Happy New Year my lovely UVa hoops enthusiasts!
This was about as interesting of a game as I could have expected in a 24-point blowout at home against a bad team. Level of competition is always important to consider and, despite Louisville being a historically great team and an ACC conference opponent, they’re currently Kenpom’s 205th ranked team; putting them behind Northeastern in terms of quality of opponent, and well behind Tarleton St. Still, we tried some new lineups, utilized some players in different ways and, probably most importantly, most of our guys just looked more comfortable and played better than they have recently; even than they did against Morgan St.
It’s the kind of game that makes you re-examine your priors. Specifically, with regard to Taine Murray. The past several games, during the Memphis game really, have seen an uptick in Murray minutes and, if you’ve been reading these pieces, you’ll know that I’ve been calling for much less of that and much more Gertrude and Bond. Well, Wednesday saw things skew heavily in the opposite direction, with both Gertrude and Bond only logging 7 minutes each and Murray out pacing both combined with a whopping 18 minutes. Aaaaaaaand… the team looked the best it has since before the exam break. So, what does that mean and should I update my opinion portfolio? Maybe a little, but I’m not sure entirely. I’m open to it. A lot more to come on all of that dynamic below.
All-in-all, I thought that the offense played much better and much more like it will need to if we’re going to compete with good teams again. McKneely and Dunn both played much better, which was the biggest thing by far. We got a good spark from Taine, Rohde was solid, and Buchanan looked a little better on offense. Jake Groves, whose presence in the lineup has been a big deal for our offense this season, didn’t even have a good shooting game – going 2-8 from the field and 1-5 from outside but, where that would normally probably be a bad sign for our offense, it hardly mattered Wednesday.
Defensively, I still wasn’t overly encouraged by our coverage on the perimeter. Louisville still got a lot of open looks from outside, they just don’t shoot the ball well from there in general. I will say, though, that I thought our activity inside securing the defensive glass was much better, especially the efforts of Jake Groves. Groves, who normally has exclusively seen time at the 5, saw run at the 4 in this game, and saw his overall minutes creep up to a team-high 34 on the night. So that’s another interesting development that I believe unlocked some options for us and helped us to be better on the glass in general.
Let’s get into it!
The BIG 3
So far during the (can we still say young?) season, the team has been much better offensively with Jacob Groves on the floor (second best Offensive Bayesian Performance Rating per Evanmiya.com). Defensively, we’ve been much better with Blake Buchanan on the floor (third best DBPR on the team). So, why not do both? Until Wednesday, the answer had been that Ryan Dunn (best DBPR on the team and a better offensive output than Buchanan) just offered a pure upgrade to what Blake Buchanan offered and complimented what Groves brought. The problem was (and remains), we were still getting killed on the glass and still represented a lack of size on the interior with those two manning the 4/5.
Enter Dunn at the 3 with Groves at the 4 and Buchanan at the 5! The barriers to entry here would theoretically be – do Dunn and Buchanan’s collective lack of shooting bog down the offense? But the pros are that, with a 6’8″ mobile SF who plays much bigger, a 6’9″ PF, and a 6’11” Center, suddenly we’re a pretty big team! Passing lanes become harder for our opponents, shots at the rim come harder, probably most importantly, we’re better on the glass on both ends. Instead of Groves working like crazy to box out the opponent’s Center, he’s able to clear the PF – a much more reasonable ask. There are more second chance opportunities as we get more tip outs and opponents struggle with our size and length. And, sure enough, despite losing the rebounding battle in most games against reasonable competition all season, we outrebounded Louisville by 7 on Wednesday, including nabbing 9 second chance opportunities.
Now, I’d been previously advocating for something similar by saying we should play Leon Bond at the SF more along WITH Dunn and Groves. But, a lot of that is because I’d written off the idea that CTB was still open to using Dunn at the SF. Last year, we had five playable bigs (six if you count Traudt) between Dunn, Gardner, BVP, Shedrick and Caffaro and we had four playable guards between Clark, Beekman, Franklin, and McKneely. And yet, there were many more instances where we had all four of those guards on the floor than there were when we had three of those big men! Not to rehash old wounds, but that’s a big part of what led to so much of the offseason kerfuffle and exodus. And, when you listened to CTB in his postgame pressers throughout the year, he would always minimize the need for length/rim protection. He was asked that question several times about choosing to go small and concessions around the rim and he’d typically demur, down-play the impact that would have, and instead turn it back to on-ball defense and say we needed to be better about keeping opponents out of the lane in the first place. If you read my work last year, you’d know this was a constant source of contention. But, after this game, he did talk about playing bigger and using size for all of the reasons size is known to be important in the game of basketball, which was very encouraging to hear. Is this something we’re willing to keep in the rotation moving forward?
