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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington DC

    Phase IV - Wake 2 through Unc 1

    Duke has won its last four contests after giving up 96 points in disappointing fashion over in Raleigh. They made it through Phase II with a 5-1 record including big wins over FSU and at Miami.

    Health – Bolden has not played in the last 5 games with a grade 1 MCL sprain. DeLaurier missed three game last phase with a hamstring injury. Bagley suffered a separated should vs. Miami but apparently popped it back in himself. Missing Bolden and DeLaurier has caused Duke to both play smaller and to play Carter and Bagley more minutes to share the workload. Here’s hoping the team doesn’t have any more missed games the next 75 or so days.

    Defense – Coach K seems to have his team’s attention with regard to defensive effort, but it remains to be seen whether they can execute for long stretches and avoid slow starts, sloppiness and foul trouble. During the last phase they gave up 96 points in a loss to State and 93 points in a win vs FSU. They basically got into up and down games both times and tried to outscore the opponent rather than lock down on D to feed the offense.

    The good news is the last 10 minutes vs. Miami, Duke gave up only 16 points and got a lot of stops for come from behind win. Duke sits at #82 in the country for defensive efficiency on KenPom after starting this phase at #70. The focus is there at times, Coach K is rotating defense some, but focus wanes and lots of opponents are getting into the paint. I think two issues come to mind about the defense. First, starters are playing pretty heavy minutes and are young. That’s a recipe for foul trouble. Carter and Duval have both had early foul trouble limit minutes and effectiveness. Coaches have been working on moving feet rather than reaching.

    Second, playing at a faster pace has led to other teams running with us and getting more efficient shots in transition. I don’t know that we slow down, but hustling back on D and chasing shooters off the 3 point line will help on the margins, as well as avoiding live ball turnovers on offense that allow for run outs. At the end of the day, I expect Coach K will continue to rotate defenses, probably spend a lot of time on it in practice in the hopes of a March run. This team can outscore anybody. But that leaves little margin for error. If the defense can start games with the same energy it seemed to close out vs Miami, Texas, Florida, FSU then things will click. We have a ways to go and I think the starters have to just make up their collective minds to do it.

    Bagley – We are going to see defensive schemes aimed at pushing Bagley further out, draping a second defender on him and even playing him really physically. How will Duke adjust and still run a lot of offense through Marvin? What wrinkles can Coach K add?

    A faster pace will help Bagley get touches before the defense is set. But in the half court, K will need to run a few schemes for Bagley. He can use baseline screens to have Bagley pop up on the opposite block for a quick pass. He can use 3 point shooters as decoys for lobs and driving lanes. Coach K can also use Bagley as a decoy to open up the late or swing the ball around for 3’s. I expect defenses to go after Bagley and Allen, but we have run more of the offense through Marvin to date so it’s more likely the team will run some plays to counter the D.

    Duval – Duval is averaging 12 points and 6 assists. His shot has fallen a little more the last few weeks. His assist to turnover ratio is 118:49 or 2.40:1. He seems to recognize when he has mismatch and can get to the rim quickly. I think Bagley and Allen are going to be our 1-2 punch; but if this team is going to make the big leap and a title run, the Duval is the guy. He can be the quickest and fastest guy on both ends of the court. If he gets hot defensively, we are on another level.

    Offensive Rebounding – I have our offensive rebounding percentage at 45.977%. (280 o rebs / 609 missed FG’s). That’s good right!?

    3-Point Shooting – Allen is shooting .389 from 3-land on 126 attempts (6.6 per game). Trent is shooting .432 on 118 attempts (6.2 per game). Carter has shot well, and Bagley and Dual have hit here and there. If Allen breaks out of his current slump (11-42 this phase, 26%) then the team can put teams away. If both Allen and Trent finish this season over .400, then we should be happy.

    Maturity - The comeback wins make this less of an issue. Our young squad has fought back from double digit 2nd half deficits vs Texas, Florida, Miami and a more moderate deficit vs FSU. But they also played ole defense and got out-worked by BC and State, two out-classed opponents. We are getting to the point in the season where they should know how to take care of business. They have to put lesser teams away. I will be looking for growth in that department.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Norfolk, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by superdave View Post

    Defense – Coach K seems to have his team’s attention with regard to defensive effort, but it remains to be seen whether they can execute for long stretches and avoid slow starts, sloppiness and foul trouble. During the last phase they gave up 96 points in a loss to State and 93 points in a win vs FSU. They basically got into up and down games both times and tried to outscore the opponent rather than lock down on D to feed the offense.
    Developing defensive identity is an important item to keep an eye on this phase. The team needs to keep improving the man-to-man and zone defense in order to be able to throw multiple looks at opponents.
    Bob Green

  3. #3
    Thanks, Dave. Always nice to get a well crafted phase post.

