tommy
01-26-2012, 07:37 PM
While I did not chart this game with the same degree of specificity that I have others, nevertheless I did make some fairly detailed notes on what I saw happening defensively. I do have the stop % charts below too.
I think our defense this game was pretty typical of what we've seen for most of the year. We did some good things - we helped well on the interior. Mostly. We moved our feet on the perimeter. Some. We challenged shots. Usually.
But the same problems that have plagued us throughout the year reared their heads again.
I counted at least 12 times that one of our perimeter guys was beaten off the dribble, permitting his man to either get into the lane or to pull up for a jumper. To cite a couple (sorry I don't have exact times for each play -- I just marked down each 4 minute timeout so I know between which timeout each play occurred, but that's all) first, there was a play before the 8 minute timeout in the first half. Seth and Austin allow Howard to split a high doubleteam. Seth recovers, but then just as quickly gets beaten again with the dribble and Howard steams in for the layup. Bad perimeter D twice in one play/possesssion.
Not to pick on Seth. Austin was victimized a number of times off the dribble. As was Thornton, especially in the second half. In that second half, the Terps had a stretch starting around the 8:30 mark or so where Stoglin attacked Thornton, mostly off the dribble, on 6 out of 8 possessions. Ty forced a couple of tough shots, had one close call go against him, but also required help from the bigs several times and once Austin was playing too far off of his own man as Stoglin drove, and the kick resulted in a hoop from Austin's man.
We also got beaten 3 times on backdoors/overplays -- once each by Austin, Andre, and Ty.
The perimeter D overall was not great, in my opinion.
I was interested in looking at instances of apparently poor effort, focus, and decisionmaking in help situations. There were a lot of those, especially the latter.
Examples: effort. I wrote down two. One, at approx 14:00 of the first half, Andre got screened high, but he just didn't make a strong effort to fight through it and challenge the jump shot, which went in. I wrote down another one, at approx the 5 minute mark of the first half, where Austin was just very slow coming around a baseline screen and did not appear to be making anywhere close to max effort to do so. We were lucky the Maryland player just missed the open shot. But still.
Focus: I wrote down 3. One, at around 2:00 of the first half, went like this: Mason did a good job staying in front of his man as he drove to the hoop from outside. He had it covered. But Andre didn't stay with his own man, permitting Mason's man to drop it off to him for a hoop. What Andre did was lose sight of his man, and he wasn't helping either. He just lost attention.
Then, at around 16:30 of the second half, on a Maryland in-bounds play, Seth inexplicably just stopped guarding his man. He also had turned his head, throwing him off when he regained attention, and ended up getting easily faked out, leaving him open for an easy 3 in the corner.
Finally, at around 8:00 of the second half, our whole defense just looked confused and out of position. Seth shaded into the lane, properly, to help on an uncovered big, but the pass then went to his man who bounced that ridiculous bouncy 3 pointer in. Nobody really seemed to know where they were on this play.
Then: poor decisions in help defense situations. There were a lot. I counted 7 or 8 that I wrote down, and could've written down more. Example from early, around 18:00 of the 1st half: Miles fails to switch on a high screen with Andre. This results in a drive to the hoop. Mason has to help, which is good, but then Austin needed to move down to cover Mason's man. He didn't move down, enabling a dump-off for a dunk.
Another example: 1155 of first half. Maryland drives into the lane against Miles' defense. Ryan helps inside, everything is clogged up now, but the Terp finds a way to drop it off to Ryan's man for the hoop. It was a good interior pass, but Ryan didn't need to help on the play. Miles had him covered. This was some combination of poor communication and a poor decision by Ryan.
Not to pick on Austin, but last example: very next play after the 1155 play. Thornton plays poor position D, allowing his man to dribble easily into the lane. Miles helps, leaving his man open for the dump-off. But Austin utterly failed to provide help from the weakside on the play, resulting in a foul and 2 shots for Maryland. Poor defensive execution and awareness.