There WAS one game (aside from some early Dunn at the three lineups) where we went big and that was against Michigan. To combat their size, we played all of Gardner, BVP, and Shedrick together, and it worked very well in that game, with BVP backing down some threes in the post and our collective size/length making things harder for them on the interior. In the postgame presser, CTB called it the “jumbo” package and did talk about how it worked very well in the game… and we really didn’t go back to it afterward (I think at all but certainly not significantly).
So, my hot lead didn’t go anywhere and I’m once again unsure what this means. I’d love it if this was something we stuck with and pulled out on a nightly basis (at least against most teams, maybe not small ball teams) to combat the size of ACC programs and to make some of the fundamental things like rebounding, closing out, etc., less difficult. But, given our tendency to prioritize guard play, I’m not confident yet that will be the case. The other variable is that Isaac McKneely only played 19 minutes as he battled some foul trouble, picking up his second with about 7 minutes to go in the first half and his third early in the second (he finished with 4). He doesn’t usually see such a reduction in minutes and, while some of those minutes surely went to Taine, our willingness to go big may also have been impacted by that (although I do like McKneely as the 2 with the same 3-5 and hopefully that’s something we’ll turn to in the future).
Okay, enough build up, let’s look at it in action, starting with the offense:
So, at 6:48 left in the first half Isaac McKneely picked up his second foul and came out of the game until he hit that shot before the end of the half. In response, we shifted big, and here’s the first offensive possession after doing so. Now, look at the matchups going on here with this lineup. Louisville has 6’3″ Skyy Clark (#55) on Beekman, which is the most reasonable matchup they can offer in terms of size/athleticism. But, from there, they have the 6’0″ Ty-Laur Johnson (#4) on the 6’6″ Rohde (playing the 2), the 6’6″ Kaleb Glenn (#10) on 6’11” Blake Buchanan, 6’5″ Mike James (#0) on 6’9″ Jake Groves, and they’re running with the 6’10” Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (#5) on Ryan Dunn (at 6’8″ and playing our three). So, Louisville is all over the place and, rather than trying to match size to size, they opted to try to emphasize our two most athletic players in Dunn and Beekman and were fine playing under-sized against everyone else.
As we dive into the clip, we’re running Sides, and you can see that at first, whenever Rohde or Dunn catch the ball, they don’t really feel comfortable doing anything with it and instead kick it back out to Reece. But then, after a few cycles of that, Buchanan sets another screen for Rohde, forcing help to go his way, and slips to the hoop. Rohde finds Blake with the pass and at 11 seconds into the clip, really Buchanan should just to up and try to dunk that through contact with Huntley-Hatfield coming over to help. Instead, he gets bodied on the jump by his much smaller man (probably still was a foul) but he has a great passing option and find of Groves out on the three-point line. Groves whips it to Beekman, who passes over to Rohde who has a clean look from three after the rotations… which he misses. But now Groves, with Skyy Clark having switched to him, crashes the glass hard and gets this offensive rebound. He had three offensive rebounds in the game, 9 in total – which is a number he only matched vs. North Carolina A&T – the worst team on the schedule. Other than that, his previous high in rebounds on the season was 4! Groves whips the ball around back to Beekman, who then gets into Flow with a ball screen by Buchanan and the other three guys cleared out to the top of the screen. Now, unfortunately, Groves was cutting baseline and ran Skyy Clark into the play but, candidly, Skyy Clark should not be able to deter Blake Buchanan rolling to the hoop with momentum. Unfortunately, he does, and Buchanan settles for a hook shot fading away from the hoop.
A lot to process here. The biggest thing, and something that will become a theme, is the Buchanan needs to be much more aggressive attacking the hoop, going up through contact, keeping the ball high, going over shorter players, etc. He needs to stop shying away from contact and I’d like him to probably scrap that fadeaway hook shot. He doesn’t have touch on it and shoots it like a flat line dart. There are a lot of opportunities for him in this lineup and with this offense, though, especially out of Flow as the ball screener. And, even though he’s not as polished as we’d like, if he’s active and assertive and more willing to initiate contact, good things are still going to come from these sets, especially if opposing teams continue to play him with undersized players. After watching some of the clips below you might say, “are you sure?” because a lot of under-sized guys DO deter him and impact what he’s doing. But these are areas for growth. He doesn’t need to back guys down in the post or have a bevvy of post moves, he just needs to catch the ball on these dives toward the rim and try to dunk it or at least not bring it low and get it tied up. The more reps he gets with this the better it will probably be and he already was more active in this game than he’s been recently. Furthermore, we got a clean look out of this set from deep, we kept the possession alive by using the size of this lineup on the glass… there’s a lot to like here even if it was an empty possession.
