long as necessary.
Nate can be in without 7th, sure, but that doesn't help 7th develop.
Seems to me that when we don't get a quick score, we do a lot of
pass
pass
stop and look around
dribble
pass
stop and look around
That gives the D too much time to adjust.
I'd rather see 7th playing with Joel at SG or with Kenny at SG. When we have Nate and 7th in simultaneously, our perimeter scoring is almost nonexistent.
IMO, Nate(19.8), 7th(9.2), Brandon(9.9), Stilman(4.9), and even my boy Luke(14.1) are all getting too many minutes. But I understand why Roy is doing it, he's building depth and experience while he can. I fully expect Nate to see his minutes reduced by 6-7 minutes and the other 4 to lose 2-3 minutes each, as the season progresses and the competition gets even tougher.
I want to see Kennedy(23.8) and Isaiah(23.2) each get 4 more minutes per game. Scoring in the paint is where we excel the most and those two are our most effective interior scorers.
And I STILL want to see JJ drive to the hoop and dunk thru contact!
The key is lack of reversals. There's an old adage you try and pound into player's heads that most defenses are pretty good against the first couple of passes. We're a passing offense so ball movement will always be vital.
Yessiree. We're at our best when our players and the ball are in constant motion. Every time we made the extra pass the other night, we got a good look at the basket. When the players or the ball become(s) stationary, our offense tends to bog down and good shots are harder to come by.
Coach williams strength is not teaching ball movement in half court sets. His teams have never excelled at it. He is up tempo, secondary break, push the ball inside. If that dont work theres a lot of standing around and we struggle unless we have a stud getting offensive boards.
I will take exception to that. From the day he went to Kansas his teams have run Dean's half-court Passing Game like a clinic. He has also added more called plays. The issue is that the freelance aspect of it puts the onus on the players for execution and shot-selection. Yes, Roy likes to score early in the shot-clock, but without forcing shots --- a fine line at times. But we seldom feel shot-clock pressure so there's no reason NOT to make the extra pass and reverse the ball. And the fail-safe is that if nothing shakes out with under-10 on the clock then the ball is supposed to go to JB to create from the top. Problem is we've been forcing (mostly Justin) and not making the extra pass, reversing and thus not stressing the defense enough.
I cant recall a unc team under coach ever looking good in half court sets and making the extra pass and reversing the ball with success on a consistent basis. But i certainly am no expert and i dont watch all the games so tak my opinion with a grain of salt. But Seems the book on beating us under coach williams has always been to control the tempo and force us into a half court game. Which is where i think the extra pass and reversal mainly comes into play. Now i'm not denying he coaches them to do it. I have no idea either way. But i'm just saying i havent seen much evidence of it on the court i guess.
I don't think it's a matter of our half court offense being bad. I think opposing coaches just see that we're even more effective in the open court, fast break setting. It's a matter of them picking their poison and choosing the less fatal of the two.
Agree with this. Very few times, it seems, do we win when the other teams takes away our fast break and makes us work exclusively out of the half court.
I agree with your guesses on the back court minutes, and also with your hopes for the front court minutes.
It's interesting to look at Kennedy's minutes. He's played 4 30+ minute games this season, starting with Wisconsin - including 3 times in the last 6 games. But he almost never plays 2 big-minute games in a row. I wonder if that's Roy pacing him to prevent the letdown that happened the last 2 seasons. Whatever the reason, it's good to see and I hope he keeps going.
I agree - but what makes this kind of tough... not so black and white..... is that Roy (and I assume others on UNC staff) have been in JJ's ears / head all this year (and much of last year) about being more aggressive and looking to drive and score more..... be less selfish.
But that doesn't mean he should just put his head down and be on auto-shoot mode every time he catches it. He should be able to quickly decide if there is a better pass to be made, vs. shooting it. I sense he is over-compensating for the feedback, and will take some time to learn how to find that balance. When Berry, Hicks, and Meeks are not on the floor, JJ is about the only guy I want taking the shot.....and he's about the only guy looking to score in those instances.
I just wish on his driving / floaters, he'd slow down a bit. Sometimes now he seems to just rush it and looks to just draw glass or iron, instead of taking the time to aim, provide soft touch off the glass or over the rim. He doesn't need to rush it. He's been blocked a few times this year, but very few have been clean legal blocks.
Berry has done a good job overall with his assists. That isn't the strength of his game. He has good but not great vision and is a good but not great passer. What he is great at (scoring, toughness, moving the offense, making big shots) more than makes up for it though. Dude is just a really good PG and fits this particular team extremely well IMO. Every time he takes a big shot I think it is going in. Heck, every time he shoots in general I feel good about it.
the bottom line is we won and justin took 16 shots. i dont have a problem with that. justin hit two big floaters (one was a bank so maybe a bit lucky) down the stretch to keep the lead at 4 or 6. much rather have that happen than he take 10 shots and we lose.
