MBB: Duke 81, Mich St 71 Post-Game Thread

[davekay1971]

We should be done soon figuring out the optimal lineup for 2007.

Parks should have gotten more minutes in 92 to better prepare him for 93. K really screwed that one up.

[brevity]

...Though it does seem glaring that we were handled on the boards tonight...

I dunno... that's the strength that Michigan State is gonna bring to the table every night. Kind of like saying "We won, but it seems glaring that Kentucky's bench outscored us." or "We won, but it seems glaring that Carolina had more questionable grades than we did."

Fixed it for you.

[JBDuke]

Parks should have gotten more minutes in 92 to better prepare him for 93. K really screwed that one up.

Actually, I've always thought the big rotation mistake in '92 was playing Erik Meek at all. He was recovering from being hit by a car while jogging, and ended up only playing 143 mop-up minutes all year. If he'd redshirted, he would have been available for the '96 team, which really could have used his size to help Greg Newton in the post.

[77devil]

He threw up a terrible shot that led to a fast break for MSU.

So did Winslow, Sheed, and Allen.

He didn't do a great job being patient in the half court offense. Put it that way. I thought the whole team had that problem in the second half.

He did have some big buckets, thouth.

## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
02 Quinn Cook... 7-12 3-4 2-2 1 2 3 2 19 6 0 0 1 36

Only on DBR would a player with a stat. line like this be subject to a mostly critical post. You and I watched a different game.

[slower]

So did Winslow, Sheed, and Allen.



## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
02 Quinn Cook... 7-12 3-4 2-2 1 2 3 2 19 6 0 0 1 36

Only on DBR would a player with a stat. line like this be subject to a mostly critical post. You and I watched a different game.

Yep. Gotta give Quinn his props. He's been great so far.

[flyingdutchdevil]

a) Will Coach K platoon? My gut tells me no, and my head tells hell no. But I'd be pleasantly surprised if Coach K goes 10 deep against MSU. My guess? He goes 9 deep, with Semi being the odd man out.

Not surprising. We can say goodbye to the platoon system against quality competition (Wisconsin, ACC, NCAA Tourney). Great way to keep guys fresh against mediocre competition, but Coach K will play the key players (Cook, Winslow, Okafor if he can stay out of foul trouble, Tyus) as much as possible. You can't teach an old dog extended rotations.

b) Can we hit 3s against a solid team? It's been forecasted that Duke will struggle with the 3 this year, and that just hasn't happened. If anything, the 3 looks to be an asset. But that is against borderline DII competition. Cook (proven), Sulaimon (proven last year), Winslow (where did that shot come from), M Jones (ugly but effective), Semi (his offensive repertoire is his 3), Tyus (really surprised me with that shot), and Grayson (good shooter coming into Duke) are all decent-to-great shooters (I consider Cook to be great, especially given that he'll be shooting off the ball a lot, where he excels better than with the ball).

We only shot 14 3s. And we made 7. Wonderful. Between the drives, the post moves, and the 3s, I love our offensive arsenal.

c) Can our backcourt defend? Our backcourt D is looking good. But, again, this is against DII/III competition. Sulaimon looks incredibly active, Cook is applying great pressure, and Tyus has the quickest hands. But against elite competition? Can we still apply full-court pressure? Can we stop penetration (even if MSU isn't a penetrating team)? I love our front court D, with the Oak (very competent), AJ (great 4 defender), and Winslow (Mr Swiss Army Knife), but I still have to see about our backcourt D.

Color me surprised. I think Duke did a great job with this. Trice got his points, but MSU settled for a lot of mid-range jumpshots and 3 pointers (and they hit their midrangers! Great defensive strategy by Coach K, but MSU can make those 15-20 footers).

d) Does this team have a killer instinct? We were so good offensively last year that we would always build a first half lead. But he could never break the will of the opponent. I want to see if we can do that this year. I am confident that we will build an early lead. But the second half - especially in the middle 10 minutes - are so crucial. Will we get lazy and allow MSU to come back?