Here’s another example of this. Firstly, they went to the version of Flow where they clear out a side a lot more in this game (and got into it more seamlessly from other sets… which, transitioning between offenses within a possession is clearly something they’ve been working on as I called out last game), which I like. This play worked really well, again getting Buchanan the ball with much smaller players around him near the hoop. But, as he dodges James jumping at him, he brings the ball down low and allows it to get swiped out of his hands. Again, Buchanan really doesn’t have to do much here. Just accept the foul from James and absorb the contact while elevating for a shot. Or, but this might take more practice, step through but keep the ball high and then to up and lay it in or dunk it. The first option seems much more realistic and would still be productive.
This, below, is more what I’m talking about; although it’s in the Triangle instead of Flow. Dunn, Beekman, and Buchanan are in the mix, with Gertrude and Groves on the wings. Now this is a very big-heavy Inside of the Triangle! Instead of those in the mix being threats to pop outside and shoot after screening, as we’ve recently seen from this offense, you have two non-shooters in there, both putting pressure on Louisville to defend the rim. Notice at the beginning how both Beekman and Dunn signal Gertrude over to get to the lower wing where he takes the pass to initiate the action. Eventually Beekman wraps around off of a screen, cuts baseline, and takes the ball in the mid-post, where he hits Buchanan diving toward the rim. Buchanan doesn’t really do much here, he just carries his momentum and then, as he’s held, he elevates into a shot. This ended up being a foul on the floor, but it’s a positive play. Just keep running the actions hard like this and be willing to power through out-of-position contact and good things will happen. This is even Huntley-Hatfield guarding Buchanan here, having switched off of Dunn with Buchanan getting all of these looks early (even if unsuccessful).
After having gotten Buchanan a few looks around the rim, even if all weren’t successful, it put a lot of pressure on Louisville to have to make tough decisions while defending. Here’s a look, below, where Beekman runs Flow with Buchanan again, and Louisville still probably leaves Buchanan more open than Reece, but they’re more tepid on stopping him and he’s able to use that opening in his Reecesque way, to get all the way to the rim for the hoop and the foul.
They attempted to go 1-3-1 zone to slow this down and keep us out of pick and roll action (among other things we’ll see in a bit). Here’s a look at Blake navigating that and, while it’s not good or what you’d hope, it still leads to an open three for Beekman. Rohde does a good job of getting depth after breaking the soft press and passing to Buchanan who catches the ball while drifting all the way down to the block. Now, that’s Skyy Clark on him and, at one point, he leaves Buchanan entirely with no one between him and the hoop. You can even hear the crowd react to this. You want Buchanan to have spatial awareness here (as well as who is guarding him), just take a drop step with his right foot and go up and dunk the ball. That being said, he does eventually draw two men, collapse Louisville’s defense, pass it out to Rohde, who swings it down to Reece with Louisville scrambling.
This next one, is a really cool set, and probably Buchanan’s most aware and proactive play out of this grouping (he did have a dunk out of Flow earlier but not out of this big lineup). This is from the second half (IMK in foul trouble again) with Beekman and Dunn on the wings and Groves, Rohde, and Buchanan in the mix. Buchanan and Groves pass the ball around up top after Dunn initiates the offense, then dump it off to Beekman on the wing. As Blake passes to Reece, Rohde sets a back screen for Groves who cuts through the lane, but Buchanan sets a ball screen for Beekman, transitioning the entire offense to Flow. Notice, Groves is still in the process of clearing out, Rohde recognizes, and Blake rolls to the hoop. Beekman passes to Rohde, who passes to Buchanan, who draws draws two men, including Groves’s man who stays and doesn’t follow him into the corner. But if you watch Louisville’s rotations, they’re confused when the ball goes to Rohde at the same time as Buchanan rolling off of the pick. Here they were defending Triangle and Rohde’s man had to help with the Groves cut, so he’s deep in the lane having to recover, which causes Dunn’s man to think maybe he’s closest and needs to rotate, which he does. As Rohde passes to Buchanan, there’s literally no one on either Groves or Dunn, with two players both on Rohde and Buchanan because of how the offense was executed and the confusion it caused. Dunn takes the opportunity to cut right to the hoop, Buchanan finds him, and we have an electric dunk.
