Our Boxing-Out Problems Against Carolina

[tommy]

We obviously had significant problems keeping Carolina off the offensive boards in this game. Indeed, they got 14 of them, while we had only 18 defensive rebounds, translating into an offensive rebounding % for them of 43%, which is very high.

I wanted to go back to the tape and see who the main culprits were and in what circumstances. Why? I don't know, I just did. In doing so, by going back and looking one-by-one at these plays where we gave up offensive rebounds, I noticed something: while for the game as a whole there were a lot of these plays where we failed to box, they were not a major factor in UNC sprinting out to the big lead in the first ten minutes of the game -- the start that we of course never recovered from. Some of these plays made it more difficult for us to come back later in the game, especially at a key point here or there, but not really even so many of those. Here are the plays:

Time: 18:38 Henson shoots over Kelly, Miles fails to box out Zeller. Zeller outhustles both Miles and Austin for the ball on the left baseline. New shotclock but no immediate scoring result from the play.

1833: 5 seconds later Bullock misses from the wing. Seth is in front of the towering Henson underneath on the opposite side of the hoop, Miles is behind Henson. Henson reaches over Seth, Miles (maybe) gets a hand on it from behind, the call is out of bounds off of Miles. Questionable call but UNC gets another possession. Again, new shotclock but no immediate scoring result from the play.


That was all they had in the first seven minutes of the game, by which time the score was 18-5.


1301: Mason contests Barnes turnaround which was shot over Dawkins. Essentially both our guys had their hands up on the shooter and contested the shot, which left Mason's man -- McAdoo -- alone for the highlight reel follow-up slam. Miles at least did box out Zeller though.

So now at the 12 minute TV timeout the score was 22-5 and UNC had only three offensive rebounds, and only one of those - the McAdoo slam - resulted in immediate points, by which I mean an immediate putback. I know, I know -- the reason they had only 3 offensive boards was because so many of their initial shots were going in.


1106: Barnes drives into the lane, Rivers loses sight of Bullock. Barnes airballs the shot, but Bullock gets behind Rivers to retrieve it on the baseline, and throws it out for a new 35.

1052: Same possession - McAdoo takes a tough turnaround over Kelly. Dawkins doesn't even try to box out. Bullock waltzes in for the easy offensive board and score.

744: Cook loses Marshall on the drive to the hoop. The ball is kicked out to Bullock for the J, which he misses as Seth runs at him. Quinn kinda runs at him too, but utterly fails to box out at all. Bullock follows his own shot, gets the offensive rebound and bucket. Bullock did get called for a charge on the play, but the hoop counted anyway. Quinn was pulled immediately following this play.

644: Rivers just got overpowered by Barnes for a weakside offensive rebound on a Zeller miss. Austin really wasn't in very good defensive position, so he was in poor box-out position, and didn't seem to try all that hard to rectify that situation. He just got pushed out of the way by the stronger Barnes. Barnes missed the follow, but he then outhustled Seth for another chance for the Heels. Thankfully, Marshall missed the J over Thornton. We're down 32-19 at this point.

(I forgot to write down time but we're down 39-20): Miles fails to box Zeller, who goes right over him to snag a Barnes miss. Luckily, Zeller missed the follow.

123: (we're now down 44-20) Rivers is totally lost on D, guarding nobody. Barnes misses a long jumper over Curry, but Hairston goes unmolested straight down Broadway for a putback slam.

That was all I had for the first half. I know there were a few more in the second half but I didn't write down the specifics, except for the last one, which occurred with about 3 minutes left and we're down 13.

There, Rivers forced Marshall to miss his jump shot, but Miles totally did not box. McAdoo came in practically untouched for the follow. Game over.

By my count, the main culprits in our failing to box out well in this game were Austin Rivers of the perimeter guys (three times) and Miles Plumlee of the bigs (three times). Miles really did not have a good game at all defensively as I'll discuss in another thread I'll be starting later, and he compounded it with these failures of fundamentals as well. Too bad, as not only was it his last game in Cameron, the opponent being UNC, but he played so well offensively and had such great energy all night. He just did not get the job done on the defensive end or on the defensive board, as much as I hate to say it.

[Greg_Newton]

Miles really did not have a good game at all defensively as I'll discuss in another thread I'll be starting later, and he compounded it with these failures of fundamentals as well. Too bad, as not only was it his last game in Cameron, the opponent being UNC, but he played so well offensively and had such great energy all night. He just did not get the job done on the defensive end or on the defensive board, as much as I hate to say it.

Interesting. This is surprising to hear, because he looked pretty good in my not-very-analytical viewing. I remember one play in particular when he turned the dreaded Kendall Marshall 2-on-1 situation around the rim into a steal by contesting the shot with one hand and deflecting the pass with the other.

