I've watched every game this year and in most games, I've said to myself or my wife; we need 3 or 4 good stops and we can put this team away. Instead of getting those stops we give up an easy basket, or hold them to a miss shot and they get an offensive rebound and put back. Or we hold them and go down and turn the ball over or take a quick 3 and the opponent gets a fast break layup. I don't think it's a lack of physical ability but something is missing. I believe that was what Coach K was talking about after the game. Do our guys not work on defense like they do offense? As for Michael Gbinije, the defensive stats that tommy has been gracious enough to provide show that he is not as good a defender as we thought he would be. As for Dawkins, he has the physical tools to play defense. It's just up to Andre to use them. I hope we see the defense pick it up and I hope we see someone step up on offense in those situations where we can put em away. I would love to see Austin do it because he has the natural ability to do just that. But he is a freshman and until this year he never had the pressure of big time college basketball. He's up against very good college players game after game. He's going to be a very very good player, but will that be this year? I hope so because we need him to be the guy. GoDuke!
I wouldn't start Gbinije b/c he doesn't play like knows what he's doing yet. Why play someone just b/c they have a "big athletic frame"? If they get beat for a goal nearly every time they become a lot less physically intimidating. I really hope that Silent G becomes a defensive force, from what i've seen this year, he is not yet that player.
FWIW the 1991-1992 team, which I remember as being incredibly sloppy with big leads, lost 14 halves over the course of the season. Was this Duke's best team ever? I think so.
sagegrouse
'I remember that team having a 30-point 2nd half lead over #7 St. John's but winning by only 10'
^^^
We need to stop talking about individual players and recognize that defense is a team effort - 100% of the time. I really don't believe there is a fundamental lack of talent, athleticism, or whatever other "measure" of physical ability that some here want to use to assess different player's effectiveness. I think we have plenty of physical ability. I will simply add to the prior discussion of the need for greater defensive consistency by stating more specifically that we need consistency in two areas: communication and effort. On the effort side, there needs to be a constant ferocity about us - and we're only seeing it from this team in spurts. With respect to communication, I think there are two issues... verbal communication (i.e., calling out the picks, switches, cuts, etc.) and familiarity. The latter may be the tougher to master. While verbal communication can be taught, this team still needs more time together to gain that intuitive sense of how truly to play together.
Simply substituting in one player deemed to be more "physically able" in some way is not necessarily going to change how we play as team - although I wholeheartedly agree that someone willing to step forward and act as the team's true leader can have an incremental effect on the others. Leadership by committee just doesn't work. After all, every foot does have it's Big Toe.
Not to highjack the thread too much, but I think next year will look VERY different. With Miles gone at the very least and most likely Mason and Austin joining him, our size issues will switch from the perimeter (where we could easily run out Seth, Andre, and Alex/Mike to give us plenty of size) to the post, where the more perimeter oriented Kelly will be the only proven player. Also, Quinn has the quickness to be a good defender, but his lack of experience shows (he falls for fakes, doesn't anticipate the ball handlers movements, and has trouble fighting through screens). That might change next year after he's had the offseason to develop, giving us someone who can lock down the perimeter. Also, Rasheed has the quickness and length of Nolan, giving us a long-armed defender for the perimeter.
Anyway, I still maintain that our defensive struggles this season mostly apply to focus. We have two of the best rebounders in the country in Mason and Miles. Yet, we don't take advantage of that enough when we force misses because the team as a whole is inconsistent at boxing out (and our guards are really bad about this). When we hedge and recover quickly, we cut off dribble penetration really well. When our forwards are in the game and focused, they rotate well even when the opposing guards are able to penetrate the defense. We will probably always be at risk to give up jumpers over our guards when there's a size disadvantage, but as long as we box out and take advantage of our rebounders, there will be enough misses on jumpers that it shouldn't hurt us too much. When Andre is on his game, he can play strong off the ball defense and deny opposing 3's the ball. When he's not, he gets beat backdoor or loses his man on the perimeter giving up open buckets and messing up our other rotations.
We need the whole team to play consistently because there isn't one individual defender that is good enough to make up for the lack of focus at other positions. Seth isn't good enough to singlehandedly take an opposing point guard out of a game (like Nolan and Kyrie did to Pullen of K-State last year or as Nolan did to Marshall last year in the ACC Championship game). Our wing defenders aren't good enough to take opposing wings out of games as Scheyer and Singler did quietly for the past five years. And our post defenders haven't mastered rotations the way Lance and Zoubs had by the time they were seniors. The TEAM has to play well on all fronts to succeed. That makes it less probable that everyone will be on in the same game for 40 minutes, but it also doesn't mean it can't be done. The 2010 team mastered that intensity. Nolan and Kyle brought it last year. This team hasn't mastered it yet and, unlike in past seasons, doesn't have one person it can look to to help carry the defense even when others are struggling.
Coach K on defense that we all probably read !
“Some of our worst defense has been with the leads,” Krzyzewski said. “But in order to get the leads, you have to play good defense. We’re striving for consistency.”
“We’re not inherently a defensive team – the mentality of these kids,” Krzyzewski said. “They’re more offensive players. But they’ve shown that they can play really good defense. We just have to get it going for longer periods of time.”
“Some of our worst defense has been with the leads,” Krzyzewski said. “But in order to get the leads, you have to play good defense. We’re striving for consistency.”
“It’s a different team than we’ve had,” Krzyzewski said. “We’ve know that since China and Dubai. We’re not going to be this juggernaut defensively. We have to keep striving to get better.”
...just in case it fell between the cracks!!!!
Let's go DUKE !!!
Based on what I heard Coach K say on his TV show the other day, I seriously doubt you'll see any changes to the size of our rotation. Basically he said that there was a lot of talent on the team, however there wasn't any separation between this talent.
As I said elsewhere, another big defensive presence would make the exterior players look much better. Remember how many blows Zoubek and Lance got from the Plumlees? Also, I think we are seeing much more sophisticated offense from teams with a cluster of mid sized players and a few decent sized bigs then in the past. These mid sized player are getting it in positions I believe that they have practiced the death out of, with the ability to score off the shot or the dribble, who know when to keep the ball moving and how to be effective after the pass, and who are schooled to see passing options either outside or at the rim off of movement by their teammates who have also been schooled to death about the timing and location of getting to spots that makes that passing game a killer to "lock down." 18 and 3, with the number of really good teams these guys have faced, and this team's ability to go all out to win at the end, 99 percent of the fan bases in the nation would be more than happy.
Very good reading and thoughts how the defense might well be better. I enjoyed and learned from the contributions made. This Board is really great.
Minor update here. Our Adjusted D is now up to 65. Whether that's a function of our play or our previous opponents is up to debate. http://kenpom.com/
What is really strange is that 3 of Duke's 4 losses this season came against the teams that have shot the best from behind the arc against Duke.
OSU went 8-14 from distance against Duke.
FSU went 7-14 from distance against Duke.
Temple went 5-10 from distance against Duke.
Those are the only three games in which Duke's opponent has managed to shoot 50% or better from behind the stripe so far this season and those are also the three teams with the highest effective field goal percentages and true shooting percentages against Duke so far this season.
So it appears that Duke's opponents this season largely live and die by the three.
For those keeping track, I checked this last night at about 1AM and we had moved up to 61. Now, 9 hours later and without having played any games obviously, we are at 57...
http://kenpom.com/
We moved up one, to 56th, after the FSU game. If it weren't for these pesky basketball games they make us play we'd be a lot better.