That play was run with big personnel, but was a result of a nifty little change between our offenses mid-possession. Good awareness by Blake, though.
But, finally, this next play absolutely can’t happen. The Inside Triangle works to perfection here, getting Blake cutting to the hoop wide open with no one on the back end… but a trailing player a foot shorter than he is times and blocks his shot cleanly. This is all on Blake not driving into this jump with purpose and either trying to dunk or at least take it up going to the basket (or even have the awareness to jump into the contact and attempt to draw the foul and the bucket). His jump is just too vertical (almost going backward) and passive here, and it’s like he’s shooting a layup mini-jump shot rather than attacking the hoop.
If this offense is going to be truly good – that’s the biggest area it’s going to have to grow. The opportunity is there, though… there were a lot of them, actually, and Buchanan being on the floor with both Groves and Dunn asked a lot of questions of the defense’s ability to guard the rim, and whether or not they’re willing to switch off of these guys, given their collective size but varying skillsets.
This line up also gave Dunn opportunities to attack the offensive glass and, more, get involved attacking off of the dribble, which is what I’ve been loudly begging for most of the season now.
Here they’re running the Inside Triangle again with Dunn, Buchanan, Groves in the mix and this time as Buchanan and Groves move through from bottom to top, Dunn just uses the movement as an opportunity to attack the cleared-out space off of the dribble. He explodes with the left hand, beats Huntley-Hatfield, and draws the foul and the goaltend.
Similarly, off of the baseline inbound, this play below is drawn up to isolate Dunn with H-H off of the dribble. Really, this is an all new Dunn with his willingness to attack. It’s a good drive with the left again, but this time he spins back into the lane and, instead of fading away on his hook and avoiding contact, he’s moving forward while shooting his shot so that the contest draws contact and he gets an opportunity (which he misses, free throws!) at a three-point play.
Playing Dunn at the 3 was so valuable against Louisville because they still treated him as the bigger player most of the time but, when they did, he had the mobility advantage in the matchup. This was such a refreshing change of pace seeing Dunn morph from an offensive liability who players sagged off of, daring him to shoot, to someone who was much more regularly playing downhill. It seemed to buoy his confidence and shot selection, as well, as he finished an almost perfect 7-8 from the field, including a pretty crazy but fluid and smooth turn around jump shot out of the mid-post at one point. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that his best offensive game of the season (tied for points and including efficiency) came from the game he saw such a significant chunk of his time at SF.
So those were a few of the looks we were still able to generate, and likely will be able to generate from these offensive sets. Getting Dunn going on offense and playing with the ball off of the bounce more frequently is no small perk, and neither is getting more offensive rebounds. But the defensive end is likely the more beneficial element to this lineup….
This first clip I’m going to show actually goes poorly for us as Louisville gets an open man cutting baseline for a contested dunk. Louisville runs a good set here, with Curtis Williams (#1) flipping the ball back to Skyy Clark while setting a screen on Beekman. This is all while setting up screen action from Huntley-Hatfield on Beekman as well, setting it up as the threat of a double screen. Beekman getting hung up on Williams delays his recovery and strings Buchanan out on the hedge longer, needing to stop Clark’s progress, while leaving a good dump off path from Clark to Huntley-Hatfield before Beekman can properly pinch the play. Dunn steps up to stop H-H’s dive and his man come in from the baseline and finishes.
Now, we didn’t block this shot and conceded points, but if you pause at five seconds into the clip, you can see both Dunn and Buchanan right there, both having recovered from helping, to almost block this shot. The play works perfectly for Louisville and the end result is a very athletic finish over two rim protectors. My note for Blake here would be to recover past Dunn. Dunn has switched and is in good defending position on H-H, and as Buchanan is recovering, he can see the play unfolding in front of him. He recovers to H-H, trailing the play, and slowing his momentum when he gets to him only to have to start up again after the pass. If he pushes past Dunn to switch men, he’s likely there to block or deter a shot attempt. That’s something that comes with reps of running the defense and playing together, though.
But here, we start to see some of the length and mobility of this group pay off. Notice, Gertrude is still in, he actually came on with this group which was a little surprising considering the shooting of Dunn and Buchanan – but actually worked fine. This time the Cardinals put Buchanan and Beekman in the pick and roll again, with Buchanan hedging and H-H slipping out of it. But this time, Gertrude gets more depth with his help, H-H doesn’t get as deep into the lane, and Dunn doesn’t have to commit as much to pick up the ball handler, staying back and using his reach to deflect the pass the baseline cutter to a recovering Buchanan.
A good adjustment to a similar look.
