MBB: Duke 69 Arizona 55 Postgame Thread

duke79 said:
I'm sure it was a much more pleasant plane ride back from Arizona, after such a resounding win. Does the Duke team fly charter?
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They should be going straight to Vegas. Seems pointless to travel all the way back to Durham only to turn around tomorrow and fly back out west. The travel and time changes would be rough.

As far as the game, that was very impressive! Loved seeing Cooper take over, obviously he can't do it on is own all the time but it's great to have a go-to guy that can deliver. I think the end of the UK game served him well.
 
Probably the most impressive thing I saw last night (OK, I didn't see it until this morning) was our defensive cohesion. Players were talking to each other constantly, and the timing on initial switches and switch-backs was the kind of play you don't often see from team that is still very early in its first season together. Every now and then, you'd see one player redirect another, and it was virtually always in plenty of time to meet the challenge. I was just so impressed by how much of a rehearsed, defensive UNIT we were, rather than a bunch of solo players just guarding their own guy. There were precious few one-on-one breakdowns that didn't get swallowed up by a teammate.

Really impressive work on that end of the floor.
 
Phredd3 said:
Probably the most impressive thing I saw last night (OK, I didn't see it until this morning) was our defensive cohesion. Players were talking to each other constantly, and the timing on initial switches and switch-backs was the kind of play you don't often see from team that is still very early in its first season together. Every now and then, you'd see one player redirect another, and it was virtually always in plenty of time to meet the challenge. I was just so impressed by how much of a rehearsed, defensive UNIT we were, rather than a bunch of solo players just guarding their own guy. There were precious few one-on-one breakdowns that didn't get swallowed up by a teammate.

Really impressive work on that end of the floor.
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There were a couple/several times in the first half when the defender when under the ball screen and Bradley made us pay. He's a good player. We stopped a lot of that in the second half.
 
evrim said:
I had my friends over to watch the game and we watched two NBA games before and they were seriously unwatchable. So I respectfully disagree whole heartedly. Almost zero defense, it's all about jacking up threes and almost no soul to the play.
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1000%. Playing style (Every team runs the same sets), load management, player salaries, optional defense, politics. Ratings have tanked since Jordan left and basically have no audience anymore. The NBA is closer to the NHL in popularity than the NFL.
 
jv001 said:
Well, Tyrese had 4 assists and 2 turnovers. Caleb didn't distribute but didn't turn it over. He had zero TOs and zero assists. Kon had 3 assists and 1 turnover and James had 2 and 2. The turnover trouble came from Cooper with 3 assists and 4 turnovers and Maliq 3 assists and 3 turnovers. Seven turnovers from those two.
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You expect Flagg to have a lot of turnovers based on how much he handles the ball. I absolutely love Brown's defense and rebounding, but he is turnover prone.

Per barttorvik, the average turnover % is 17.9. Flagg is slightly better than average at 17.1. Brown checks it at 43.8. This ranks fourth worst in the country for those playing at least 50% of their team's minutes (and at least 4 games played). While Brown has made some nifty passes, his assist/TO ratio is 0.9 (Flagg is at 1.4).
 
gaap said:
You expect Flagg to have a lot of turnovers based on how much he handles the ball. I absolutely love Brown's defense and rebounding, but he is turnover prone.

Per barttorvik, the average turnover % is 17.9. Flagg is slightly better than average at 17.1. Brown checks it at 43.8. This ranks fourth worst in the country for those playing at least 50% of their team's minutes (and at least 4 games played). While Brown has made some nifty passes, his assist/TO ratio is 0.9 (Flagg is at 1.4).
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Brown's to rate last yr was 17.1 on similar usage. I would expect it to come down some.
 
I want to mention that I think Maluach's handling of the pick and roll on defense is very good for a freshman with his little amount of experience. He appears to hedge very well.
 
Maged said:
I want to mention that I think Maluach's handling of the pick and roll on defense is very good for a freshman with his little amount of experience. He appears to hedge very well.
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He seems to understand the game despite being new to it. Maybe because he is newer to it and learned at an academy and Duke, he doesn't have the bad habits. Kind of learning English as a foreigner - you learn the basics. I am VERY impressed by this young man.
 
Maged said:
I want to mention that I think Maluach's handling of the pick and roll on defense is very good for a freshman with his little amount of experience. He appears to hedge very well.
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A couple of times he ended up on a guard on the perimeter. He did a good job and Arizona missed two jumpers, but got the offensive rebounds and scored. To me, it showed valuable Khaman is around the basket.
 
Catching up on the thread, a few additional thoughts... I'm not sure AZ is overrated. I thought their D was very stiff - better than Kentucky's. They were able to take away most all our open 3s while still giving resistance on every drive and at the rim.

And that brings me to maybe the most underreported storyline of the night. Proctor and friends held the PAC12 POY to 3-13 from the field. He's a great player. Our defense was just that good.