Tyus does. And that's enough for me at this point in time. Tyus...wow. Welcome to the national scene.

[Saratoga2]

Duke looked great for the first 8 or so minutes. After that, there was a lot of inconsistency. Some very impatient half court offense. In particular, I thought Cook and Winslow were too quick to go one-one-one and the team as a whole couldn't get it to Okafor, for reasons that weren't clear to me. Yes, the MSU bigs did a good job of fronting Okafor, but can't you throw a lob pass over the defender? The weak side help was a long ways away.

I love the way T. Jones and Winslow push the ball. Wish Cook would get that mentality. He seems to like walking the ball up.

The defense took away the three, but didn't turn MSU over all that much. Of course, MSU has a very experienced backcourt, and a great coach, so that might have been part of it.

On the rotation, looks like Kedsy got it right yet again. Sage, waiting to hear from you on whether you still think K is going 10 deep this year!

Quinn had a very good game, but I too don't care for his handling of the PG duties because he slows down the offense and tends to sit on the ball (dribble at the half court line for 5 to 10 seconds it seems) while others just stop moving. It is good to have Tyus handle as much as possible and perhaps Sheed can take more of those duties when Tyus is out so we don't become static.

[Rich]

Those are great stats. I'll repeat what I wrote earlier in the thread - we have to get the ball to Okafor more. The goal should be for him to get the ball on as many possessions as possible and as early in the possession as possible. With his post moves and passing ability he is as nearly impossible to defend as I've seen in college.

I'm sure the coaching staff will be preaching this and working on it a lot in the coming days and weeks.

On several occasions it looked like Ja was open in the post for a split second before the defender recovered. It's that second in which the entry pass has got to be made. I think that's a big area of improvement that needs to be worked on.

[UrinalCake]

Couple thoughts:
- MSU did a nice job of taking away the wing entry pass to Okafor after our fast start. I think Duke would like to run everything through Jah, but when they don't it's not necessarily because they've forgotten him -- sometimes the opposing defense takes away your options.

We definitely had trouble getting the ball into Oak in the second half, but I didn't feel like MSU was doing anything special. They weren't fronting the post or double-teaming off the ball or anything. I would expect this to be a point of emphasis in practice this week - the other team isn't going to just sit back and let us make the post entry pass uninhibited, so if it's not there then swing the ball around and find another way to get it in, but don't just give up.

[tux]

Duke looked great for the first 8 or so minutes. After that, there was a lot of inconsistency. Some very impatient half court offense. In particular, I thought Cook and Winslow were too quick to go one-one-one and the team as a whole couldn't get it to Okafor, for reasons that weren't clear to me. Yes, the MSU bigs did a good job of fronting Okafor, but can't you throw a lob pass over the defender? The weak side help was a long ways away.

I love the way T. Jones and Winslow push the ball. Wish Cook would get that mentality. He seems to like walking the ball up.

The defense took away the three, but didn't turn MSU over all that much. Of course, MSU has a very experienced backcourt, and a great coach, so that might have been part of it.

On the rotation, looks like Kedsy got it right yet again. Sage, waiting to hear from you on whether you still think K is going 10 deep this year!

I saw the defense differently. MSU shot 20 threes, but made only 5. As someone else noted, they took a lot of long 2's as well, and hit some tough ones. I didn't think they had too many contested shots --- those 20 threes were pretty good looks, they just shot poorly. I thought MSU's offense had us chasing the ball around (i.e., getting us out of position) quite a bit. The biggest difference is that Duke now is playing a true center, so we have better rim protection. We had 5 blocks to their 0. A better back line can really make up for mistakes on the perimeter.