Here’s another one where Louisville made a prayer in the lane, but the defense was there, as was the shot contest. First notice that with this lineup, we have the luxury of Ryan Dunn guarding Skyy Clark on the perimeter, which is a great option to use length and mobility to slow down an opposing guard. The ball works around not really going anywhere and finally Beekman’s man drives and spins into the middle of the lane for his shot. Buchanan is right there and he gets his hand on the ball on the way up (along with a good Beekman contest) – the flung shot at the backboard just goes in. That’s good defense regardless of outcome.
Here we have another look, below, this time with the same unit but with Rohde in at the 2. And doesn’t this just feel like a more traditional UVa defensive possession? There’s length everywhere. Early, Buchanan hedges aggressively but Groves backs it up by supporting the roll defender. But I especially like when the ball gets kicked over to Rohde’s man, how active his hands are, then how active Dunn’s hands are, and how Rohde pinches down to also help on Dunn’s man, eventually leading to a bad airball.
I love how flustered and smothered Louisville is throughout this possession, especially when Rohde and Dunn are on-ball.
This next play, below, is one Beekman can and does make often, and probably makes regardless of who is on the floor with him, but it did seem like he was taking very aggressive angles on these baseline screens more commonly when we had Buchanan in the game. Either way, it’s a nice defensive play from the group and having Dunn guarding the perimeter with Groves and Buchanan home on the back end makes him more available to help Reece convert the run out.
And then this, later, what kind of nightmare must it be for this player in the high post to have both Dunn and Beekman pecking at the ball – Dunn denying the entry pass from behind and Beekman finishing the job collapsing down from the front to poke the ball back to Dunn.
We talked about offensive rebounding some but the defensive rebounding was very good with this group. And, in general, Jake Groves did a great job rebounding this game no matter where he was (let me quickly plug one physical one with the starters, right here):
But we did see both in this game and have seen previously, that it’s been a heavy lift to clear the glass with just Dunn and Groves at the 4-5. When you can get Groves playing with that kind of effort on the glass at the 4 with Buchanan and Dunn supporting, now you have the makings of an actual quality rebounding team.
This one, below, was my favorite example of this from the game (there are a few) where Groves does lose the positioning battle on this shot, but Dunn just swoops down from the wing and secures the glass. This looks easy, but that’s because Buchanan is down there on Huntley-Hatfield and so Dunn’s man isn’t crashing the glass. If Dunn has low post responsibility on this play, now you’ve still got Groves in inferior rebounding position and you’re having to hope someone like Rohde or McKneely is able to crash down and grab this.
I love the concept (and actuality in this game) of Dunn at SF from a rebounding perspective because, rather than having to box his man and jockey for physical position under the hoop, he’d be much more able to watch the shot and crash down from the wing, attacking its path.
This lineup and development was exciting because it’s the inverse of how CTB had recently flexed his lineups and it makes us the imposing team with length. I’ll be very interested to see if its utilization was more tied to just trying something out against the opponent/responding to McKneely foul issues or, hopefully, if it’s something we’re going to be willing to pull out regularly in the future. With Beekman at the wing, you can really afford to play any of our other guards – McKneely, Rohde, Gertrude… Taine… at the 2, although I think it better with one of the shooters. I think this would be a great lineup against a team like UNC to better combat their post presence, and against a team like Duke to improve our coverage on the glass but to also allow Dunn to hound some of their guards. I’d love to see it more on Saturday to have more big bodies to send at Burns and to help recover with length to shooters around him. Of course, we’re going to need Buchanan to convert positive plays at a higher clip if we do go to it more often – but I believe there are enough other benefits to give that some time to come along.
But, speaking of another potential development from Wednesday…
Taine
I haven’t spent a lot of time focusing on Taine Murray this season mostly because he wasn’t making a huge push for playing time early on. Recently, as of the Memphis game, he started getting a little more run and coming off of the bench earlier than both Elijah Gertrude and Leon Bond. Candidly, we hadn’t seen much on the floor to warrant this. I highlighted some of his defensive struggles which are more physical in nature, and offensively he’d been fairly passive.
This game was quite different, and he provided a legitimate offensive spark, not just shooting, but off of the dribble and cutting to the rim. Over the past several games, we’d often see one play like this from time to time, but he strung several together in this one over an impressive stretch AND knocked down two of his three three-point attempts. The question, then, remains is this something he can do consistently if just given more opportunity against higher competition and, if so, how does that balance with his defense? I’m not going to be able to definitively answer that question here – I expect we’re going to see more of him in at least the short-term, but I can help to frame the equation and give some thoughts. Let’s start on the offensive side of the ball where he popped.