The other thing I really noticed is how few turnovers we forced. I know the box score says eight, but really a number of those were charges taken, a moving screen or two, that sort of thing. In terms of pure turnovers, I only counted four: 1) Austin's steal around 6:00 or so of the first half, 2) the above-mentioned fumble of an interior pass by them underneath that we picked up, 3) Len fumbling a lob, leading to a loose ball that we recovered, and 4) Mason's deflection of a perimeter pass that Austin then picked up midway through the 2nd half. That's it. And only two of those were steals we made on the perimeter giving us an opportunity to run. Two the whole game! Hard to believe, really.
OK here's the stop % chart for this game. I'll try to get the cumulative chart up a little later, though Kedsy has been doing an excellent job of updating those for me and for the benefit of everyone, so if you're so inclined, Keds, go for it!
Stops
Hoops
Stop %
Curry
29
25
54%
Rivers
32
26
55%
Dawkins
17
20
46%
Mason
29
20
59%
Thornton
30
19
61%
Kelly
22
17
56%
Miles
15
18
45%
Cook
Gbinije
Hairston
6
5
55%
TEAM
36
30
55%
Pretty impressive numbers for Tyler and for Mason. I'm a little surprised at Tyler's numbers given how often Stoglin beat him one-on-one, but he did get some decent help from the bigs and sometimes even when Stoglin did beat him, Ty did manage to contest shots, and some of them obviously Stoglin just missed.
As for Mason, a ton has been said in other threads about how well he played offensively. He did it on both ends. If the kid was to play like this consistently, he wouldn't be all-ACC. He'd be an all-American ballplayer. Just terrific.
Miles? Weird numbers because I only found him responsible for one hoop (early second half), one time where he shared "blame" 3 ways with Mason and Andre (early first half) and once where he fouled and they made a free throw. Yet other Maryland guys scored an awful lot when Miles was on the court. Not consistent with his play this season at all, but given that he also had subpar numbers against FSU, it bears watching. Hope it's not any kind of trend, and I doubt it is.
Dawkins? Perhaps what was going on defensively when he was in there vs. when Thornton was in there explains the disparity in playing time, especially second half playing time, between the two guys.
I think our defense this game was pretty typical of what we've seen for most of the year. We did some good things - we helped well on the interior. Mostly. We moved our feet on the perimeter. Some. We challenged shots. Usually.
But the same problems that have plagued us throughout the year reared their heads again.
I counted at least 12 times that one of our perimeter guys was beaten off the dribble, permitting his man to either get into the lane or to pull up for a jumper. To cite a couple (sorry I don't have exact times for each play -- I just marked down each 4 minute timeout so I know between which timeout each play occurred, but that's all) first, there was a play before the 8 minute timeout in the first half. Seth and Austin allow Howard to split a high doubleteam. Seth recovers, but then just as quickly gets beaten again with the dribble and Howard steams in for the layup. Bad perimeter D twice in one play/possesssion.
Not to pick on Seth. Austin was victimized a number of times off the dribble. As was Thornton, especially in the second half. In that second half, the Terps had a stretch starting around the 8:30 mark or so where Stoglin attacked Thornton, mostly off the dribble, on 6 out of 8 possessions. Ty forced a couple of tough shots, had one close call go against him, but also required help from the bigs several times and once Austin was playing too far off of his own man as Stoglin drove, and the kick resulted in a hoop from Austin's man.
We also got beaten 3 times on backdoors/overplays -- once each by Austin, Andre, and Ty.
The perimeter D overall was not great, in my opinion.
I was interested in looking at instances of apparently poor effort, focus, and decisionmaking in help situations. There were a lot of those, especially the latter.
Examples: effort. I wrote down two. One, at approx 14:00 of the first half, Andre got screened high, but he just didn't make a strong effort to fight through it and challenge the jump shot, which went in. I wrote down another one, at approx the 5 minute mark of the first half, where Austin was just very slow coming around a baseline screen and did not appear to be making anywhere close to max effort to do so. We were lucky the Maryland player just missed the open shot. But still.