However, I have a theory for why our perimeter guys struggle to box out/rebound so badly (other than their obvious size and athletic disadvantages). Take our Thornton-Curry-Rivers backcourt, for example - all three guards are pseudo-PGs, and all three guards bring the ball up at times. So, not only are they undersized and not used to boxing out the wing position, I've noticed their natural reaction is often to fade out for the outlet pass when a shot goes up, rather than box out and crash the boards for a rebound. Not a great mindset for all three of your guards to have.

[jv001]

Thanks tommy for your work on this. It looks like it was more a lack of FOCUS more than anything else against unc. This has been a problem much of the year. Let's hope we get focused for the next few weeks, because this season will soon be over. And I'm not saying it's over either. GoDuke!

[jv001]

Interesting. This is surprising to hear, because he looked pretty good in my not-very-analytical viewing. I remember one play in particular when he turned the dreaded Kendall Marshall 2-on-1 situation around the rim into a steal by contesting the shot with one hand and deflecting the pass with the other.

However, I have a theory for why our perimeter guys struggle to box out/rebound so badly (other than their obvious size and athletic disadvantages). Take our Thornton-Curry-Rivers backcourt, for example - all three guards are pseudo-PGs, and all three guards bring the ball up at times. So, not only are they undersized and not used to boxing out the wing position, I've noticed their natural reaction is often to fade out for the outlet pass when a shot goes up, rather than box out and crash the boards for a rebound. Not a great mindset for all three of your guards to have.

Yes and a lot of times our bigs are caught in negative rebound position because one of the perimeter players has been beaten off the dribble. GoDuke!

[tommy]

However, I have a theory for why our perimeter guys struggle to box out/rebound so badly (other than their obvious size and athletic disadvantages). Take our Thornton-Curry-Rivers backcourt, for example - all three guards are pseudo-PGs, and all three guards bring the ball up at times. So, not only are they undersized and not used to boxing out the wing position, I've noticed their natural reaction is often to fade out for the outlet pass when a shot goes up, rather than box out and crash the boards for a rebound. Not a great mindset for all three of your guards to have.

Interesting theory. I did see some of that fading out for the outlet in the UNC game, you're right. But I'd say that of those three guys you mention, the only one who is a natural point and, prior to this year anyway, played a whole lot of point, is Thornton. (Not sure about Seth at Liberty though, and I guess he did kinda share the point with Nolan last year.) Rivers and Curry have played off the ball, though, for a good chunk of their careers, wouldn't you say? And Thornton does not appear to be one of the primary culprits in terms of not blocking out. And your theory, which as I say, I can see some merit to, would not account for Dawkins and his failures to block out from the 2/3 position. Good thoughts though. Thanks.

[A-Tex Devil]

Carolina is a horrible matchup for us, period. Ty Thornon was the primary defender on Harrison Barnes and they are taller than us at every position 8 deep. Seems pretty simple. Just not our year against them in that phase of the game. It is also why 'Cuse doesn't have a shot against UNC, Kentucky or Ohio St if any of them brings their B+ game. Have to be able to get the defensive boards.

[uh_no]

Carolina is a horrible matchup for us, period. Ty Thornon was the primary defender on Harrison Barnes and they are taller than us at every position 8 deep. Seems pretty simple. Just not our year against them in that phase of the game. It is also why 'Cuse doesn't have a shot against UNC, Kentucky or Ohio St if any of them brings their B+ game. Have to be able to get the defensive boards.

I disagree, I think syracuse's zone could throw UNC and OSU fits (not so much UK)....now I don't think SU is as good as the media has made them out, but i don't think they have no shot. The zone makes good teams do very silly things sometimes, especially one as well done as cuses

[Greg_Newton]

Interesting theory. I did see some of that fading out for the outlet in the UNC game, you're right. But I'd say that of those three guys you mention, the only one who is a natural point and, prior to this year anyway, played a whole lot of point, is Thornton. (Not sure about Seth at Liberty though, and I guess he did kinda share the point with Nolan last year.) Rivers and Curry have played off the ball, though, for a good chunk of their careers, wouldn't you say? And Thornton does not appear to be one of the primary culprits in terms of not blocking out. And your theory, which as I say, I can see some merit to, would not account for Dawkins and his failures to block out from the 2/3 position. Good thoughts though. Thanks.

I do agree, but the fact is that Curry started off the season as our PG and Austin has brought the ball up/acted as a lead guard more and more lately. And at this point, while Thornton is probably the closest thing to our "PG", all three bring the ball up from time to time, especially in transition. At times against UNC, it seemed like more than one of them had the "fade and prepare for an outlet pass" mindset when a shot went up rather than "put a body on my man and attack the rebound".