Most of his damage was done in the second half but here’s a good look in the first half. Now, I’m not sure exactly how Kenny Payne decides who will guard who, as they have the 6’5″ Mike James on Groves and the 6’8″ Danilo Jovanovich (#13) on Murray. When we’re first bringing the ball up the floor, they’re matched up opposite, as you’d expect, then the coverage gives us a close up shot of Kenny Payne and when we get back to option, they’ve switched. Now, I can’t imagine we’ve done anything exotic to force the switch here, especially if we’re in Flow, so it’s likely they proactively did so… who knows. We run Flow with a Buchanan ball screen for Beekman and our three shooters around the perimeter in our standard double baseline, one wing formation. Louisville pinches on the roll pretty well so Beekman kicks it over to Taine who passes down to Groves and then cuts through. This changes the offense from Flow to Sides, forcing Jovanovich to chase Taine. Murray sets him up for a good pin down screen by Buchanan, takes a dribble, and knocks down the open look.
Hitting the shot is nice, but it’s also good recognition that forcing the big to run/chase is advantageous, and no one is overplaying Taine for his shot yet.
Much later in the game, he took advantage of being a capable spot-up threat. This look below is Wide Sides which ends up functioning like a simple clear out. Everyone but Beekman moves to represent the standard two-man screening action but Beekman drives, pulling help defenders with him. Dunn and Murray simply fade out to the three-point line and Beekman correctly picks out Taine for the skip pass.
With these two shots, he got himself up to 41.2% shooting the three on the season – and that’s notable as it’s close to Jake Groves territory, making him convincingly the third best three-point shooting threat on the team.
But I think what stood out most on Wednesday and what has the potential to be something Taine uniquely brings from the 2-3 group is his north/south driving/cutting. He doesn’t put the ball on the floor that often, but when he does, it’s intentional and it’s usually directly attacking the hoop and forcing reaction. He’s strong with the ball when he does this and can be a solid finisher who also has pretty good vision.
This first clip is us running Flow Low (calling out that Dunn is positioned near the hoop as opposed to the wing). Blake is open after the ball screen but the ball first goes to Groves in the corner and then comes out to Blake. Dunn comes out to help and takes the ball at the wing, then passes to Taine in the corner whose man is recovering to him. Now if you pause at 7 seconds when Taine has the ball, his defender (Huntley-Hatfield) is in solid defensive position with a hand high and a good buffer. Taine gives his shoulder fake and then drives baseline. H-H cuts it off but Jovanovich drops a little too much in case help is needed. Taine riffles a good, crisp, pass across the court to Groves in the other corner. The three is missed, but that’s a quality look and opportunity created by Taine taking a couple of dribbles and forcing action. Of note, this is him playing with that 3 Big lineup I talked about previously.
Another look from this grouping, below, again note that Buchanan, Dunn, and Beekman all there going after the offensive rebound leads to a second chance, but Murray is able to take the space from the recovery after the board, and drive past his man, finishing strongly with the reverse layup on the other side of the rim.
This next clip is a little later, now with Beekman off the floor entirely and alongside McKneely (running the point) and Rohde, Dunn and Groves. They’re running Sides and this is exactly what I’ve been clamoring for McKneely to do – keep his dribble rather than settling for pull-up midrange jumpers or floaters. Taine does a good job of realizing his man is in trail position and being willing to take the ball right down the lane, finishing with the left hand around the late shot contest.
And then this last one… I like it because his man is trying to overplay his cut from Sides out to the wing so, instead, he just backdoor cuts him on the baseline. It’s a great pass from Reece but it’s also a good finish from Taine with good body control to catch the pass and finish in a fluid motion. It shows adaptability, as well.
Now, knocking down open threes is translatable and always valuable. How much is Taine’s success driving and cutting a result of the opponent? He’s been much more passive about initiation before, but is that just because of reduced run or not wanting to be too assertive? That’s what we’re going to need if he sticks in this rotational role for a few games moving forward. But, to be clear, shooting and downhill driving/finishing/passing are all things that this offense can use, especially if Rohde and McKneely either aren’t available or aren’t playing well.
The other question remains, how much will his defense keep him on the floor? As an offensive player, Taine controls the movement, but as a defensive player his lateral mobility and change of direction are called into question. The sample size isn’t that great yet, and teams aren’t yet targeting him exclusively when he’s in. In fact, he really didn’t have to play that much prolonged on-ball defense on Wednesday, which will vary based on opponent. But even with all of that aside, I think his agility/ability to impact a play still crops up off of the ball. There were only a few glaring things this game, but there were some subtler things as well that point to what could be issues against better competition.
