MBB: Michigan 81, Duke 73 Post-Game Thread

[jacone21]

First, please watch your tone with the "get it now" stuff, okay? Secondly, that's not what happened at all. Yes, there were a couple of shots launched too quickly. Most of the threes, though, were wide open and came off good ball movement. They didn't go in.
What was your alternative suggestion. "Just shoot twos?" How exactly would you accompish that? There's another team on the court, too. They were playing a junk defense that takes away a lot of Duke's inside-the arc offense (driving lanes, etc.). We tried to post guys early in the second half, through it away a couple of times, saw Zoubek almost fall over shooting a jump hook, etc.
The 1-3-1 gave us a ton of wide-open threes. ANY team would launch those, and good ones will knock them down. Stuff happens every now and then. They didn't go in. That doesn't mean the vast majority of those threes weren't good shots.

Exactly! JJ would've had 37 points today, and we'd be celebrating a victory and talking about how you can't zone Duke.

[Jumbo]

I guess this goes along with living and dieing by the 3 - but today I saw a team out there that lacked a single player who could penetrate consistantly, lacked a single player with any kind of dominate 1 on 1 game; not a single one of our players could create their own shot except for a few mid-rangers Scheyer pulled up on,

and so as a result of lacking those things - the only thing we could do to attempt to score was launch the 3.

You don't go one-on-one against a 1-3-1 zone. That would be, in a word, pointless. You beat it with good passing and then (hopefully) you knock down a reasonable percentage of the easy, wide-open threes it gives up in the corner.

[77devil]

First, please watch your tone with the "get it now" stuff, okay? Secondly, that's not what happened at all. Yes, there were a couple of shots launched too quickly. Most of the threes, though, were wide open and came off good ball movement. They didn't go in.
What was your alternative suggestion. "Just shoot twos?" How exactly would you accompish that? There's another team on the court, too. They were playing a junk defense that takes away a lot of Duke's inside-the arc offense (driving lanes, etc.). We tried to post guys early in the second half, through it away a couple of times, saw Zoubek almost fall over shooting a jump hook, etc.
The 1-3-1 gave us a ton of wide-open threes. ANY team would launch those, and good ones will knock them down. Stuff happens every now and then. They didn't go in. That doesn't mean the vast majority of those threes weren't good shots.

The team shot 24-32 inside the arc despite the 1-3-1. Yes, working the ball inside more would have been desirable even with the open looks, particularly after clanking so many throughout.

[Coballs]

This was way too similar to our recent tourney losses. Made it that much harder to watch. Actually, it wasn't similar, it was exactly like our recent tourney losses.

My thoughts exactly Lulu (see my above post)

[91devil]

First, please watch your tone with the "get it now" stuff, okay? Secondly, that's not what happened at all. Yes, there were a couple of shots launched too quickly. Most of the threes, though, were wide open and came off good ball movement. They didn't go in.
What was your alternative suggestion. "Just shoot twos?" How exactly would you accompish that? There's another team on the court, too. They were playing a junk defense that takes away a lot of Duke's inside-the arc offense (driving lanes, etc.). We tried to post guys early in the second half, through it away a couple of times, saw Zoubek almost fall over shooting a jump hook, etc.
The 1-3-1 gave us a ton of wide-open threes. ANY team would launch those, and good ones will knock them down. Stuff happens every now and then. They didn't go in. That doesn't mean the vast majority of those threes weren't good shots.

Agreed, many of the misses were fairly wide-open shots. We hit some of them early, we force them out of their pesky zone.

Frankly, I was a little surprised Michigan played ANY M-T-M defense in the second half - we were scoring with great frequency every time they left their zone.

[DevilCastDownfromDurham]

Would have been really neat to have a floor leader to calm the team down, break down the zone, and make good passes into the post. We remain a real PG away from being a reliably (instead of an intermittently) dominant team. I hope Nolan can find that in his game or that Wall or Knight can fill in that gap. We've got 2 very solid SG's playing very much out of position right now. Many nights we can shoot, score, or defend beyond that limitation, but it's come back to haunt us every year since CDu took his game to the Association.

[RelativeWays]

This was way too similar to our recent tourney losses. Made it that much harder to watch. Actually, it wasn't similar, it was exactly like our recent tourney losses.