    Quote Originally Posted by superdave View Post
    Offensive Rebounding – I have our offensive rebounding percentage at 45.977%. (280 o rebs / 609 missed FG’s). That’s good right!?
    Not quite right. You're missing missed free throws. Offensive rebounding percentage is the percentage of available rebounds, so you use the sum of our offensive boards plus opposing defensive boards (395) as the denominator. The team's current season OR% is therefore 41.5%. Which is still really good. If it holds up, it would be the 2nd best Duke OR% performance since they started keeping track of offensive rebounds in 1987 (the 1999 team had an OR% of 44.3%; the 1990 team got 40.9% and the 2010 team got 40.6%).

    Quote Originally Posted by superdave View Post
    Maturity - The comeback wins make this less of an issue. Our young squad has fought back from double digit 2nd half deficits vs Texas, Florida, Miami and a more moderate deficit vs FSU.
    Crazily enough, this Duke team has faced second-half deficits in 9 of our 19 games. The fact that we've won 7 of those 9 to me seems pretty good.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    Thanks, Dave. Always nice to get a well crafted phase post.



    Not quite right. You're missing missed free throws.
    Well, Duval is the answer to missed free throws!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Winston Salem, NC
    Bagley has been so good that we tend to overlook Wendell. With the added attention from our opponents to Marvin, I look for more assists for MBIII. The recipient of those assists could be Carter and even Grayson for the three ball. Let's make them pay for double teams on Marvin. Good phase. GoDuke!

  6. #6
    Great write up! To be clear, Phase IV consists of:

    • (1/23) @ Wake Forest [92]
    • (1/27) Virginia [3]
    • (1/29) Notre Dame [31]
    • (2/3) @ St. John's [85]
    • (2/8) @ UNC [9]


    KenPom rankings are in brackets. That's a tricky five game stretch. Three games on the road and a quick turnaround on the home games. Plus a rivalry match on the road. No truly bad teams to be seen.

  7. #7

    Devopment of our rotation

    With both Bolden and DeLaurier out for several games our rotation was altered to some degree. Our starters are excellent, but they also need support in the case of fatigue and/or foul trouble. Before the recent injury issues, it looked like our first big man in was Delaurier and our first perimeter player off the bench was O'Connell. While others have shown some merit, I believe these are still the 6th and 7th men depending on need. Clearly Bolden would be a plus to have particularly against bigger physical teams. Goldwire is okay as a short term sub at PG.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington DC

    Defense

    The team is now #58 in defensive efficiency per KenPom. That's a pretty good improvement from the 80's a month or so ago.

    Per Kedsy's tracking thread, here's the last handful of games in efficiency -

    Pitt 0.82
    Wake 0.90
    Miami 0.93
    Pitt 0.85
    Wake 0.96
    Virginia 0.99

    Something has changed, but what?

    Vs Virginia we saw a 3/4 court press knock off the UVA rhythm. We also saw our guys willing to give up elbow jumpers in order to protect the rim more. Vs Miami we saw a solid zone in the second half really have the guys active on defense. Is it about scheme or game planning or just effort and focus? I think switching between man and zone contributes heavily to the focus thing, especially with 4 freshmen.

    Since the State debacle, are we seeing this team lock in and get better? It seems they may have turned a corner. Hoping this trend continues.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by superdave View Post
    Vs Miami we saw a solid zone in the second half really have the guys active on defense. Is it about scheme or game planning or just effort and focus? I think switching between man and zone contributes heavily to the focus thing, especially with 4 freshmen.
    I rewatched the second half of yesterday's game. Our zone flummoxed Virginia for awhile too, allowing us to make the big comeback. But eventually they caught up to it. It's possible our 2-3 zone is only good for about 8 or 10 minutes before it needs to be switched to something else.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    NC

    Duval and Allen are struggling

    I've been a big proponent of Duval's throughout this season, but I think it's fair to say that he is really struggling right now. Over his last 5 games, he is averaging 7.2 ppg, 5.6 apg, and 3.2 turnovers per game (assist/turnover ratio of 1.75), while shooting just 37% from the field and 46% from the FT line.

    Strangely, he's actually shooting 3s well in this time frame, at 50% on 8 attempts. But he's basically doing everything else pretty inefficiently at the moment, shooting just 33% from 2pt range, 46% from the line, and turning it over a bit too much.

    Unfortunately, our senior second-option at PG isn't playing any better offensively over this period. He's averaging 9 ppg, 4.4 apg, and 2.6 turnovers per game (assist/turnover ratio of 1.69), while shooting just 30% from the field.