Respectfully, I disagree, I think he has all the tools to be a very good PG and I think he will be just that before he leaves. But I am not going to put lip stick on a pig, it has been a very bad freshman season for him by any measure. While I do see a lot of improvement from game 1 to now, yeah, still a lot of that mountain to climb. Not the first time we have seen our freshmen struggle and and come back as solid contributors as sophs.
I think maybe Meeks would have played 2 big minute games in a row when Tony went out but Meeks found foul trouble in one of them and that limited him. He seems to have the stamina to play longer minutes.
On this discussion of our offensive questions, I am talking in terms of what I think we need to become better. But truth is we just scored over 85 for the 6th game in a row I believe, that ain't bad. My larger concern is I feel we are giving up to many points more than lacking in scoring. We have had to many back courts light us up and that has to get handled. Against BC, there were defensive trips where we were really sharp but there were to many trips where we helped out a bit to much and left a hot shooter with a clean look.
You nailed it. Roy did indeed tell him to be aggressive, but sometimes players take that green light a bit far. Hopefully during film review they will find a happy medium for him.
I've said it before, when he catches and slashes to the hoop in rhythm before the defense can react he's practically unstoppable. But if there's not a clear driving lane or good open shot immediately off the catch he needs to keep the rock moving. Buckets is a perpetual motion machine, not an iso guy. He needs to find that good space of being a finisher without being a ball-stopper.
In the larger picture I don't want to see us morph into a dook environment where there aren't enough basketballs to go around. We've got good Bigs, and another coaching adage is "ya hafta feed the Bigs if you expect them to keep working hard", and hell, KW is already deferring (maybe too much) to the other guys as it is. There were too many half-court possessions in which JB never got the ball back after the first pass. If we get a good shot right away that's fine, but if not that means the offense is bogging down.
Yep. That's the dilemma of playing a "deny" style defense as we do in our base 22, as opposed to a "gap" Man like say UVA plays. In other words not only do we teach "help-and-recover", we add onto that "deny-then-help-and-recover". That ain't easy, but we can be awfully good at it when we're clicking and it's a nightmare to play against.
On the other hand, that's why some teams (as BC did) attack us with phalanxes of ball-screens and weaves to take advantage of our myriad responsibilities and, as you alluded to, force decisions on whom to cover. As you also said there were some possessions when we were spot on, but that offensive approach forces all 5 defensive guys to be on point if we're gonna have our cake and eat it too. However sometimes it ain't practical. Against a team like BC, I too would like to have our perimeter guys find the shooters rather than step in and help on drives, but that modification will have to to come from the coaches.
Folks also need to understand that JB has the toughest defensive job on the floor. He's out there forcing (better than any PG I can name) our opponents to initiate their offenses from way further out than they like to. However, when you're out there being a dog that increases your vulnerability from behind you. In other words ya gotta know that if you force as taught that 1) you aren't gonna get picked off without warning, 2) you need to be given latitude by your reinforcements (usually a Big) to anticipate the screen and slide thru, and 3) the baseline help you're forcing him into is actually gonna be there.
Honestly, that's a big reason I like to trap and scramble vs bumper-pool offenses. In other words, let us create the mayhem instead of them.
You boys don't remember the Cuse game where we picked that zone to death with Brice doing a LOT of the passing?
Yep, and our zone-offense works best when there's good ball-movement as well. We have to be willing to reverse the court and move the zone to get those clean entries.
That was one game. You don't remember all the games where we struggled mightily in the half court?
The one game you referenced was an impressive win, I'll grant you.
gary, I think it is important to share that what we are talking about here is fine tuning a machine that is already running pretty darn good, just that the machine can work a bit better than it does at times. What we are not talking about is a need for a total rebuild, like seems to be the need in durham. We are talking about things that in a close game that can make a difference and maybe keep us away from as many close games.
It is kinda funny, we just won our 6th game in a row scoring 85+ and we may seem to be fussing about offense? IN this ACC road wins are not easy for any team to come by, no wins are actually but double true for road games. Kind of an amazing season in that respect, not sure I can recall a season where it was so darn competitive and so hard to get a easy road win.
Exactly. We're playing well but we are capable of playing even better.
Just stated this in another thread. We've never scored 85+ points in 6 straight ACC games before, ponder that for a moment. As for the difficulty of road wins, they're as hard to come by as I can remember as well. d00k beats GT by 53 and then GT beats us. We beat NVSU by 51 and they beat d00k. Incredible stuff, you simply can't overlook anybody.
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