Focus: I wrote down 3. One, at around 2:00 of the first half, went like this: Mason did a good job staying in front of his man as he drove to the hoop from outside. He had it covered. But Andre didn't stay with his own man, permitting Mason's man to drop it off to him for a hoop. What Andre did was lose sight of his man, and he wasn't helping either. He just lost attention.
Then, at around 16:30 of the second half, on a Maryland in-bounds play, Seth inexplicably just stopped guarding his man. He also had turned his head, throwing him off when he regained attention, and ended up getting easily faked out, leaving him open for an easy 3 in the corner.
Finally, at around 8:00 of the second half, our whole defense just looked confused and out of position. Seth shaded into the lane, properly, to help on an uncovered big, but the pass then went to his man who bounced that ridiculous bouncy 3 pointer in. Nobody really seemed to know where they were on this play.
Then: poor decisions in help defense situations. There were a lot. I counted 7 or 8 that I wrote down, and could've written down more. Example from early, around 18:00 of the 1st half: Miles fails to switch on a high screen with Andre. This results in a drive to the hoop. Mason has to help, which is good, but then Austin needed to move down to cover Mason's man. He didn't move down, enabling a dump-off for a dunk.
Another example: 1155 of first half. Maryland drives into the lane against Miles' defense. Ryan helps inside, everything is clogged up now, but the Terp finds a way to drop it off to Ryan's man for the hoop. It was a good interior pass, but Ryan didn't need to help on the play. Miles had him covered. This was some combination of poor communication and a poor decision by Ryan.
Not to pick on Austin, but last example: very next play after the 1155 play. Thornton plays poor position D, allowing his man to dribble easily into the lane. Miles helps, leaving his man open for the dump-off. But Austin utterly failed to provide help from the weakside on the play, resulting in a foul and 2 shots for Maryland. Poor defensive execution and awareness.
The other thing I really noticed is how few turnovers we forced. I know the box score says eight, but really a number of those were charges taken, a moving screen or two, that sort of thing. In terms of pure turnovers, I only counted four: 1) Austin's steal around 6:00 or so of the first half, 2) the above-mentioned fumble of an interior pass by them underneath that we picked up, 3) Len fumbling a lob, leading to a loose ball that we recovered, and 4) Mason's deflection of a perimeter pass that Austin then picked up midway through the 2nd half. That's it. And only two of those were steals we made on the perimeter giving us an opportunity to run. Two the whole game! Hard to believe, really.
OK here's the stop % chart for this game. I'll try to get the cumulative chart up a little later, though Kedsy has been doing an excellent job of updating those for me and for the benefit of everyone, so if you're so inclined, Keds, go for it!
Stops
Hoops
Stop %
Curry
29
25
54%
Rivers
32
26
55%
Dawkins
17
20
46%
Mason
29
20
59%
Thornton
30
19
61%
Kelly
22
17
56%
Miles
15
18
45%
Cook
Gbinije
Hairston
6
5
55%
TEAM
36
30
55%
Pretty impressive numbers for Tyler and for Mason. I'm a little surprised at Tyler's numbers given how often Stoglin beat him one-on-one, but he did get some decent help from the bigs and sometimes even when Stoglin did beat him, Ty did manage to contest shots, and some of them obviously Stoglin just missed.
As for Mason, a ton has been said in other threads about how well he played offensively. He did it on both ends. If the kid was to play like this consistently, he wouldn't be all-ACC. He'd be an all-American ballplayer. Just terrific.
Miles? Weird numbers because I only found him responsible for one hoop (early second half), one time where he shared "blame" 3 ways with Mason and Andre (early first half) and once where he fouled and they made a free throw. Yet other Maryland guys scored an awful lot when Miles was on the court. Not consistent with his play this season at all, but given that he also had subpar numbers against FSU, it bears watching. Hope it's not any kind of trend, and I doubt it is.
Dawkins? Perhaps what was going on defensively when he was in there vs. when Thornton was in there explains the disparity in playing time, especially second half playing time, between the two guys.