    We are currently winning in spite of the offensive contributions from our guards. And yesterday, if either guy had played decently offensively, we probably win.

    That's not to bash these guys. Allen has certainly contributed on the other end in this stretch, averaging 2.2 steals per game. But we probably need at least one of our perimeter guys to play well offensively for us to win against good teams. And right now, both are struggling. Hopefully they rebound soon.

    Yesterday's loss accentuated these two player's struggles, in part because it also marked a rare poor game for Trent. His absurd efficiency over the previous 4 games had masked the offensive struggles by our guards. But when all 3 guys have a bad game, it really puts a strain on the offense. Especially against a good defense. Thankfully, Bagley and Carter were magnificent and UVa was missing more shots than usual. But I think if this team is going to win games in late-March/early-April, I think we're going to need at least 1.5 of the 3 perimeter guys to play well offensively.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    I rewatched the second half of yesterday's game. Our zone flummoxed Virginia for awhile too, allowing us to make the big comeback. But eventually they caught up to it. It's possible our 2-3 zone is only good for about 8 or 10 minutes before it needs to be switched to something else.
    Yea our zone works ok when the opponent in the middle can’t hit a 12-15 foot shot - like UVA for much of 2nd half. Switching up is better if our guys don’t get lost doing it.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by arnie View Post
    Yea our zone works ok when the opponent in the middle can’t hit a 12-15 foot shot - like UVA for much of 2nd half. Switching up is better if our guys don’t get lost doing it.
    In all honesty, I can't decide if our defense gets credit for those misses or if UVa gets the blame.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by arnie View Post
    Yea our zone works ok when the opponent in the middle can’t hit a 12-15 foot shot - like UVA for much of 2nd half. Switching up is better if our guys don’t get lost doing it.
    The 12 to 15 foot shots (which to me looked more like 15 to 18 foot shots) they didn't hit were flat-footed, out-of-rhythm, long two-pointers by their worst shooter. Part of defense is forcing the shot you want, and you can't ask for better shots (for the defense) than those.

    I think you're underestimating our zone. It was very effective for that 8-minute period (as it was against Miami for approximately an 8-minute period). After that, it seemed like maybe they figured it out, but it still wasn't terrible. Much better than you're suggesting, anyway.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    The 12 to 15 foot shots (which to me looked more like 15 to 18 foot shots) they didn't hit were flat-footed, out-of-rhythm, long two-pointers by their worst shooter. Part of defense is forcing the shot you want, and you can't ask for better shots (for the defense) than those.

    I think you're underestimating our zone. It was very effective for that 8-minute period (as it was against Miami for approximately an 8-minute period). After that, it seemed like maybe they figured it out, but it still wasn't terrible. Much better than you're suggesting, anyway.
    Slight caveat here. None of those misses were by their worst shooter. That would be Salt. There were 3 by Wilkins and 1 by Hunter, who would have been the second-worst shooter on the floor though neither is really a bad shooter. But the majority of the missed shots were by their 3 good shooters. Jerome missed a jumper, Hall missed a jumper, and the rest of the missed shots were 3s by Hall, Guy, and Jerome.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    Slight caveat here. None of those misses were by their worst shooter. That would be Salt. There were 3 by Wilkins and 1 by Hunter, who would have been the second-worst shooter on the floor though neither is really a bad shooter. But the majority of the missed shots were by their 3 good shooters. Jerome missed a jumper, Hall missed a jumper, and the rest of the missed shots were 3s by Hall, Guy, and Jerome.
    Raftery seemed baffled by the misses during the game too. He said over and over "that's the shot Virginia wants!" immediately before it would clank.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    Slight caveat here. None of those misses were by their worst shooter. That would be Salt. There were 3 by Wilkins and 1 by Hunter, who would have been the second-worst shooter on the floor though neither is really a bad shooter. But the majority of the missed shots were by their 3 good shooters. Jerome missed a jumper, Hall missed a jumper, and the rest of the missed shots were 3s by Hall, Guy, and Jerome.
    OK, except Salt is better than Wilkins at tS% (.604 to .534) and eFG% (.627 to .495), and they're even at 2-point-jumper shooting% (40.0% to 40.7%). Also, the missed jumpers by Jerome, Hunter, and Hall were all after we tied the game at 39 (and at a time when we'd been playing the zone for approximately 8 minutes). Finally, Hall and Jerome, while good shooters overall, still don't top 40% on two-point jumpers. We were forcing inefficient shots, which was my point.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    OK, except Salt is better than Wilkins at tS% (.604 to .534) and eFG% (.627 to .495), and they're even at 2-point-jumper shooting% (40.0% to 40.7%).
    Come on, Keds, you're better than that. TS% and eFG% are measures of success on the shots taken, not measures of how good a shooter you are. Salt is a career 47% FT shooter and has never been allowed to shoot a 3. Wilkins is a career 66% FT shooter (72% the past two seasons) who is allowed to shoot 3s and has hit 32% on 3s. I think it's fairly safe to say Wilkins is a MUCH better shooter than Salt, and that his jumper % is on much more difficult shots.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    Also, the missed jumpers by Jerome, Hunter, and Hall were all after we tied the game at 39 (and at a time when we'd been playing the zone for approximately 8 minutes). Finally, Hall and Jerome, while good shooters overall, still don't top 40% on two-point jumpers. We were forcing inefficient shots, which was my point.
    No, they weren't. Jerome's miss was at 13:23 (before Hunter's miss). Hall's was at 12:12. Both were within any reasonable 8 minute stretch. And again, they missed a bunch of 3s in that stretch. More missed 3s (4) than misses by Wilkins (3) in fact. And in the first 8 minutes of the second half, twice as many misses by Guy, Hall, and Jerome (6) than by Wilkins. And again, Wilkins isn't actually a bad shooter. He isn't elite like Guy/Jerome/Hall, but he's definitely solid.