In terms of execution (offense and defense), I thought MSU played a little better than Duke. A lot of that is having a more experienced team who didn't have to start from the beginning, so to speak, on the first day of practice. The fact that Duke still won by 10 (and was never in any real trouble) just shows how high the ceiling is for this team. We have all the pieces to be great. We need to have some more secondary action in the offense to get Okafor the ball in good spots IMO.

---

To quickly address an earlier post that upset some (maybe all) of you. I didn't feel like I was accusing K of lying about Rasheed; maybe I implied that, so I apologize if I offended folks. I believe K to be very honest. But coaches do occasionally "stretch" the truth to protect their players. Again, not saying K did this, as I don't know and my earlier post could have been worded much better. What I saw was Rasheed playing his normal minutes until a quick shot led to a MSU run out (and a Duke foul) after the first substitution of the 2nd half. Up to that point, Rasheed looked like his normal self and I saw some great ball pressure from him in the first half --- again, he could have been sick and just playing through it. (K's basically saying that Sheed played only 12 minutes b/c he was sick --- surely I'm not the only one who was surprised by that?) Anyway, I'm probably just digging the hole deeper here, so I'll shut up...

[Billy Dat]

Mostly we're just trying to have Jahlil seal his man near the post and get him an entry pass. A couple of times we hit him with a pocket pass. MSU did a good job not letting Jahlil seal his man for the pass in the second half. We're going to need to work on ball reversal and screening for Jahlil on timing passes to get him open. Also, I would love to see Jahlil used more in the pick-and-roll and getting the ball to him moving to the basket.
Once he gets the ball down low, he's money.

MSU did a nice job of taking away the wing entry pass to Okafor after our fast start. I think Duke would like to run everything through Jah, but when they don't it's not necessarily because they've forgotten him -- sometimes the opposing defense takes away your options.

Those are great stats. I'll repeat what I wrote earlier in the thread - we have to get the ball to Okafor more. The goal should be for him to get the ball on as many possessions as possible and as early in the possession as possible. With his post moves and passing ability he is as nearly impossible to defend as I've seen in college.

Note the recurring theme, one that I agree with. Okafor is a ridiculously gifted offensive force who needs the ball as much as we can get it to him. But, as tux said, MSU focused on denying him the ball where he wanted it, as I am sure every team will make their #1 defensive priority. As OldSchool said, we need to develop dozens of ways to get him the ball, and he needs to be an active participant in that process. But, there were many times last night where he caught the ball in single coverage and was too slow in making a move. He can basically abuse anyone one-on-one and needs to exploit those advantages (be quick but don't hurry). At the same time, the rest of the guys need to optimize how they react to Jah's gravitational pull. We are ok at cutting into the open space, and Cook/Jones/Winslow need to be aggressive about putting it on the deck and forcing the defense to react. I also noticed something that drove me crazy last year, we often take way too long to both initiate the offense and reset it when it is stagnant. This is definitely a squad that should be pushing pace and going for high possession games. But, the trend in our number of assisted baskets is great, we really share the ball. We haven't had an offensive center like Jah in so long, if ever, that I am desperate for the team to maximize its offensive potential.

Tyus does. And that's enough for me at this point in time. Tyus...wow. Welcome to the national scene.

Yeah.

Heading into the game, I felt like Okafor, Winslow, Cook, Amile, Rasheed and Marshall were fairly known quantities. We know what our veterans can do, and the two freshmen (Jah and Justise) have been awesome so far. Jones hadn't quite yet revealed himself. But, with the game in the balance, he basically took over and look mighty confident and comfortable doing so. A friend of mine drew a comparison to the preternatural poise of Syracuse's Tyler Ennis last year and I agree that Jones showed that same kind of silent assassin look last night.

Our D was good but not great. I think we missed Sheed on that end of the court. Not our best rebounding effort, but we only played Amile for a half.

