Well hello again, friends! I hope you have been having a splendid holiday season. I figured it time to get this review in prior to kicking off conference play at VT – perhaps it will serve to remind everyone of the recent game and get us ready. Keep in mind, though, that all of these days off are one more day closer to the return of Jacari White! Anyway, I can only hope that the team will not be as rusty after this time away as I feel writing.
What a game it was! I wrote shortly afterward that I thought this was the most complete game they played as a team all season. Folks are often quick to dismiss thoughts like that because of the quality of competition; but you can evaluate quality by watching how cleanly they execute on both ends. Specifically, their offense was sharp as always. I’ll highlight some of the sweet things I thought they did below… and I also thought they pressed their advantage in the paint more than they have in previous games. It was their defensive effort that was the biggest difference, to me, though. As a whole, their tenacity was there and sustained throughout the entire game, not just held in spurts. Their rotations were much cleaner. It felt like they were much more in tune with where to switch, how, and where they could help each other more proactively. It was a welcomed sight. American is not a good team, but they were averaging over 80ppg before they played us and we held them to 51. I’m just here to say that if we match our standard offensive performance with that level of defense for most of the remainder of the season… look out.
Let’s get into it.
Defense
I just want to start by highlighting a bunch of defensive possessions that I liked. This is going to be about half of the piece itself, primarily because it’s the area that has improved so much over the past couple of games. Previously, I talked about how even though you wouldn’t know it from the Maryland game score, the defensive effort was much better and Maryland benefitted from some crazy shot-making to keep things close. Well, in this one, despite American only scoring 51 they still benefitted from some pretty crazy shot making, at times, to get there.
In this first clip, below, first TDR presents a formidable presence that the 6’5″ 180 Madden Collins doesn’t really have an appetite to test. We see American reverse with a DHO and Malory do a fantastic job of staying attached over the screen, invading the space and shutting off any driving advantage. American keeps the ball moving, only to have Sam Lewis right there on the catch. They set a pretty abrasive ball screen, but Ugo switches right over and shuts down the baseline. Now Lewis is on the Center… but Julen Iturbe is only 6’7″ himself and really has no chance to take Sam off the bounce. Instead, the result of all of this ends up being basically a logo three-point attempt from a 24% shooter from deep over still a quality contest from TDR (I like how he stayed pretty well out on his man there and didn’t allow that shot to be taken without a contest, despite the depth).
That’s a really nice defensive possession with all of our guys locked in and Chance showing his mobility, Ugo showing his switchability, and both Lewis and De Ridder showing their flexibility.
You might notice that Malik Thomas was on the floor in that last play but wasn’t really tested. I think he’s really been making strides on the defensive side of the ball, though. Don’t get me wrong, he had a long way to go. It’s the biggest thing that’s been keeping him off of the floor and he’s been the worst perimeter defender on the team; both because of a lack of footspeed, but also because he seemed least comfortable with the rotations and knowing where to be. I think, to begin the season, it’s also not what his biggest priority was.
Here’s a first look at Malik, though, in the half court where he did have to carry the weight. Firstly, he’s picking up full court and does get beaten; but he succeeds in speeding his man up and chasing him on the hip. The depth of his sag when his man stops isn’t great… perhaps a skilled player just pulls up there; but I like how he closes with his hand high and doesn’t lose his concentration. We then see him switch two successive screens at the point, staying home, and taking the ball handler… and then doing a really nice job of retreating with depth, staying in good defensive position, and getting a quality contest on the turnaround midrange jumper.
I’ve written a lot of words about how Thomas tends to feel impatient as a defender and gets overly-aggressive such that it allows his man to often blow by him. It’s almost like he gets bored on defense sometimes and presses to do something proactive. This was much better consistency throughout a possession here.
Here’s another look at him, again keeping better defensive depth and this time also better navigating screens. How many times have we seen him recently getting caught on them and having to chase? Here, he lightly (but not overly aggressively) contests on the catch, and does a nice job getting under the ball screen to cut off the driving angle of his man. I really like both bigs activity with their helping here. You’ll see throughout, we’re starting to see a little more of the free-lancing type help where our guys proactively leave their man some at opportune moments and/or when they know there’s support. Grünloh’s support here is nice. He’s deep in the lane to keep a pass from going to Hall’s man on the back door cut, then he does a nice job of coordinating with De Ridder and covering the diver. As the ball screen for Thomas comes Grünloh anticipates the need to help/switch and is there to do so, but actually doesn’t need to. Never fear, though, because TDR is alert and quick to help shut down the return pass (and eventually double). Also watch how instantaneous his turn and recovery is to his own man cutting. He shuts that down on the baseline, really manhandles his man on the drive (that subtle shove was devastating) and forces a turnaround jumper all the way out near the free throw line. Thomas crashes down for the rebound.
This is much more cohesive team defense on display. Earlier in the year, when we had defensive success, it was typically because one of the Centers was imposing their significant shot blocking might on a play. Now they’re still doing that, but the perimeter defenders are doing a much better job of being there to disrupt as well. Some of this is just guys getting comfortable playing cohesively together… and I think some of it is just coaching and the demand that the staff is putting on some of these guys to raise their game. For example, I remember worrying about Sam Lewis on that side of the ball before the season – zero concern now; Sam is alert and absolutely locked in.
