MBB: Duke 71, Clemson 77: Post-game thread

[Kedsy]

It's been a while, but while Killingsworth had a big game my recollection is that we left Shelden on an island all night so that IU's perimeter players wouldn't go off. And it worked.

Not that it matters any 19 years later, but some of the big games against Shelden (or against any big man) may have been partly by design.

Absolutely, 100%. I totally agree and that's more or less what I said in my original post. My point was we shouldn't judge Maluach by the fact that a few opposing centers had big days. Because, for example, against Clemson, I assume our pre-game defensive mission was to shut down their three-point attempts, which we did (only 19.6% of their shots were threes against Duke, while against everybody else, 40.1% of their shots were threes). So we left Khaman on an island, too.

 

[Phredd3]

So we left Khaman on an island, too.

This is true, but it was actually more than that. We switched everything, so a fair amount of Lakhin's points came against a guard desperately trying to front him, and mostly without success. Leaving Maluach on an island is one thing, but he was fairly frequently on entirely the wrong island!

 

[Dr. Maturin]

Forcing teams to go one on one in the post is usually a pretty decent strategy. Post-ups are typically not the most efficient way to get good shots.

Also, there is the matter of trade offs. If you double the post, you can prevent post-ups, but it puts your defense in rotation and can give up open 3s. We rarely double the post, which does leave our bigs isolated. In some cases, like Lynn Kidd from Miami, you risk losing the battle so that you can win the war. Kidd scored 20 on us, but he did so in part by shooting 11 midrange jumpers. I know I'm a broken record on this, but forcing midrange jumpers is one of the most important things we can do on defense. Meanwhile, we were able to shut off the rest of Miami's offense and had a nice defensive outing despite what Kidd did.

Now, there is a good point above about how our switch-heavy defense can make the trade offs different. For the most part, we haven't gotten burned too often with guards switched on bigs, but Clemson was able to hurt us. Switching is a no-brainer against lightweight teams like UNC, but against a team with multiple post scorers, it's a tougher call. I imagine we'll do some things differently if we face Clemson in the ACCT. Also, I think it really hurt not to have Mason Gillis on Saturday. Of our wings, he's the best at defending bigger players.

 

[SkyBrickey]

Forcing teams to go one on one in the post is usually a pretty decent strategy. Post-ups are typically not the most efficient way to get good shots.

Also, there is the matter of trade offs. If you double the post, you can prevent post-ups, but it puts your defense in rotation and can give up open 3s. We rarely double the post, which does leave our bigs isolated. In some cases, like Lynn Kidd from Miami, you risk losing the battle so that you can win the war. Kidd scored 20 on us, but he did so in part by shooting 11 midrange jumpers. I know I'm a broken record on this, but forcing midrange jumpers is one of the most important things we can do on defense. Meanwhile, we were able to shut off the rest of Miami's offense and had a nice defensive outing despite what Kidd did.

Now, there is a good point above about how our switch-heavy defense can make the trade offs different. For the most part, we haven't gotten burned too often with guards switched on bigs, but Clemson was able to hurt us. Switching is a no-brainer against lightweight teams like UNC, but against a team with multiple post scorers, it's a tougher call. I imagine we'll do some things differently if we face Clemson in the ACCT. Also, I think it really hurt not to have Mason Gillis on Saturday. Of our wings, he's the best at defending bigger players.

Agree with all this. Lakhin put up another 22 points against the Heels last night. He was a 10ppg scorer on the season before facing us. Big guys can get hot just like shooters. It was not a bad strategy to focus our defense on stopping Hunter and Sheffelin. But I bet we will defend Clemson differently in the ACCT.

 

[cruxer]

If we play Clemson in the ACC tournament, I would expect the same sort of dynamics and difficulties we just experienced. I our favor, I would expect a more energetic Cooper, the return of Gillis and the better situation of playing on a neutral court. Since Clemson was also missing an important player, that would play in their favor. I would expect a very difficult return mattchup and would hope that Jon would find a way to use Khamran and Patrick to mitigate Clemson's inside advantage.

For those who have not been there, I cannot stress enough how tough an environment Littlejohn is when Clemson is good. I live in Greenville and I have gone to see Duke there a few times. I haven't seen them win. We took some good squads in but players like TMac and Greg Buckner made our lives exceedingly difficult. Give them hope and the crowd is absolutely wild. I even remember Bill Harder (who I played pickup games with/against at Furman when we were both students there) becoming Duke killers. I live close and have basically given up on going to our away games there.

Of course CU is legit this year and will challenge us if we meet in the tourney, but that won't be in Littlejohn which in my experience is a big challenge.

 

[gaap]

Yes, we would have never been in the situation where a Cooper "non-slip" could have won it had they hit their free throws. Their misses let us stay in the game at the end.

Seems like Clemson rebounded several of their missed FTs though.

 

[FastBreak]

Seems like Clemson rebounded several of their missed FTs though.

Good point. And makes our rebounding woes more concerning.