The Last 14 minutes or so yesterday . . .

[AxeS24]

Duke lineup:

Tre Jones
Alex O'Connell
R.J. Barrett
Cam Reddish
Zion Williamson

That's a lineup that can get us to where we need to be offensively.

O'Connell needs to be given an absolute green light. He's a career 42% shooter from 3. Let's say he shoots 40% on 5 threes per game.
Let's say Reddish shoots at 35% on 5 threes per game. He's currently at 33% and been really cold.
Let's say Barrett shoots at 32% on 5 threes per game. He's currently at 31% and been really cold.

Over a 5-game stretch, that would get us to 35.6% shooting from behind the arc. A vast improvement from the absolutely dismal performance we are seeing right now (30.2%, 322nd in NCAA). 35.6 would bump us up to 110th or so.

O'Connell is the key to winning a national championship.

K may know this as evidenced by that lineup yesterday.

 

[Shatterthesky22]

Duke lineup:

Tre Jones
Alex O'Connell
R.J. Barrett
Cam Reddish
Zion Williamson

That's a lineup that can get us to where we need to be offensively.

O'Connell needs to be given an absolute green light. He's a career 42% shooter from 3. Let's say he shoots 40% on 5 threes per game.
Let's say Reddish shoots at 35% on 5 threes per game. He's currently at 33% and been really cold.
Let's say Barrett shoots at 32% on 5 threes per game. He's currently at 31% and been really cold.

Over a 5-game stretch, that would get us to 35.6% shooting from behind the arc. A vast improvement from the absolutely dismal performance we are seeing right now (30.2%, 322nd in NCAA). 35.6 would bump us up to 110th or so.

O'Connell is the key to winning a national championship.

K may know this as evidenced by that lineup yesterday.

I think you're right on, but I would also add that we need to take smarter 3's as well. RJ tends to force them up if he's not shooting well overall, I believe in an earnest attempt to get himself going, but it simply doesn't work for him. If we can get to where we shoot 15 a game and make 5-6 of them, this team will be even more of an absolute terror to guard.

 

[CRAZIE4LIFE]

And Cam needs to learn how to finish a drive, man he was awful yesterday

 

[hart2chesson]

Duke lineup:

Tre Jones
Alex O'Connell
R.J. Barrett
Cam Reddish
Zion Williamson



O'Connell is the key to winning a national championship.

K may know this as evidenced by that lineup yesterday.

Axe based on fact we will see more zone I think you make a valid point.

 

[Quavarius]

Alex is going to have to play better defense. Cam may be missing shots, but he doesn’t let it affect his play on the other end of the court. If Alex isn’t making 3’s OR playing D, then he’s a double liability.

 

[hart2chesson]

Alex is going to have to play better defense. Cam may be missing shots, but he doesn’t let it affect his play on the other end of the court. If Alex isn’t making 3’s OR playing D, then he’s a double liability.

He didnt make a 3 yesterday, but wasnt a "double liability" either. He hit a left wing jumper inside the arc, and slithered inside the zone to make a stickback. He did get beat one time on a backdoor on D, but positves outweighed negatives. Alex drew praise from K after game yesterday as well. I say give him a shot at some of Jack or Javin's minutes at the least. Certainly its not going to cost us on offense, as the co-captains have taken a nosedive.....I hope like heck they recapture their solid play...

 

[GAAP]

The team is 58.8% on 2P FG this year. Why shoot so many 3s? Shooting 58.2% on 2P FG in last 4 games against lots of zone. Play to your strength. F the 3P shot.

 

[skysdad]

The lineup comes down to who we are playing, whose on the court for them from time to time and whose playing well. Decisisions I don't need to worry about. OFC

 

[jwill133]

That is our best zone offense line-up, could also throw Jack in there somewhere. (When he gets his shot back.)

I love Marques and he has made amazing strides this year, his interior defense yesterday was an A+.....but we can’t have him and Zion on the floor together when a team is packing in the lane on D.

 

[hart2chesson]

The lineup comes down to who we are playing, whose on the court for them from time to time and whose playing well. Decisisions I don't need to worry about. OFC

Thats why K gets the big bucks Sky.....He does our "worrying" for us! Nothing wrong with discussing it though....