I felt this way about our defense, too, but I didn't re-watch any of the game so I can't really put my finger on it. I didn't think our transition D was particularly good, we seemed to give up a lot of buckets that way. They also seemed to get a lot of good open looks from 3. I also thought, from a rebounding perspective, that they got some lucky bounces, but they also outfought/outhustled us for some. Still, to my eye, we have looked much better on that end than last year. That should continue to evolve and hopefully improve.

I echo all praise of Quinn Cook. He did a great job balancing attacking the rim and hunting his 3. Based on all the talk about his leadership and the impact it has on the freshmen, I think he's, perhaps, the biggest surprise of the early season.

I close with a few words about Mr. Winslow. He's 3 games into his freshman year and I am treating a 15 point, 6 rebound, 3 assist, 9 foul shot attempt game as something I expect from him. All of the above delivered with nary a change in facial expression. When the game was in hand during the last few minutes, we were shooting foul shots and he was standing near the MSU bench and Izzo went up and said something to him, and while I couldn't read his lips, it was some kind of praise. Justise's expression never changed, he didn't immediately react, but as the shooter was putting up the second shot, he shot back a quick, "Thanks coach" to Izzo and got back into the defensive half. He's terrifying. I love him.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

To quickly address an earlier post that upset some (maybe all) of you. I didn't feel like I was accusing K of lying about Rasheed; maybe I implied that, so I apologize if I offended folks. I believe K to be very honest. But coaches do occasionally "stretch" the truth to protect their players. Again, not saying K did this, as I don't know and my earlier post could have been worded much better. What I saw was Rasheed playing his normal minutes until a quick shot led to a MSU run out (and a Duke foul) after the first substitution of the 2nd half. Up to that point, Rasheed looked like his normal self and I saw some great ball pressure from him in the first half --- again, he could have been sick and just playing through it. (K's basically saying that Sheed played only 12 minutes b/c he was sick --- surely I'm not the only one who was surprised by that?) Anyway, I'm probably just digging the hole deeper here, so I'll shut up...

In my mind, if K says he was sick, that is the end of the story. Historically, I can't recall K ever "covering" for a player's mishaps. If he is pissed, he is quiet in public.

Sheed was in the doghouse last year and K didn't make excuses for him. If I remember correctly, it came via staff that his conditioning and practice weren't up to snuff. No one pulled out any soft excuses.

[Kfanarmy]

Several have mentioned that Okafor should get the ball as much as possible. I'm all for balance, especially with the offensieve talent on this team. We've all seen what happens when the only one or two "scorers" on the team have an off night...and a team with a lot of size, like UK, may reek havoc on one ubertalented post player, unless there is some serious fire power on the perimeter.

[duke4ever19]

Stephen A Smith and Skip Bayless are already bowing before Okafor. Yeah, they are paid to sensationalize and be controversial, but it's nice to have the hype surrounding the big fella and I think he will handle it well.

[CDu]

My thoughts on the game are as follows:

1. First and foremost, it was nice to see us get a fairly comfortable win against a BCS school with a long history of playing well. Even if that team was overmatched (the difference in talent on the floor was palpable). Even when we were clearly not on all cylinders. It's nice that "not quite our best" is enough to beat a quality opponent on a neutral floor with room to spare.

2. Okafor is just a joke. Unless you are a REALLY good big man, he's just so much better that it is hard to fathom. Granted, MSU's bigs are not very good, but he made them all look silly on the blocks. It's just a different game for him out there.

3. I do not get the folks that are criticizing Cook's performance. He was terrific. Was he absolutely perfect? No. But he had 19 points on only 12 shots (and shot 7-12 from the field and 3-4 from 3) and added 6 assists and 1 steal compared to no turnovers. That's ridiculously good. And on the defensive end, he and Tyus Jones held MSU's guards to just one point per FGA. Folks, that's getting it done. Cook played about as well as I've seen him play against a quality opponent. Hopefully it continues into March this year rather than being relegated to Nov-Jan Cook only.

