MBB: Duke 67, Campbell 56 Post-Game Thread

[Hartford Dukie]

Miles Plumlee made over 42M as an NBA player- not a bad disease if you can get it.

Miles actually made $55M during his NBA career according to Spotrac. He signed a four year deal worth $52M in 2016.

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/memphis-...plumlee-10851/

[CDu]

The question then, would be why we couldn't exercise a similar advantage on the other end of the floor.

And if the answer is that all mark is capable of doing is blocking shots on teams who try to go outside, then I still contend that mark needs to play better. I don't believe that's all he's capable of, and as the board admits, we have evidence that he can play better.

To give some context on their quality, campbell was worse than the worst team in the ACC last year (wake forest). I grant that they are experienced, but I simply cannot accept that a team who would (likely) still be worst in the ACC should be able to force such a drastic style change that the center on a national championship contender should be limited to 6 minutes. Given that's my premise, there are two possibilities:

1) the center is not playing up to the required level, or
2) the team is not good enough to enable the center to exercise the mismatch on the other end

Regardless, I would like to see Mark play better, to force himself onto the floor regardless of opponent. His ceiling is much too high to be on the bench for 34 minutes against a pint sized team.

I respectfully disagree with both the premise and the limitation of only two possibilities.

As for the premise, I just don’t think it is as easy as saying “the better team dictates the style.” Here, Moore went down on the first play and we fell behind. K decided that he wanted to change tactics after the first ten minutes (which was about when Moore came back in). I don’t think we can overlook that an injury forced a change of tactics in this game. And, more generally, flexibility to respond to the best plan against an opponent is a great skill. I think that was the biggest difference between K and, say, Roy. Roy was extremely good at developing a game plan within his system, but if it was not working he could not adjust. K made an adjustment early based on what he was seeing and the circumstances of Moore’s absence.

As for the two choices, let me add a third — that we have the talent to play many different styles effectively, and we have a coach that seeks to maximize the personnel and style to meet the challenge of the moment. It does not mean that the center was not playing well; his skill set was simply not the tool that K felt was best for the moment. Similarly, it does not mean that the team couldn’t have won with Mark — it was that K saw a different way he wanted to go.

Just my two cents, worth less every day these days.

Yeah, the only way that Williams could exploit the advantage on the offensive end would be if the team chose to run the offense through him. That is made much more difficult when the team plays a compact man-to-man (crowding the lane), and then made even more difficult by the reality that the offense with this group of players is never going to run through the center. Could we have done so? Sure. But it would have been a less efficient strategy than taking the open 3s (of which we hit about 40%) and running the offense through our NPoY candidate and our 3 perimeter playmakers.

As for the dictating of strategy, you can’t force a opponent to play through the post. They can always initiate offense farther from the hoop. So there was no dictating then into a style that maximized Williams defensively. On the other end, you CAN make it less efficient to play through the post. By sagging off shooters into a compact man-to-man or zone, you can crowd the lane and make it difficult to feed the post and make it difficult to move within the post.

We have the advantage though of not needing to run the offense through the post, and we have the advantage of being able to go small. So once we got Moore back, we went small and trounced Campbell 56-38 over the final 27 minutes, which is #1 team quality. Why try to force a square peg into a round hole when you find an approach that dominates?

We have the versatility to play many different styles this year. I would argue that potentially our best lineup by ACC play might be without a traditional big man on the floor, with Banchero at the 5 and Griffin at the 4. That team would be able to defend either big or small opponents, and would really unlock Banchero’s versatility. But we also have the good fortune of being able to go big, either with a more mobile big like John or a more post-oriented big like Williams. If Williams can be dominant in more traditional matchups and we can also dominate going small ball and still have the option to go to John as an in-between, then it doesn’t matter that Williams is more situationally useful.

[UrinalCake]

I totally agree that Paolo at the 5 is going to be a regular part of our rotation. To be honest, I'm suprised it took this long for us to see it (10 minutes into our third game). Perhaps one way of framing our consternation as fans is that we know K likes to play his five best players, and right now Mark is not part of that group. We all had high expectations for him coming into the season so that's disappointing, but it's also still so early that patience is warranted.

