Right now, our bigs just clog up space on offense. It was clear early in the year, that if we were to continue the plodding style of play on offense, to continue trying to run some version of the UCLA high post, we’d be forced to choose between interior players who were deficient on defense or offense, or both. WE’ve been an outside-in team pretty much all year, so no suprises on the jumpshots. Shot selection for Lacy and Turner is still a problem. Similar to TOB, we’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Defensively, same old same old.
Said it all year, even when he was struggling, Barber needs more shots, not less. OUr best offense is him creating off the dribble, spacing, and the bigs getting the heck out of the way. Defensively, there is no cure this late. Just pray for off nights for the opposition, or good matchups, or a combo of both.
^That’s fine overall, but after the 10:00 mark of this game it was clearly time to attempt to generate energy. Press, sub, attack the basket. If you’re not going to play any defense and they’re not able to hit open shots – and you know this – then why not adjust? I’ll be the first to admit that I know little and that all is not clear from the couch, but damn.
If you know that they players have no energy and are heavy-legged (Gott’s words) – then why keep doing what is clearly failing? Open shots are great, but you can’t say ‘the players were dead and heavy-legged and leaving shots short’ and have one guy shoot 14 threes – open or otherwise. Madness. It was as if we thought we had a secret bag of pixie dust to spread around and then all of a sudden we’d start playing D and hitting shots.