4. Tyus Jones was just beastly in the second half. Again, part of that was the matchup: MSU's guards were, as mentioned pre-game, not very stout defensively. But Jones just abused them repeatedly in the second half. 17 points on 5 FGA? 4 assists and 2 steals to no turnovers? That's right: our two PG combined for 36 points on 11-17 shooting, 10 assists, 3 steals, and ZERO turnovers. Just awesome performances by both guys.

5. Winslow did just a little bit of everything, but two plays really stood out for me by him. One was the coast-to-coast layup he got in which he crossed over one defender mid-court and blew by another defender for the layup. The other was a driving layup he got against the teeth of the defense with the clock winding down. MSU had really stifled us on a possession for about 30 seconds. Winslow got the ball on the wing and took it right by his man and right into the lane and scored easily. It was like a hot knife through butter. That had to be demoralizing for MSU to play such good defense for so long and then give up the basket so easily. We have several guys capable of doing that to a team this year.

6. So it didn't take long for the "Duke will play deeper this year" crowd to be quieted. Despite foul trouble for Okafor and ineffectiveness for Jefferson, Ojeleye saw just 2 minutes. And despite illness for Sulaimon and ineffectiveness of Matt Jones, Allen just played 1 minute. Granted it is just one game, but this game screamed opportunity to play more depth and yet Coach K still went to his old rotational preference. So I think that unless we are blowing teams out, we're not going to see a lot of PT for Ojeleye and Allen.

7. The one concern for me coming out of this game was that we were outrebounded dramatically by MSU. Most years I'd not be concerned at all by this. But MSU is REALLY small this year. Costello and Schilling are tweener PF/C and not very good. Valentine is 6'5". Dawson and Clark played PF at 6'6". They even played a 6'7" walk-on at C for 6 minutes. Those guys combined to outrebound our bigs 24-17 in spite of our size advantage at each spot. Thankfully MSU was very talent-deprived (only three guys who I'd consider BCS-level players). But it is something to keep an eye on against better teams.

8. The only other concern was that I don't think we did terribly well with the pick-and-roll defense. Trice managed 8 assists almost exclusively off the pick and roll, and Valentine and Nairns got theirs mostly in that setting as well. That and rebounding are my only concerns with our defense. Otherwise, we looked really good on that end.

9. I don't think we need to worry too much about having capable 3pt shooters. I'm not expecting us to shoot 50% from deep, but I think we'll be good enough from 3 to keep teams honest.

[tux]

Several have mentioned that Okafor should get the ball as much as possible. I'm all for balance, especially with the offensieve talent on this team. We've all seen what happens when the only one or two "scorers" on the team have an off night...and a team with a lot of size, like UK, may reek havoc on one ubertalented post player, unless there is some serious fire power on the perimeter.

Agree, but I think the point folks are making is to run the offense through Okafor as much as possible, to take advantage of how that makes the opposing defense react (double teams, rotations, etc.) --- not that Okafor would shoot every time he touches the ball, just that good things tend to happen when he does. I.e., would expect the efficiency of the other players to go up as well. So, balance via Okafor.

[COYS]

I saw the defense differently. MSU shot 20 threes, but made only 5. As someone else noted, they took a lot of long 2's as well, and hit some tough ones. I didn't think they had too many contested shots --- those 20 threes were pretty good looks, they just shot poorly. I thought MSU's offense had us chasing the ball around (i.e., getting us out of position) quite a bit. The biggest difference is that Duke now is playing a true center, so we have better rim protection. We had 5 blocks to their 0. A better back line can really make up for mistakes on the perimeter.

To my eyes, most of the mistakes on the perimeter were the result of our defense getting used to icing screens. There were times when we did a great job forcing the ball handler away from the screener. The secondary defender usually did a good job containing in those situations. However, there were other times when the primary defender failed to prevent the ball-handler from using the screen, leaving the secondary defender stuck between containing and switching. In many instances the primary and secondary defender switched onto the same offensive player for a second, leaving whichever of the two players was unguarded wide open. This led to a few open jumpers, or, if the two defenders converged on the ball handler, open cuts to the basket. In addition, our guards were switching on most screens set a few feet or more above the three point line but then trying to ice on ball screens at the three point line or closer. Sometimes it seems like they got used to switching on a screen that probably should have been iced.