And its a good thing it happens now. When the three 3 doesn't fall, we need a plan b. The 3 has not been falling most of this early season, but we've managed. Now it caught up with us and we suffer a VCU/WVU type loss. Only now, we get another game after, not 8 month break. Lets see what they do next game. For once I'd like to see this Duke team do something it hasn't done since 2001....come out angry, very very angry.

[Bluedog]

I think I was more disappointed with our defensive effort than offensive. We weren't stupid on offense. They gave us open 3s, we just couldn't hit them, but I think it was a fine strategy. We shoot hit them, and will hit them. However, on defense, the help defense wasn't so great. We gave them easy backdoor cuts and layups especially in the second half. We did finally start to hit the 3s toward the end of the game, but it was too little, too late. I don't think we underestimated Michigan. We went into a hostile environment, played poor helpside D, and missed a lot of wide open jumpshots that were there for the taking. And we only shot 6 free throws, which is nothing for us, but was just the result of the fact that we took a lot of threes instead of drives.

Nolan had some poor turnovers and our shooters who typically nail threes, were all off (combined 2-19 with Paulus, Scheyer, Singler). I think Coach K will be most upset at the poor D, and the sometimes silly turnovers. Our offensive ball movement looked good to me...the 1-3-1 causes crazy things sometimes, but we should have learned how to attack it by now. I hate to say it, but it did look similar to our NCAA losses in recent years, though...BUT I think shooting a lot of 3s was a good strategy - the vast majority were open, not fadeaway with a guy in your face. They just needed to knock a reasonable number of them down. Needed Paulus to do his best at UNC impression from last year...Not that it was his fault..Just would have been nice.

[Jumbo]

Jon got back-doored so many times I lost count.

Of course, the help wasn't there either.

I think I counted all of one. There was a dunk late where Thomas went the wrong way on a screen, which opened up the entire left side of the floor for Harris. Technically, he scored on Jon. That doesn't mean it's his fault. The help D was poor and, as Bilas said, Duke was looking to deny threes and was willing to give up a backdoor or two.

[footballfan2]

Why we lost:

1) No inside threat.
2) Poor outside shooting
3) Poor defense
4) No attacking the zone with penetration

Who I'm disappointed at:

1) Nolan Smith: Looked confused. Bad mistakes in 2nd half. Was very passive on offense. Did not create or attack the zone
2) Scheyer: Kept getting beat on defense (yes I know who he was guarding). Still ice cold from outside
3) G Henderson: Very disappointed. This is a game he could have taken over. Where a game where our outside game is ice cold and they are playing a zone... he could have attacked the zone. Overall, I'm pretty disappointed with his overall play this year. Certainly not as good as I had hoped.

Who I was impressed with:

1) Zoubeck and Thomas. I guess overall I don't have much offensive faith in these two. But they showed me something today. By no means All-ACC caliber, but they showed me that they could combine for 10+ points per game. However, I knew when Coach K was using Zoubeck as our primary scorer early in the second half... we were in trouble.


What we need to improve:

1) Nolan Smith and G Henderson need to ATTACK the basket. We can no settle for a jump-shot team.
2) Singler has the skill and size to have his back to the basket. If his shots aren't falling from outside... play in the paint.
3) Thomas and Zoubeck just continue to improve. If they continue to improve, like they have this year, we might have a decent post game by Feb.

[Coballs]

More learned from this loss than from a thirty point win over a directional or hyphen school in Cameron.

I'll still take the thirty point win over the hyphen school.

[JDev]

Not much of a mystery as far as today's game. Took 33 threes and made 7 of them. Duke needed to penetrate the zone far more often, 33 is a lot of threes, especially on a day when they are clearly not going down.
Duke's defense also was below where it has been the rest of this year. This game looked like one you would have seen in the last few years, with numerous blow-bys and uncontested lay-ups.
Not catostrophic however. Duke will be fine. Hopefully it turns out to be a good learning experience.

[Philadukie]

There's some comfort in our 3 point stat line, I guess. Although a few other things did not go well, if we just hit 30%, as someone else said, it changes the game, both in terms of score and psychology/momentum.

