Zone d by duke on the last FSU possestion?
Well, we've survived a terrible first half offensively. Hopefully we come out more focused and composed in the second half. Rivers with 3 fouls isn't promising. Hopefully he can show some discipline for the first 5-10 minutes.
Impressive stat of the half. There is only one Duke player without a turnover: Dawkins.
We're actually shooting the 3 pretty well. And hitting FT really well. We're just doing almost everything else badly offensively.
Thankfully we're playing good defense and defensive rebounding solidly.
Really like seeing Austin go left twice. Teams give him the baseline and he finally took it. Still wish he could finish with his left hand to avoid blocks though.
The guards just don't even look for Mason or Mason for pick and roles off the high screens. And Miles and Mason don't look for it either. I remember Boozer and J. Will used to kill teams with that. That play simply is not an option for this team.
14 turnovers. Did I hear that right? That's just plain pathetic for a team that is awake and alive.
We also dribbled into traffic with our head down 14 times, collectively. We missed the open man almost every time there was an open man, whether it was Dre peeling out on a mini-break or Miles rolling to the rim.
At least our defense is working hard, otherwise we'd be down a decent bit.
Time for Dre and Seth to crank it up and the Plums to hit the boards hard.
<devildeac> anyone playing drinking games by now?
7:49:36<Wander> drink every qb run?
7:49:38<loran16> umm, drink every time asack rushes?
7:49:38<wolfybeard> @devildeac: drink when Asack runs a keeper
7:49:39 PM<CB&B> any time zack runs, drink
Carolina Delenda Est
KYRIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love how Austin is playing hard, but I'm not a fan of how he let Miller get in his head and essentially start a 1 on 1 battle. yeah if there was no one else on the court, you would destroy him, but there are 4 HUGE florida state players on the court, there's no reason to play like Starbury out there.
Austin Rivers is going to have to take this game over all by himself. Dre and Curry were no shows in the 1st half and we have very little chance of getting much offense from the Plumlees against FSU's front line.
When was the last time a Coach K team hand 14 turnovers and shot 35 percent in a half?
You can really see that without Kelly this team drops off big time in the intangible areas, Chemistry and Basketball IQ. I would guess that 80% or so of the turnovers in that half could be attributed to miscommunication, or trying to play the ball into an area where even if the pass makes it there or you get the dribble there, the play would be dead anyway. This team is not a good passing team in terms of court vision. We've seen that all year with Duke's assist rate at 287th in the county. You want to say that it's just because FSU is one of the best defensive teams out there, but I could say all of these things about the Va Tech game too.
Where you want to give Duke credit is hanging tough on Defense. I think part of this is by design. Without many guys who can get their own shot, Duke has relied on impeccable spacing to get open looks from the outside. That's a lot harder to do without a stretch 4 available. The big thing with a guy like Thornton is that as great as he is on D, he brings very little to the offensive end. He had 13 wide open looks yesterday and only hit 3. If you have to force them up there, that kind of percentage is understandable, but wide open, you have to be able to hit 5 or 6 of those to keep teams honest. Since you don't have Kelly anyway, it's a lot easier to just concentrate on D and let the offense get you what they can, since your biggest weapon is hurt big time without Kelly.
That's where you want to give some big time credit to the coaching. Against a strong defensive team, most coaches would want to get their best offense out there, but with that unavailable, Coach K has gone completely the other way and it has shown with the defense and rebounding effort that Duke has put up so far.
I must say though, Duke really needs to get Ryan Kelly back for the next tourney or it's going to be tough to beat anyone who puts in a good offensive game.
Does anyone else feel like we had good chances to run last night and today and that it clearly wasn't part of the gameplan - like it was almost discouraged? I guess it's not our strength, but I feel like we need some easy baskets.
I think we'll play better on O in the second, less turnovers and better flow...fingers crossed.
Not sure why we continue to run high screens if:
a) we don't use the screen well
b) we don't roll to the basket or dump it in if they big guys do roll
c) we just allow them to put even more pressure on whomever is handling the ball
Right now... no real good coming from that play. Wish we would spread the floor, dump it inside. Play inside-out perhaps... hope, hope.
This game appears that it is about to get out of hand in a hurry.