This first play is a tagging/pick and roll support issue and it’s a subtle thing. Taine, as we’ll see a little later can struggle sagging to help plays and then recovering quickly enough on the shooter. Here, he drops back into position to tag H-H on the roll while Buchanan recovers, but he leaves before he can really slow or deter the drive, in order to make sure he can recover out to his man in the corner on time. This allows H-H to keep leverage on the drive and Buchanan can’t fully draw even/get back into the play.
This next one he’s in a tough spot and it’s not just on him, he and Groves and Dunn need to communicate better how they’re going to handle H-H slipped here. But as the play is developing, he takes a pretty high angle, both he and Dunn are drawn to the ball, and he’s crouching really low with his hand slow instead of getting tall and trying to deflect/make passes difficult. I believe this is because he’s trying to be as agile as he can, but the pass from the elbow right over his head to the corner is an easy one and his reaction to it/recovery back to it are both poor.
That’s really just kind of a bizarre help-side play where he gets caught in no man’s land not really doing anything helpful. He needs to either step aggressively to H-H here, clearly allowing Dunn to shade between his own man and closing out on the corner, or allow Dunn to step up and take H-H, pinching down on the post and still recovering from there to the corner on a pass. He also needs to really improve his technique here, rather than getting so low and making passing lanes easier.
This one’s the one that probably most saw live. He’s just kind of slow to get around the screens and doesn’t take a good angle (he could have shot the gap under the last screener rather than trailing). Then he just kind of drifts and ball watches rather than getting back into position – so when the rebound come off he isn’t in good positioning and is late to react, allowing Louisville to get their hand on the ball and deflect it away from him.
And this last one he’s put in an awkward position after Dunn blocks the shot and dives on the floor, creating a 5-on-4 (and Rohde doesn’t commit to stopping the drive, either, worried about his own man in the corner), but the ball-handler is coming right down the lane and Taine’s man is in the opposite corner and rather than stepping in and stopping the clean driver, Murray lets him go entirely to go and box out Jovanovich. That’s the opportunity to slide over, attempt to take a charge (even those are harder now) or just simply cut off the dribble.
Now, I will say that while these things aren’t good, I don’t think they’re so bad in and of themselves to keep him off of the floor; at least when manifested like this. But, if you go back and look at some of the clips I pulled from the Morgan St. game which had more examples on-ball, or any of the scattered examples that have cropped up throughout the season… I do believe his defense as a primary result of his lateral mobility is a weakness, much more so than any of our other guard/wings when healthy. I think it’s something that if he’s playing more short spurts can be hidden because an opponent is probably not alert enough to intentionally attack it when he’s in. I also think it’s something that’s less of an issue when he is playing at the 2 with the BIG 3-5 lineup, because his size scales a little more there and he has more help on the back end. But if he’s getting more prolonged run, I think it will become a vulnerability (and this will definitely be something we revisit here in detail moving forward if all of these trends continue as they are).
That being said, is it worth it? If he can give spurts of offense like he did above and we can kind of hide him/compliment him on the defensive end, then it might just be. Metrically, the team has actually played better defensively while he’s on the floor than offensively which is contrary to the eyeball test but also goes to show that individual contributions aren’t always directly indicative of overall team performance. You’re still bringing Taine Murray on the floor with the goal of sparking the offense, not locking someone down on defense.
Personally, I think this is more likely going to be a flash game for him where he is given some more run but settles back down to what we’ve seen previously… but for the first time this season (and really since after his first year), I’m more open to exploring this option and seeing if it can lead to some more consistent offense. That being said – he played the exact same number of minutes vs. Memphis and only four fewer against N.D. – but perhaps this will be the spark he needs to push the ball into the lane more regularly. I imagine we’ll get another prolonged run from Taine (hopefully alongside the BIG 3-5 lineup) on Saturday.
Bad Double Teaming
Okay, I’m going to wrap up this piece with two quick-hitters on some team concepts. Our double-teaming of the post has not been very good. We’re leaving too early and going when opponents are too far away from the basket. This allows them to see us coming and make a quality pass, putting our back-end rotations under stress.
Here, this is just a wacky decision by Groves. When he leaves to go double Dunn’s man, H-H, he’s way closer to the three-point line on the catch than the paint. H-H turns and surveys the court and sees Groves flying at him… and Groves jumps at him! He actually lands beyond where H-H was standing before the dribble. This allows him to survey the floor, make the pass to the cutting Jovanovich (and note when he makes the pass he’s out by the three-point line by that point), who then continues the pass out to the corner for the open three.