To the second point, the psychology (or momentum, whatever you'd like to call it) of a game is a delicate, dynamic force that can change significantly in basketball with four types of plays: 3-point shots, dunks, and-1's, and charges-on-a-make. (This doesn't mean other plays can't change momentum, but I would argue these are the "key" plays).

Anyway, we hit a few more three's in this game and the momentum (and score) would've been different. Going 3-27 (at one point) can be very deflating to the team shooting poorly in many other areas. See: Purdue's clangs everytime they seemed poised to make a run.

Others may disagree, but just trying to find something (somewhat) positive to say, since there's plenty negative others will cover.

[chrisheery]

I know it sounds too simple, but the fact that our boys were missing those open shots really is the key to the rest of the game. Everyone, including the announcers seems to think there were more opportunities to "go inside," but the reason we didn't go inside was because they were packed in. We couldn't even throw an entry pass down the stretch as they were basically daring us to shoot the corner jumper and we were scared to do it because of the early shooting slump.

I will say there was one other attack point that was missed or not well exploited. The top of the key (where Nolan threw it away late) was open most of the time. Unfortunately, the only guys who went there to receive the ball were big guys who couldn't exploit it. It would have been nice to see Gerald get the ball there and then take two hard dribbles to draw and dump to the baseline or take a pull up short range jumper. As I have said before, I would love to see Gerald post more and try to receive the ball in mid range areas where he doesn't have to handle as much. I think it would increase his scoring output significantly.

[Wander]

1. Didn't think we took too many bad shots.
2. Coach K is not great at defending the backdoor stuff, I think.
3. Scheyer is neither an awful nor an elite defender.
4. This isn't really so bad as far as losses go. Sucks, but nothing to freak about because we're unlikely to see Michigan's unusual style of play in March (in contrast to the Pitt loss last year, which foreshadowed our troubles a bit).

[footballfan2]

I think I counted all of one. There was a dunk late where Thomas went the wrong way on a screen, which opened up the entire left side of the floor for Harris. Technically, he scored on Jon. That doesn't mean it's his fault. The help D was poor and, as Bilas said, Duke was looking to deny threes and was willing to give up a backdoor or two.

you need to watch closer. He got back doored at least 2-3 times in the final 5 minutes. Of course he was guarding their best player.

Getting back-doored is not a big problem for our defense since we play such tight man-on-man. You kind of expect. However, there was NO help defense. That's not acceptable.

[Jumbo]

The team shot 24-32 inside the arc despite the 1-3-1. Yes, working the ball inside more would have been desirable even with the open looks, particularly after clanking so many throughout.

Many of those inside-the-arc shots came when Michigan was in its man-to-man. Duke played much better against the man D. You keep saying "work the ball inside" without acknowledging what Michigan was allowing and conceding. So, please don't tell us that Duke should have worked it inside more. Tell us how that could have been done against the 1-3-1.

[dw0827]

I think I counted all of one. There was a dunk late where Thomas went the wrong way on a screen, which opened up the entire left side of the floor for Harris. Technically, he scored on Jon. That doesn't mean it's his fault. The help D was poor and, as Bilas said, Duke was looking to deny threes and was willing to give up a backdoor or two.

You counted wrong.

The defensive effort was not there. By that I mean that the communication . . . the help . . . was missing.

I'll start the next thread. Was this a good loss? No. There is no such thing.

[Coballs]

And its a good thing it happens now. When the three 3 doesn't fall, we need a plan b. The 3 has not been falling most of this early season, but we've managed. Now it caught up with us and we suffer a VCU/WVU type loss. Only now, we get another game after, not 8 month break. Lets see what they do next game. For once I'd like to see this Duke team do something it hasn't done since 2001....come out angry, very very angry.

The only problem is that this has been Duke's achilles heel for several years now, and in these types of ugly losses we never seem to find Plan B.

[gep]

Our offensive ball movement looked good to me...the 1-3-1 causes crazy things sometimes, but we should have learned how to attack it by now.

I was pretty sure before this game that Coach K would have made the adjustments to the 1-3-1 after watching UCLA, and the having played Michigan. Unfortunately, the "crazy things" did happen today... the biggest one was that the 3's were not falling... AT ALL...