tommy
03-06-2012, 11:36 PM
Well, it is not exactly breaking news that we struggled mightily on defense against the Tar Heels on Saturday night. As a number of posters in the post-game thread talked about Andre Dawkins and his lack of PT and whether that was related to his defense, I'm going to put some more Andre-specific information in another thread.
When I went back and charted this game, I realized immediately something I had not been aware of when watching it live: UNC scored on its first nine -- nine! -- possessions of the game. Obviously they got off to a great start against us, but I didn't realize they were 9 for 9 (possessions, not 9 for 9 shooting) at the first TV timeout. And their buckets came in a variety of ways. Zeller on individual post moves; jumpers by Barnes and Zeller and Marshall and Bullock -- some due to defensive breakdowns, some just jumpers over our defenders who were in decent position; layups. They had 9 successful trips before we got our first defensive rebound. Wow.
We then righted the ship somewhat, but the damage was done, as our getting torched at the defensive end obviously caused us to tighten up offensively as we missed opportunity after opportunity and the margin just grew and grew. There was another stretch late in the first half where UNC scored on 5 of 6 possessions, and they scored on their last four possessions before halftime. Then in the second half, from just before the 16 minute timeout almost until the 12 minute TO, they had a stretch where they scored on 8 of 10 possessions. And again, at the end of the game they scored on their last 6 possessions. Obviously, you just can't have that many long stretches where you're not getting stops.
There was plenty of blame to go around. As you'll soon be able to see in the full chart over at dukehoopblog.com, our team's overall defensive rating was north of 106, which is pretty high, even for us. The guy who struggled the most, when these numbers are considered, was Miles Plumlee. He was very active, to be sure, and came with great energy to his last appearance in Cameron, but he just got beaten all night. He gave up eight baskets and was partially responsible for a ninth -- by far the most in any game this year. He was beaten one-on-one in the post by Zeller; by Henson on step-out jumpers, and by his own failure to block out, as I detailed in a separate thread.
Again, I'll discuss Andre in another thread, but his DRating was very high as well - 109.6, and Quinn Cook's was worse, at 111.6. Quinn just couldn't stop penetration, a continuing theme for him this year, as in only 13 minutes I charted him getting beaten off the dribble three times. And he gave up three hoops in that short time on the floor.
The best defensive numbers belonged to Seth Curry and Ryan Kelly. Mason's numbers were poor, so Ryan's numbers really stood out as being the best of the bigs. He only gave up 2.5 hoops and forced 2 turnovers in 28 minutes. Austin Rivers' numbers were not far off, and he was involved in a ton of plays. Not only was he active, but UNC appeared to be targeting him too, in an attempt to wear him down. Thornton's numbers were just slightly north of Seth's, and I give Ty a lot of credit here, as he had to guard the much bigger and stronger Barnes for much of his time on the floor.
In terms of stop %, the numbers are not pretty, as one would expect. Here they are:
Stops
Hoops
Stop%
Curry
23
33
41%
Rivers
25
36
41%
Dawkins
7
15
32%
Mason
12
27
31%
Thornton
16
23
41%
Kelly
20
27
43%
Miles
20
24
45%
Cook
7
13
35%
Gbinije
0
1
0%
Hairston
0
2
0%
TEAM
26
40
39.4%
Pretty bad, obviously. I can't believe that we fared as badly as we did with Mason on the floor, but we did. UNC scored on 69% of its possessions when Mason was out there. Wow.
I do find interesting that, despite his worst-on-the-team DRating, the team actually did best in terms of getting stops when Miles was on the floor. Little hard to interpret that. I guess it could be that when Miles' man wasn't directly involved in the play, he was providing good help defense and communication -- and I did see some of that -- which helped us get stops.
I think this is going to be the last game that I chart for this year. The postseason games just come too fast and furious and I won't be able to keep up with them, and plus, I feel like we've gained the information we're going to gain from it. I did want to post a cumulative stop% chart here though for those of you interested in it. And over on dukehoopblog, I will get around to posting a cumulative Defensive Rating chart there hopefully soon. That'll be interesting to see, I think. This stop% charting includes all games since the Western Michigan game, with the exception of Penn, NC State (no TV access for me) and the home OT game vs. Va Tech (I just never got around to doing that one and don't feel like it now!). Anyway, the cumulative numbers for almost all the games starting with Western Michigan on December 30 are as follows:
Stops
Hoops
Stop%
Curry
439
398
52.4%
Rivers
522
460
53.2%
Dawkins
308
300
50.7%
Mason
387
382
50.3%
Thornton
303
274
52.5%
Kelly
402
353
53.2%
Miles
314
281
52.8%
Cook
213
183
53.8%
Gbinije
38
51
42.7%
Hairston
95
80
54.3%
TEAM
606
550
52.4%
When I went back and charted this game, I realized immediately something I had not been aware of when watching it live: UNC scored on its first nine -- nine! -- possessions of the game. Obviously they got off to a great start against us, but I didn't realize they were 9 for 9 (possessions, not 9 for 9 shooting) at the first TV timeout. And their buckets came in a variety of ways. Zeller on individual post moves; jumpers by Barnes and Zeller and Marshall and Bullock -- some due to defensive breakdowns, some just jumpers over our defenders who were in decent position; layups. They had 9 successful trips before we got our first defensive rebound. Wow.