While the defense wasn't perfect, I'm already preferring our attempt to ice screens to last year's (and most years') hedge and recover strategy. Even when the defense breaks down, our defenders are closer to the basket and therefore able to recover quickly, especially with our athleticism. Just as you mentioned, some of those 5 blocks were the result of a quick recovery by the defenders. Michigan State wasn't breaking us down off the dribble, too much, but they did screen relentlessly. If we can improve our ability to ice some of those screens, I think we'll see fewer open looks at the rim. Long twos, even open long twos (although I'd like to limit them), I can live with.

[Kedsy]

Maybe the most balanced Duke team since 09-10?

Was the 2009-10 team particularly balanced? Three players did pretty much all the scoring. We didn't have a traditional PG, we lacked exceptional quickness, had no post game to speak of, didn't do all that much in transition, didn't force many turnovers, and shot a ton of threes.

Obviously it was a really good team, but I'd say it was one of the least balanced Duke teams in the Coach K era.

Not our best rebounding effort, but we only played Amile for a half.

Not just rebounding, but we missed Amile's defense, too, when he wasn't in the game. I think people are underestimating how important he is on D. I think we look like a very good defensive team when Justise and Amile and Jahlil are all in there, and an OK defensive team when one of them is on the bench.

To my eyes, most of the mistakes on the perimeter were the result of our defense getting used to icing screens. There were times when we did a great job forcing the ball handler away from the screener. The secondary defender usually did a good job containing in those situations. However, there were other times when the primary defender failed to prevent the ball-handler from using the screen, leaving the secondary defender stuck between containing and switching. In many instances the primary and secondary defender switched onto the same offensive player for a second, leaving whichever of the two players was unguarded wide open. This led to a few open jumpers, or, if the two defenders converged on the ball handler, open cuts to the basket. In addition, our guards were switching on most screens set a few feet or more above the three point line but then trying to ice on ball screens at the three point line or closer. Sometimes it seems like they got used to switching on a screen that probably should have been iced.

While the defense wasn't perfect, I'm already preferring our attempt to ice screens to last year's (and most years') hedge and recover strategy. Even when the defense breaks down, our defenders are closer to the basket and therefore able to recover quickly, especially with our athleticism. Just as you mentioned, some of those 5 blocks were the result of a quick recovery by the defenders. Michigan State wasn't breaking us down off the dribble, too much, but they did screen relentlessly. If we can improve our ability to ice some of those screens, I think we'll see fewer open looks at the rim. Long twos, even open long twos (although I'd like to limit them), I can live with.

This is a great point. On several of MSU's successful screen-and-roll plays I said to myself, "How come we didn't ICE that screen?" I imagine it's harder to do against better teams, and we hadn't really played against better teams before, so hopefully we'll get better at that aspect.

[CDu]

This is a great point. On several of MSU's successful screen-and-roll plays I said to myself, "How come we didn't ICE that screen?" I imagine it's harder to do against better teams, and we hadn't really played against better teams before, so hopefully we'll get better at that aspect.

Icing screens puts a lot of responsibility on the guard to recognize the screen and funnel it on time. It takes work to do it well. It is why Thibs will play Hinrich - who is an offensive liability - because he is so good at reading offenses. Jones and Cook are definitely facing a learning curve.

[duke96]

Tangential to the topic, but Jah now has an 83.3% shooting percentage from the floor over 3 games. Apologies if this was raised explicitly elsewhere and I missed it, but this is pretty insane. Out of curiosity, any of the stats gurus know what is the highest a Duke player has achieved over the course of a full season (with a reasonable minimum number of shots)?