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View Full Version : Our Defense vs. Miami (and a few numbers)



tommy
02-06-2012, 05:38 PM
There's not a whole lot more to be said beyond what's been said already on the boards. The defensive effort in the first half was poor. In the second, it was quite good. While watching it, I couldn't believe that Rivers, Curry, and Cook went the last 17 1/2 minutes of regulation plus the 5 minute OT without any of them getting a blow (until Dawkins came in in the waning seconds for a possible 3 point attempt) but the reality is that all three of them played well defensively. I haven't said that about Cook much this year, but he really was good. He only gave up one hoop (plus a foul that resulted in 2 FT's), he forced some turnovers, some missed shots, and even moved his feet fairly well against the dribble. As will be seen below, of the players who played significant minutes, he led the team in stop % as well.

Surprisingly given how he had been playing lately was the poor performance of Thornton on the defensive end. He gave up 3 baskets in only 18 defensive possessions, got beaten off the dribble several times -- an area he had seemed to be making progress in lately -- and had the worst defensive efficiency rating on the whole team. Though the team managed to get stops in 56% of the plays on which Ty was on the floor, he was rarely involved in the play that led to the stop. When he was involved, it was likely in a scoring play for Miami.

Dawkins's defense was subpar again. Not as bad as in some games, but again not real good either. He only gave up one basket and some FT's, but we had a very bad stop% when he was in the game and his overall D Rating was worse than the team's average. No wonder he and Ty were stuck on the pine for the last 22 minutes of the game.

But the real problem was the big man defense. The hedging was not nearly as effective as it has been all year. I don't have numbers on it, but we weren't getting a big pushout from our hedgers, nor were the bigs recovering well onto the rolling or popping screener, which resulted in a number of easy shots for Miami. More glaring though was how often we were beaten straight-up inside, especially by Johnson. Mason and Miles both had huge difficulty in handling him, even when they were doubleteaming him, or close to it.

Miles continued his poor defensive play, giving up 5 1/2 hoops, and fouling that resulted in 2 1/2 FT's. That's a lot for the 40 possessions he played. His defensive rating was the worst of the bigs.

We also gave up 20 offensive rebounds in this game. That just shouldn't be happening. Ok, here are the numbers:




Stops
Hoops
Stop%


Curry
35
29
55%


Rivers
39
32
55%


Dawkins
9
14
39%


Mason
23
22
51%


Thornton
9
7
56%


Kelly
24
20
55%


Miles
20
19
51%


Cook
28
20
58%


Gbinije





Hairston
13
6
68%


TEAM
40
34
54%

duke09hms
02-06-2012, 07:34 PM
Encouraging to see Quinn's defense improving. If he can stay in front of his man, he should be a huge help to us as a complete PG for the next few years. A couple of friends and I were wondering if Quinn had gotten more minutes early on he might not have made a few freshmen mistakes during OT.

The corollary to that is how about Gbinije? If we'd let him play a little more, get used to game pressure, would he by now be a suitable defensive option against HB instead of the undersized Austin and Andre?

I'm watching the Duke ladies play and so far their DEFENSE is locking down UNC. How refreshing to see focused defense from players wearing DUKE on the court! Duke on a 22-6 run.