This is reactionary, of course, but:
– Double Paige every time he gets the ball and get it out of his hands. Easier said than done, but really – make someone else completely beat us. And he did beat us … the rest of their team played pretty well, but I thought that was more of an extension of Paige’s playing well. If he wasn’t scoring, he was facilitating others to score easily. Paige has only been ‘ok’ this season, but is anyone surprised that he looked all-world, yet again, against us? Get the ball out of his hands. I’d rather give up some easy scores at times to others than to allow Paige to shoot 100% and help their team as a whole shoot close to 60%.
– Tell our guards to attack the basket earlier in the clock. I think we would have been much more well served in the first half with Lacey attacking Tokoto on the dribble when there’s proper spacing. They denied all of our movement and sets – make them pay for it by attacking the rim. Loosen up that D so the bigs can get involved with ball movement and post moves. Depending upon how Cat is going, play Des Lee more and have Lacey run the point. Lee has always shown a willingness to really attack the rim when the opportunity arises. Barber works his ass off – especially on D – but he didn’t have a great showing last night. IMO, we were much more effective in full-on ‘attack mode’ as opposed to trying to execute a halfcourt set. When Turner was actually in the game, he got loose a few times – but we can’t rely on that every time down the court. Their D bothered us last night, and we never really adjusted all that well. It makes the 2nd half effort from the kids all the more worthy of appreciation.
We rebounded well and showed a lot of fight, but that cheating bastard got us again. Such is life.