    I'm not saying the defense was bad. But I am saying you're overstating things by saying that their misses were by their worst shooter. They weren't. It's not even true that most of their misses were by their second worst shooter.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    No, they weren't. Jerome's miss was at 13:23 (before Hunter's miss). Hall's was at 12:12. Both were within any reasonable 8 minute stretch. And again, they missed a bunch of 3s in that stretch. More missed 3s (4) than misses by Wilkins (3) in fact. And in the first 8 minutes of the second half, twice as many misses by Guy, Hall, and Jerome (6) than by Wilkins. And again, Wilkins isn't actually a bad shooter. He isn't elite like Guy/Jerome/Hall, but he's definitely solid.

    I'm not saying the defense was bad. But I am saying you're overstating things by saying that their misses were by their worst shooter. They weren't. It's not even true that most of their misses were by their second worst shooter.
    I thought the threes they took were well-covered. But it's not particularly relevant when the post to which I originally responded mentioned 12-15 foot shots only.

    Also, I said that all three of those (non-Wilkins) jumpers came after we tied the game at 39, which is absolutely true. And if you don't think that at the 12:12 mark, we'd been playing zone "for approximately 8 minutes," I'm not sure why we're talking. Finally, Jerome and Hall both shoot two-point jumpers worse than 40%, so letting them shoot from there is still just about the best thing we can get from a defensive possession.

    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    I think it's fairly safe to say Wilkins is a MUCH better shooter than Salt, and that his jumper % is on much more difficult shots.
    Salt is shooting 40% on two-point jumpers this year (per Hoop-Math). Wilkins is shooting 40.7% on two-point jumpers this year. How can you tell Wilkins's jumpers were on "much more difficult shots"?

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    Also, I said that all three of those (non-Wilkins) jumpers came after we tied the game at 39, which is absolutely true. And if you don't think that at the 12:12 mark, we'd been playing zone "for approximately 8 minutes," I'm not sure why we're talking.
    Of all people, you probably shouldn't be making the "why are we arguing technicalities" statement. (and to be fair, I'm right there with you on that issue). We both are quite well-known for this.

    But you said they were both after 8 minutes of play. One was after ~6.5 minutes, one was after just short of 8 minutes. Neither was actually after 8 minutes, and one was especially not.

    It is absolutely true that they came after we tied it up. But at least one came very much within the 8-minute stretch of good defense. If you want to change it to a 6-minute stretch (which is the actual stretch it took to tie it up), then fine by me.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    Salt is shooting 40% on two-point jumpers this year (per Hoop-Math). Wilkins is shooting 40.7% on two-point jumpers this year. How can you tell Wilkins's jumpers were on "much more difficult shots"?
    Seriously? If one guy shoots substantially higher percentages on FTs, and is allowed to shoot 3s (where he is a career 32% shooter) where the other guy isn't allowed to take them, I don't think it takes a great leap of faith to assume that his 40.7% is on tougher looks than Salt's 40%. Also note that Salt has just 9.8% of his FGAs on 2pt jumpers (90.2% of his shots are at the rim), whereas Wilkins has over 50% of his on 2pt jumpers. But, no, I'm sure you're right that they really are comparable shooters and not that it is a combination of small sample size anomaly for Salt and tougher shots for Wilkins.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    But you said they were both after 8 minutes of play.
    Actually I didn't. If you're going to be technical you should be accurate. I said the non-Wilkins shots were taken, "at a time when we'd been playing the zone for approximately 8 minutes."

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