We then righted the ship somewhat, but the damage was done, as our getting torched at the defensive end obviously caused us to tighten up offensively as we missed opportunity after opportunity and the margin just grew and grew. There was another stretch late in the first half where UNC scored on 5 of 6 possessions, and they scored on their last four possessions before halftime. Then in the second half, from just before the 16 minute timeout almost until the 12 minute TO, they had a stretch where they scored on 8 of 10 possessions. And again, at the end of the game they scored on their last 6 possessions. Obviously, you just can't have that many long stretches where you're not getting stops.
There was plenty of blame to go around. As you'll soon be able to see in the full chart over at dukehoopblog.com, our team's overall defensive rating was north of 106, which is pretty high, even for us. The guy who struggled the most, when these numbers are considered, was Miles Plumlee. He was very active, to be sure, and came with great energy to his last appearance in Cameron, but he just got beaten all night. He gave up eight baskets and was partially responsible for a ninth -- by far the most in any game this year. He was beaten one-on-one in the post by Zeller; by Henson on step-out jumpers, and by his own failure to block out, as I detailed in a separate thread.
Again, I'll discuss Andre in another thread, but his DRating was very high as well - 109.6, and Quinn Cook's was worse, at 111.6. Quinn just couldn't stop penetration, a continuing theme for him this year, as in only 13 minutes I charted him getting beaten off the dribble three times. And he gave up three hoops in that short time on the floor.
The best defensive numbers belonged to Seth Curry and Ryan Kelly. Mason's numbers were poor, so Ryan's numbers really stood out as being the best of the bigs. He only gave up 2.5 hoops and forced 2 turnovers in 28 minutes. Austin Rivers' numbers were not far off, and he was involved in a ton of plays. Not only was he active, but UNC appeared to be targeting him too, in an attempt to wear him down. Thornton's numbers were just slightly north of Seth's, and I give Ty a lot of credit here, as he had to guard the much bigger and stronger Barnes for much of his time on the floor.
In terms of stop %, the numbers are not pretty, as one would expect. Here they are:
Stops
Hoops
Stop%
Curry
23
33
41%
Rivers
25
36
41%
Dawkins
7
15
32%
Mason
12
27
31%
Thornton
16
23
41%
Kelly
20
27
43%
Miles
20
24
45%
Cook
7
13
35%
Gbinije
0
1
0%
Hairston
0
2
0%
TEAM
26
40
39.4%
Pretty bad, obviously. I can't believe that we fared as badly as we did with Mason on the floor, but we did. UNC scored on 69% of its possessions when Mason was out there. Wow.
I do find interesting that, despite his worst-on-the-team DRating, the team actually did best in terms of getting stops when Miles was on the floor. Little hard to interpret that. I guess it could be that when Miles' man wasn't directly involved in the play, he was providing good help defense and communication -- and I did see some of that -- which helped us get stops.
I think this is going to be the last game that I chart for this year. The postseason games just come too fast and furious and I won't be able to keep up with them, and plus, I feel like we've gained the information we're going to gain from it. I did want to post a cumulative stop% chart here though for those of you interested in it. And over on dukehoopblog, I will get around to posting a cumulative Defensive Rating chart there hopefully soon. That'll be interesting to see, I think. This stop% charting includes all games since the Western Michigan game, with the exception of Penn, NC State (no TV access for me) and the home OT game vs. Va Tech (I just never got around to doing that one and don't feel like it now!). Anyway, the cumulative numbers for almost all the games starting with Western Michigan on December 30 are as follows:
Stops
Hoops
Stop%
Curry
439
398
52.4%
Rivers
522
460
53.2%
Dawkins
308
300
50.7%
Mason
387
382
50.3%
Thornton
303
274
52.5%
Kelly
402
353
53.2%
Miles
314
281
52.8%
Cook
213
183
53.8%
Gbinije
38
51
42.7%
Hairston
95
80
54.3%
TEAM
606
550
52.4%