 

[christophero]

I agree and if Jack/Cam get out of their slump that will help enormously. The shooting thing is an issue; yes we are a great team and can get away with it but against a one or a two seed we will need to hit some 3's. I think we will improve. I've read several articles in the past week pointing the shooting issue out. That said I'm thrilled we have Tre back and that we took care of business this week. We have room to improve and I believe we will.

 

[df64]

We need to selectively limit our 3 attempts. Less attempts by RJ. Less attempts early in the shot clock. More ball movement to force multiple closeouts before taking a 3 to get a better look from 3 and or open up an interior look or driving lane.

We are efficient in the paint and on transition. If we want to play at a fast pace, it only makes sense to take shots that we are efficient at. We are not efficient from 3, so we should not be taking as many and only the best 3s.

 

[skysdad]

Thats why K gets the big bucks Sky.....He does our "worrying" for us! Nothing wrong with discussing it though....

That's true hart. I'm just discussing it. OFC

 

[hart2chesson]

That's true hart. I'm just discussing it. OFC

I know my friend.....Guess I am a little "worried." Its so SURREAL, because one pretty much envisions the Blue Devils as a strong perimeter shooting team.

As I was telling Mac, even in the DOWN years of Bill Foster and Coach K we had some STRONG OUTSIDE shooters like Tate Armstrong, Mark Crow, Chip Engelland and the late Tommy Emma.

 

[2004Audi]

And Cam needs to learn how to finish a drive, man he was awful yesterday

not to pick on cam, but this has been the case for much of the season. it amazes me how many times he loses the ball in traffic or gets it stripped while going to the basket. I thought he came in with a reputation of a shooter and playmaker? the shooting part I get. when he sets his feet and shoots I like the chances of seeing the ball go in the hoop. the playmaking aspect of his game I have not seen. well I have seen it, but they seem to be one offs as opposed to the norm.

 

[Dattier]

I liked seeing that line-up yesterday. It's good to have in our pocket.

I liked RJ on the FT line in the zone yesterday.

Taking every opponent seriously and all, unless it's a team w/ talent w/in walkie-talkie distance of us, they aren't going to have much of a chance throwing a zone in at the last minute a couple practices ahead of playing us.

 

[Quavarius]

I liked seeing that line-up yesterday. It's good to have in our pocket.

I liked RJ on the FT line in the zone yesterday.

Taking every opponent seriously and all, unless it's a team w/ talent w/in walkie-talkie distance of us, they aren't going to have much of a chance throwing a zone in at the last minute a couple practices ahead of playing us.

Agreed

 

[PatrickYates]

I'd point out that both GTs bigs were in serious foul trouble (both had 4 by that point), so they couldn't be that aggressive.
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Further, that GT team is a bad offensive team. So we could run out a team with poor rim protection, outside of Zion, and survive. Sure, that team could score points. But it would be extremely porous on D vs more efficient offenses.
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I'd argue that we won yesterday the way we'll most win games this year. Attrition. We simply pound on the other guys until they cannot punch back. Zion and RJ are, for all intents and purposes, impossible to stop. RJ may take, and miss, too many threes, but he's still going to murderize opposing defenses. And Zion gets the ball where he wants it numerous times, at which point we are about 95% likely to get either points or fouls. The other team can't keep up for 40 minutes. Cuse did, by making a bunch of fairly tough shots, ditto the Zags. But most teams can't keep up. Now, if one or two of our other players are hitting, the game will be over by half time or shortly thereafter. But if a team can keep hitting, and if that team is careful with the ball vs our Defense, they can put a lot of pressure on Duke.
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Yesterday, we kept hitting them with body blows. Yes, they built an 8 point lead. But there were a few lucky plays involved with that, combined with Duke taking and missing some open and/or dumb shots. It was a pyrrhic victory that got them to that 8pt lead. They'd amassed too many fouls on their thin front court. The smart play would have been to sat his bigs when they got 3 fouls until the latter stages of the 2nd half (say, the 12-10 minute mark). If he'd done that, Duke would have gone on a run even earlier. Knowing that if he sat his bigs, Pastner gambled that they wouldn't commit more fouls, that his guys would keep hitting, and we'd keep missing. All three had to happen. Instead, his bigs got even more fouls, greatly reducing their aggression and effectiveness, opening up the lane for our guys to attack the paint. They cooled down, a little from the floor. We kept missing 3s, but the open lane afforded us easy baskets. We kept attacking, and they simply could absorb the damage as much as Duke could. RJ and Zion, with their ability to attack and score, put more pressure on the other team that many can handle. Starting college defenders cannot stop them. Their backups are orders of magnitude less effective. By the middle of the second half, opposing D's are too tired, or too foul laden, to offer more than token resistance. At which point, Duke feasts. By the end, the opposing team realizes that it is futile and lays down until we yank the starters. It isn't necessarily pretty in the execution (though some finishes by Z or RJ are beautiful), but it works.