I think we've got some more basic issues in terms of both boxing out and size/strength, but I don't think that the three-headed-monster at lead guard is a great thing for our defensive rebounding.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

This is also very possibly another communication issue. I was taught when a shot goes up that the defending player YELLS "shot" so that all other defenders (esp if they cannot see the shot going up) know to immediately put a body on their man. This is impossible to tell from watching but I would not be surprised. I mean if perimeter guys especially have their back to the basket and are focused on their defensive assignment, it's almost impossible for them to know a shot has gone up on the other side of the floor unless someone tells them. There is no excuse for big guys not boxing out. And I agree with the notion that our bigs are out of position at times due to guard penetration. But we have to help ourselves with this kind of communication since rebounding like all other elements must be a team effort.

[Edouble]

I mean if perimeter guys especially have their back to the basket and are focused on their defensive assignment, it's almost impossible for them to know a shot has gone up on the other side of the floor unless someone tells them.

Isn't "Ball-You-Man" a hallmark of solid D?

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Isn't "Ball-You-Man" a hallmark of solid D?

Sure but that doesn't mean you can see the shot go up. Whereas the offensive player easily can see it. That's why you yell "shot" when your man puts it up from outside. Remember, if we're playing solid D, the concept of man-me-basket also holds. So if you're on the weak side playing D, it can be hard to see the shot fast enough to box out effectively. My point is one of defensive communication which is important not just on picks, switches, cutters, etc., but also rebounding.

[UrinalCake]

I definitely think our guards are not accustomed to boxing out. Most teams don't send five guys to the offensive boards. The gamble in doing this is that if the defensive team gets the rebound, they have a good shot at a fast break. UNC was willing to take that risk, which was pretty smart since our fast-break offense is pretty awful and we probably didn't want to get into an up-and-down game with them. We need to either be more aware of this and have our guards really stick to their man, or take advantage of the few opportunities we when we do get the rebound and make them pay by tossing the ball down the court.

[trinity92]

Was it boxing out problems or a deliberate strategy?

During the first Carolina game, I thought we made a conscious decision to get back on transition D to stop Roy's preferred approach and to limit Marshall's effectiveness in that regard, even if it cost us rebounding at that end of the court. I was in a bit of a sad/angry (sangry?) fog during the last game, so I can't recall that well if we took the same approach.

Of course, that only explains difficulties on the offensive boards, not on the defensive end, but I do think we may have picked our poison a bit.

[Jderf]

Was it boxing out problems or a deliberate strategy?

During the first Carolina game, I thought we made a conscious decision to get back on transition D to stop Roy's preferred approach and to limit Marshall's effectiveness in that regard, even if it cost us rebounding at that end of the court. I was in a bit of a sad/angry (sangry?) fog during the last game, so I can't recall that well if we took the same approach.

Of course, that only explains difficulties on the offensive boards, not on the defensive end, but I do think we may have picked our poison a bit.

Only, we may have picked the wrong poison. This scenario would mean that we sacrificed boards so that we could get back in time to set up the defense, after which we then proceeded to not play any defense. Probably not the best strategy. Not that I have any better ideas.

[tommy]

I definitely think our guards are not accustomed to boxing out. Most teams don't send five guys to the offensive boards. The gamble in doing this is that if the defensive team gets the rebound, they have a good shot at a fast break. UNC was willing to take that risk, which was pretty smart since our fast-break offense is pretty awful and we probably didn't want to get into an up-and-down game with them. We need to either be more aware of this and have our guards really stick to their man, or take advantage of the few opportunities we when we do get the rebound and make them pay by tossing the ball down the court.

Your astute observations constitute more support for A-Tex's point that in many respects UNC is just a very bad matchup for us.

[A-Tex Devil]

I disagree, I think syracuse's zone could throw UNC and OSU fits (not so much UK)....now I don't think SU is as good as the media has made them out, but i don't think they have no shot. The zone makes good teams do very silly things sometimes, especially one as well done as cuses

I shouldn't have been so adamant, because, yes, if Carolina can't figure out the zone, then Syracuse could pull it out. That said, either Pomeroy or Palm (someone) pointed out that no team that is as bad at defensive rebounding as Syracuse is this year has ever won an NCAA tournamenT *GAME* much less gone very far in the tourney.

Obviously the zone hurts your ability to keep teams off of the offensive glass, and Syracuse is in the top 5 or 10 in turnovers forced, so that certainly mitigates some of it. But Carolina (and Ohio St. for that matter) will be playing volleyball on the backboards with their missed shots. If UNC can get shots off against the zone they are probably going to get a second chance opportunity more than half the time they miss a shot.

As far as our ability to keep Carolina off of the glass, I'll continue to contend that even if we were adequate at boxing out, we physically wouldn't be able to keep them off the offensive glass -- especially when our bigs come over to help.