Perhaps Groves got confused by the depth on this play, but we really don’t need a double team here. Leaving so early telegraphs it and makes it much farther that Groves has to run to actually get there, allowing for vision and preparation of the pass out of it. The double-team is supposed to come when the player’s back is to the rest of the court and when they’re closer to the hoop, allowing the second defender to get there before the offensive player can survey the rest of the floor, surprising them, and obscuring sight lines/passing angles. This basically just created a free imbalanced floor situation. It’s not the idea of the double team here, it’s the execution of it that causes issues.
And here, Bond leaves when H-H is way too far away from the hoop, and while he’s even looking straight ahead. Bond even hesitates on the approach, realizing that H-H is seeing the floor and looking to pass before he gets there. Rohde and Murray (as we’ve actually just discussed and discussed in the N.D. game) aren’t the best back-end defenders to put into this recovery position anyway, but this one’s all on Bond just completely mistiming things.
To be clear, I don’t disagree with the doubling strategy especially when you have lineups with Bond and Groves 4-5 (Bond likely is going to struggle as a 4 continually throughout conference play) or even Dunn and Groves 4-5, but there has to be patience. If the fear is isolation on the post-up game, make them start to make the move and then, once they’re focused on that and don’t have their eyes on the floor, time the attack better.
Better Spacing Base Offenses
After the N.D. game I hoped for more Flow and it seems as though CTB had the same thought for this game but, in general, the offensive spacing, ball movement, and rim pressure was much better and that was true outside of either the Big 3-5 lineup or Taine lineups as well.
Here is a nifty little set that ends up being the Reece Beekman show, but it’s a transition from Sides that wasn’t doing much early in the possession into Flow with the entire top side cleared out. As I’ve mentioned before, we have three different base looks of Flow – one with players in both corners, a man on a wing, and the ball screen happening on the opposite wing, one with the same look but instead of the player on the wing, it’s a big in the post, and this variant where we clear out an entire side of the floor for the ball screen. I like this one the best as it gives Reece so much room to operate, which he does here with a crafty step-through in the lane. This is also a continuation of our focus on being able to switch between offenses within a possession.
This next clip, below, is just straight Sides, but Dunn sets the screen for Rohde on the block and stays low in the post. Rohde methodically drives baseline after the switch, and finds Groves for a wide-open look on the perimeter. I really like the spacing on this play where you have Rohde and Dunn playing a two man game on the lower side, and all of McKneely, Groves, and Beekman as legit spot-up threats spread around the perimeter despite the offense being Sides initiated. The action starts and they just all back out to be available. The shot misses but the idea/execution of the play is good.
This last look is the actual Buchanan dunk and how he needs to keep attacking through all of the plays that I showcased earlier. This is good execution of Flow by Beekman. He draws to defenders and still has the presence of mind to wait for Buchanan to clear the help side defender before throwing the pass. Buchanan catches the pass while moving, and explodes up for the dunk before Huntley-Hatfield can get there for the block. Keep in mind, we saw him later be deterred by multiple PGs at the rim, even from behind, so the fact that he’s fully capable of finishing one of these plays with a true Center trying to get back into it should tell us that this is more of a Buchanan consistency issue rather than a capability issue.
Given how bogged down and cluttered our offense has looked at times this year, even against bad competition, I thought this game marked improvement with regard to intention and spacing. And I didn’t even show any of Isaac McKneely’s return to confidence over the 19 minutes he was on the floor! That’s also a very positive development that will hopefully continue. Who knows, perhaps more rest is good for his play (although I doubt we’ll see that theory tested much).
In Conclusion
These aren’t the changes for which I was asking but I’m very glad there were significant tweaks and developments to how we were playing and what options we were willing to try in conference play (even if it was Louisville). I don’t think this is going to be the final iteration of change but, above everything, I do like this Dunn, Groves, Buchanan 3-5 concept. Playing Dunn at the SF really just offers so many things that address core problems this team faces like rebounding and finding ways to leverage him offensively. Finding a way to play a Center without having to sit either your best defensive player or your second-best shooter is also very relevant.
I’m cautiously hopeful (but also somewhat skeptical) that we’ll see this again against DJ Burns and N.C. State. With all of this, though, I’m still very mindful of the opponent – a sheep in wolf’s clothing – and am aware that ideas tend to look better against worse competition. That being said, I do believe we objectively just played better basketball on Wednesday than we have been since the first exam break.
The evolution of this team is continual and it’s fun to break it down as it plays out.
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