[Kedsy]

I totally agree that Paolo at the 5 is going to be a regular part of our rotation. To be honest, I'm suprised it took this long for us to see it (10 minutes into our third game). Perhaps one way of framing our consternation as fans is that we know K likes to play his five best players, and right now Mark is not part of that group. We all had high expectations for him coming into the season so that's disappointing, but it's also still so early that patience is warranted.

Which 5 players on Duke's team are currently better than Mark Williams?

[uh_no]

Which 5 players on Duke's team are currently better than Mark Williams?

paolo roach keels moore and savarino

Either way, it's exactly the fact that nobody else has demanded a place on their floor over williams that he needs to find ways to be effective against a wider variety of opponents. If our fifth best player is not serviceable to earn more than 6 minutes against campbell, then that's a problem.

Again to give context on campbell:
Their best win last year was #182 gardner webb. they lost to state by 19, and winthrop thrice, by totals of 1, 18, and 27.

These are not world beaters. After moore went down, williams should have, by this evaluation, been the 4th best player on the team, and we couldn't get him more than 6 minutes. Williams needs to do better to be effective in that situation.

And yes, I absolutely view his getting only 6 minutes as a message from K as much as a game necessity.

[CDu]

Which 5 players on Duke's team are currently better than Mark Williams?

Depends on the matchup. Against a team that plays 5-out and packs it in defensively? Then Baker or potentially Griffin is a better fit (as we saw Saturday night). Against normal teams? Williams is probably the 3rd- to 5th-best player. Banchero, Moore, Keels, and Roach are in pretty much any "best 5" lineup. From there, it depends on the matchup. Williams is a great option against more traditional bigs and teams that play 2 bigs. John might be the better option if the big is a super-mobile yet super physical big like Tshiebwe (thankfully, there aren't many of those around). But against teams that go 5-out, it's one of our wing/forwards that probably makes the most sense. Especially so if Griffin starts to figure things out, but also true if Baker keeps hitting 3s like he has the past 2 games.

[brevity]

During DBR Chat I wrote, "Did my eyes deceive me, or did Joey Baker channel Shane Battier for a split second?" after he made a well-timed offensive rebound (in a game where Duke did not have many). Duke didn't score on the possession, so it wouldn't appear in a highlight.

Surprisingly, I still found it. Go to about the 18:20 mark.



Whether intentional or not, that was some pretty crafty work from the senior.

[ClemmonsDevil]

During DBR Chat I wrote, "Did my eyes deceive me, or did Joey Baker channel Shane Battier for a split second?" after he made a well-timed offensive rebound (in a game where Duke did not have many). Duke didn't score on the possession, so it wouldn't appear in a highlight.

Surprisingly, I still found it. Go to about the 18:20 mark.



Whether intentional or not, that was some pretty crafty work from the senior.

It was intentional. He did it on the other end in the first half as well to tip a defensive rwbound to a teammate.

[UrinalCake]

During DBR Chat I wrote, "Did my eyes deceive me, or did Joey Baker channel Shane Battier for a split second?" after he made a well-timed offensive rebound (in a game where Duke did not have many). Duke didn't score on the possession, so it wouldn't appear in a highlight.

My fuzzy memory is that Shane's famous backwards tip in shot actually went into the basket, whereas Baker tipped it back out to a teammate for an offensive rebound. A nice play, but not the same thing. Also Shane's was in a title game so slightly higher stakes.

[BandAlum83]

I was on my computer and needed 2 things to see the game.

1. I have ESPN on my streaming service. That made me an authorized viewer for ACCNX

2. I opened a web browser and searched for ACCNX. One of the results gave me a listing of games showing on ACCNX.


I believe I could also have found the game by going to the ESPN App on my Apple TV or doing something similar on my iPhone/iPad.

Easy peasy and clear as mud!