Gillis had a rough 6 minutes but I'm not ready to write us down to a 7.5 man rotation. We need him to come in and play a solid 10-15mpg to give Kon/Cooper more of a breather. I hope to see this Tuesday night.
 
Metrics

Sorry all, between the late start last night, hockey practice for CDu Jr this morning, Thanksgiving shopping, and watching the game (finally), I'm just now getting to the metrics.

Not a thing of beauty offensively, but an absolutely dominant defensive performance made this one a comfortable win. Whenever you can do that on the road against a ranked team (I don't know where Arizona will finish, but they won't be bad for sure), that's a positive. In what was the first true road game for the three freshmen that played? Even more impressive.

OFFENSE
Possessions: 67.7 (a medium-to-slow pace)
oRtg: 101.9 (112.6 adjusted; would be #49 in the country, though again way too early to truly assess adjusted ratings)
eFG%: 50.0% (meh)
3pt%: 36.0% (okay)
2pt%: 47.2% (not great)
%threes: 40.9% (normal)
FT rate: 21.3% (awful; this is what happens when you shoot a bunch of 3s)
OR%: 35.1% (very good, especially given the opponent)
TO%: 20.7% (okay)
a/to: 1.07 (not great)
%assisted: 57.7% (high)
fast break pts: 12 (okay)

DEFENSE
dRtg: 81.2 (75.6 adjusted; would be by a mile #1 in the country, though still too early to say much about that)
eFG%: 45.3% (solid)
3pt%: 26.1% (strong)
2pt%: 50.0% (okay)
%threes: 43.4% (high; but given how big they are and how well the rebound, this was probably a plus for us strategically)
FT rate: 20.8% (strong)
DR%: 83.3% (outstanding, especially given the opponent)
TO%: 22.2% (decent)
a/to: 1.07 (solid)
%assisted: 76.2% (VERY high)
stl%: 13.3% (solid)
blk%: 11.1% (2pt shots) (solid)
fast break pts: 6 (very good)

Arizona is an elite rebounding team on both ends, and a team that likes to play at a high pace. We outrebounded them comfortably, and held them to a fairly pedestrian pace. Being able to control the boards and the tempo, on the road, against a solid-to-good opponent, is pretty darn impressive. As I said above, winning by double-digits even without your "fastball" working on offense is a good game. If this team can defend well (and they've done so in every game so far), they should do quite well. I imagine the offense will improve with time. But it's nice to have a solid floor with this defense.

Two big games coming over the next 11 days. If they can win both (they're favored in both), it will set the team up nicely for a top-tier seed come tourney time. Even if they split those two, it'll still put them in good shape overall.
 
CDu said:
Metrics

DEFENSE
dRtg: 81.2 (75.6 adjusted; would be by a mile #1 in the country, though still too early to say much about that)
eFG%: 45.3% (solid)
3pt%: 26.1% (strong)
2pt%: 50.0% (okay)
%threes: 43.4% (high; but given how big they are and how well the rebound, this was probably a plus for us strategically)
FT rate: 20.8% (strong)
DR%: 83.3% (outstanding, especially given the opponent)
TO%: 22.2% (decent)
a/to: 1.07 (solid)
%assisted: 76.2% (VERY high)
stl%: 13.3% (solid)
blk%: 11.1% (2pt shots) (solid)
fast break pts: 6 (very good)
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You've used this or similar phrases after almost every game this year. Not to be facetious, but at what point does it stop being too early to tell?
 
gillmic said:
This. Last year, Flip was constantly whining to the refs (and his body language was a distraction to the team). Cooper shows none of that; Coop is stoic and is very even keeled...I love it.
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vis-a-vis some of the I Hate Duke t-shirts we saw in the crowd, we were discussing whether or not Flagg will become the next highly hated Duke player, but it seems (as you say) that all he does is play hard and make a ton of good plays. Not fruitful hating material. He is white, though, so there's that.
 
budwom said:
vis-a-vis some of the I Hate Duke t-shirts we saw in the crowd, we were discussing whether or not Flagg will become the next highly hated Duke player, but it seems (as you say) that all he does is play hard and make a ton of good plays. Not fruitful hating material. He is white, though, so there's that.
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Cooper is too undeniably good and emotionally contained to draw the same level of ire expended on Hurley, Laettner, JJ, Grayson, etc…
 
I'll echo the positive thoughts being presented for both Brown and James. They are so very important to this team. Brown is SOOOO disruptive defensively. I can't think of anyone who has a better innate sense of timing on reach-ins. He is such a pest, it's wonderful. And James is such a nice, reliable presence on the offensive end. His strength and physicality are very important for us.

Having said that, the freshmen deserve a fair bit of love as well. They have more than held their own so far. Flagg and Knueppel are still working out the kinks of how to get efficient looks at the basket against better defenses, but they've been pretty darn good even as they learn.
 
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