 

[Quavarius]

Notre Dame and St. John’s doesn’t play D like Georgia Tech. I expect outside shooting and our offense look much better in the next couple of games.

 

[christophero]

Agreed. Pitt looked like world beaters the first 10 minutes but we wore them down. Same with GT. We didn't panic when we went down 7 or 8 against GT which was impressive.

 

[PatrickYates]

Agreed. Pitt looked like world beaters the first 10 minutes but we wore them down. Same with GT. We didn't panic when we went down 7 or 8 against GT which was impressive.

True. Though we lost the game, the Gonzaga game showed our guys that they are never out of it. Ditto the FSU game, which we won (RJ learned valuable lessons from the Gonzaga loss AND the justifiable criticism heaped on him afterwards). Heck, down our third and fourth best players (and the drop-off after 4 is large), we took Cuse to overtime. I think our guys know that if they keep plugging, we have a puncher's chance.

 

[PatrickYates]

Notre Dame and St. John’s doesn’t play D like Georgia Tech. I expect outside shooting and our offense look much better in the next couple of games.

ND doesn't have time to install a zone, or zone like, defense. SJU will. Every team will employ some type of D designed to restrict the paint and bait our guys into taking threes.
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It might not be a great Zone, but even a bad zone might be better than a good M2M vs this Duke squad.

 

[Dattier]

It might not be a great Zone, but even a bad zone might be better than a good M2M vs this Duke squad.

Nothing bad is beating us, silly. You sound as if we're beating people with secrets.

 

[lyonhawk]

I’d just like to point out that while we struggled shooting threes against Cuse, we didn’t struggle to score. RJ and Zion tore their zone apart most of that game. At the end, we were just completely out of gas and our offense devolved into pass around for a bit and jack a three.

 

[dachampishere2]

https://www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/duke-blue-devils-team-game-log?season=2018

We just can't shoot at home. 4 of our 5 best shooting games from 3 were on the road

 

[AlanInNJ]

Just another armchair QB but I just want us to limit our 3 attempts. Maybe 15 a game? We are so efficient from 2. Yes I know a lot of those are put backs and breakaways, but that seems to me to be the best option. Folks are posting season averages in the 30s but look at the last few games. Not even close to 30.

We are so blessed this year with talent. Plus we have K. Oh and we are 17-2. And Zion provides us with that tingly sensation that at any moment he will do something on the court that will absolutely boggle our minds.

Life is good!

 

[hart2chesson]

.It might not be a great Zone, but even a bad zone might be better than a good M2M vs this Duke squad.

I can see that point for sure....

 

[PatrickYates]

Nothing bad is beating us, silly. You sound as if we're beating people with secrets.

I disagree. A bad zone will accomplish the primary goal necessary to POSSIBLY beat Duke, and that is to clog the lane and cut down on space for Zion and RJ to attack the basket. A great M2M will, conversely, allow Duke to open up the lane, and that will be deadly for our opponents.
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There is no recipe guaranteed to beat this Duke team. But some sort of zone-line defense, that clogs the lane offers the BEST chance to beat Duke, if not necessarily a GOOD chance to beat Duke.

 

[hart2chesson]

I disagree. A bad zone will accomplish the primary goal necessary to POSSIBLY beat Duke, and that is to clog the lane and cut down on space for Zion and RJ to attack the basket. A great M2M will, conversely, allow Duke to open up the lane, and that will be deadly for our opponents.
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There is no recipe guaranteed to beat this Duke team. But some sort of zone-line defense, that clogs the lane offers the BEST chance to beat Duke, if not necessarily a GOOD chance to beat Duke.

All true...