Cat constantly was picking up his dribble in the corners. He was weak with the ball and forgot how to dribble for a game. And he couldn’t make a free throw when we really needed him to. I don’t like to get on players but that is what transpired last night. Obviously not all on him but we needed a steady presence and he didn’t provide it.
I rewatched the game today before making that post, because I’d felt when watching live that Cat was playing very well on the whole, and wanted to watch against with a focus on him.
He beat the press with his dribble a lot more than I bet you remember him doing. There were several occasions when he spun away from double teams or just straight-up beat them down the court with his speed. Did he get caught in the corners some? Yes he did (though again, probably less than you think). Like I said, there were times when he needed to attack, retreat, then attack towards the middle. He’s not as good at that as Lacey is. But it’s extremely difficult to bring the ball up against an aggressive, trapping defense when you have no release valve to pass to, and the simple fact is that the coaches didn’t game plan this press very well. Also, he did not turn the ball over on any of those times he picked up the ball in the corner. In fact, of his 5 turnovers, only 2 are ones I would consider bad turnovers. Of the other 3, 1 was a schematic problem where Washington wasn’t where he should have been (middle of the court), on the press break. 1 was the fault of the inbounder, and the last was the dubious jump ball call.
Yes, he missed free throws. But if he makes 2 more of them, we’re talking about what a good game he had at the line, hitting 9-11, and we still lose by 12. Do I wish our PG was a better FT shooter? Absolutely, but I’m not going to harp on him shooting his season average from the line when he did so many other good things in this game. He was beat up from start to finish, but he stayed in attack mode and played, again, spectacular defense.
