Originally Posted by
yancem
For the last week I have been thinking about our recent poor play I have a few thoughts. It has been speculated in previous threads that the main reasons for the recent poor performances are: lack of productivity from Henderson (due to his injured wrist), lack of defensive intensity, poor shooting (3pt and free throw) and high number of turnovers. All of these reasons seem sound to me and were pretty much my thoughts as well.
But another thought occurred to me after yesterdays game. While the recent poor play started shortly after Henderson hurt his wrist, it is also about the same time that Zoubek came back and to a certain extend coincides with the recent development of Thomas on the offensive end of the floor. I know that getting production out of those two should only help this team, especially since our one true weakness lack of an inside presence but maybe in the short term there have been some negative side effects.
For the most part, Duke has camped 4 players on the perimeter with one player quasi in the post (usually 5-10 feet from the basket). With the reemergence of Zoubek into the line up and the addition of Thomas' new found offensive ability, the fifth player has been more often setting up as close to the basket as possible. This changes the offensive spacing, maybe not a whole lot but enough that opposing centers have to cover less ground for weak side help on drives. It also changes the passing spacing as well, instead of having 5 players to pass the ball around the perimeter we only have 4. This may have slightly disrupted rhythm which could explain, at least in part, our shooting problems. Also with the defensive center being closer to the basket driving lanes have been narrower making for more contested close in shots.
Another area where this could have effected the offense is in the area of turnovers. Duke, for the majority of the season, hasn't really tried to feed the ball to the post because we really haven't had a post presence. All of the sudden, we our making an effort to feed Thomas and Zoubek the ball down low and either our lack of practice or skill in doing so has lead to a large number of turnovers.
Now I'm not trying to say that this is the only reason for our lower level of play but it could certainly be a part of the issue. The good news is that its a problem that should take care of itself as all of the players become more comfortable with the addition of post play to the offensive side of the ball. I don't know if the St Johns game is very useful in measuring progress since they are not a very good team but at least we did what should be expected and that's beat them handily. GaTech may give us a better test.
Just a thought.