Back to Malik for a second, but also within the lens of good scrambling rotational help defense. Check out this awesome communication between our three guards on this play. I wouldn’t have imagined we’d see Malik Thomas in a switch like this a couple of weeks ago. Dallin Hall’s man comes off of a zoom screen from Thomas and Lewis’s men, with Ugo’s man then coming up to set a ball screen. This is notoriously hard to defend for the chaser; Hall. Watch at about 10 seconds into the clip – Hall gets through the screen from Thomas’s man but he and Lewis switch on the final screen with Sam taking the ball. This leaves Lewis’s man open, cutting toward the hoop, but the trio talk and Thomas drops off of his man in the corner and picks up the cutter with Dallin then recovering back to Thomas’s man. Really nice work there, but it’s not over for Dallin who then has to deal with another ball screen on the reverse back to him. This time Ugo switches and has the skill to pick up the dribbler, though, and American is so sped up by this point that they fire the return pass past the recovering Hall out of bounds.
SO much to love about that possession. First and foremost, the wherewithal to switch multiple players at once between Lewis, Hall, and Thomas – especially considering so much confusion earlier in the year with Thomas’s switch responsibilities. Secondly, the ability for Ugo to just switch onto a guard where needed; mixing up coverages so that we can switch 1-5 as opposed to just playing drop. Thirdly, the effort and constant scramble that leads to American eventually reaching the breaking point trying to stay a step ahead. Love it.
Alright, here’s a look at a more proactive part of our defense that we’ve had in there for a while now, but that looked more crisp now. When there’s this ball screen on the wing, especially with a Center, we like to trap off of it. This time, Thomas sets it up nicely, taking an extreme angle to cut off the drive back to the middle of the floor. Hall does well to rotate over and cut off the nearest pass, and Lewis rotates over as well. American ends up chucking a cross-court pass over the outstretched arms of Grünloh and are wildly fortunate that Lewis can’t get back in time to pick off the rainbow; but his close out defense and skill on the drive force the travel anyway.
It’s also worth pointing out how, if American had ended up getting a shot instead of travelling, Malik Thomas is right there, collapsing from the wing, and could potentially have bothered or blocked a shot attempt, too. It’s a good example throughout of us starting to get much more proactive.
So, with Jacari White injured, Elijah Gertrude was inserted back into the lineup; just as he was during the Tillis injury. Clearly, we like at least a 9-man rotation. Sometimes with a temporary lack of player availability, there’s an opportunity for other players to step up/build confidence and that can help longer term. This may be the case for Thomas, but it also may be the case for Gertrude, who was ready to go this time. We’ll talk about his offensive game later on, but he also did some nice things on the defensive side of the ball. That’s what I’d envisioned his role could be on this team; a defensive stopper/menace but, prior to this game, he really hadn’t been defending like that. He, also, wasn’t rotating well at times earlier in the year, which was disappointing given his athletic ability. Here, though, it was much improved. The next few clips will include him on the floor as well, though not always featured.
Here, I just like how engaged everyone is on the defensive end. They’re there on the catch, bothering the ball. Dallin and Sam do a nice job switching away from the ball, and here’s a really cool small thing. Pause at 11 seconds. Look at that jump Eli makes away from his man to absolutely shut off any kind of driving lane for Hall’s man on the catch at the point. The two (Dallin and Eli) are almost touching – and then the pretty easy recovery from Eli on the flare back to his own man. That little thing; just an over-help due to his athleticism that shuts off an option without creating a vulnerability is so subtle but also so valuable. Then we’re treated to a really nice close out from Lewis and very good post defense from Johann.
This next clip below, to me, is indicative of where Odom wants his defenses to be going and is increasingly reminding me of how things looked at VCU, just with more talented rim protectors. Watch all of the little subtle adjustments throughout this and areas where they’re all helping each other. Sam plays over the top of his man initially, flatly denying an opportunity to cut out, knowing that he can switch with TDR if they go back door, which they do. It basically negates the entire first part of American’s set. Eli then effortlessly chases under a screen, and rides his man on the drive. Dallin, defending his own man cutting through on the baseline, does really well to shoot in there and try to get a steal, disrupting the ball handler and helping Eli. Watch, then, as he recovers back to his own man who starts to backdoor cut, how Eli then sags back, instinctively shutting down this passing option with his depth. Both Dallin and Eli adjusting to the play in real time and being incredibly disruptive, stranding the ball handler in the mid-post with no dribble. Cross-court pass to Grünloh’s man, but this time Sam Lewis sags deeply into the lane to shut down the drive and then does a magnificent job of recovering back to his own for an intrusive contest on the deep three. Extra points for TDR on the quick hands after adjusting to the box out on a quicker player.
Just to pause and reiterate for a second here; yes, the competition is the competition… but this is nothing like what the defense looked like earlier in the season against either better or worse teams than American. You can see it starting to gel.
Here’s a play that looks a little more like a defensive set earlier in the season – but with Hall being more physical and attached, there’s really no payer for American to get this shot over Ugo. It’s hard enough when they had beaten our guards badly and could see our Centers coming; but when their heads are down and they’re fighting to gain separation? Child’s play.
Good Ugo/Tillis switch earlier in that possession too, but some of that is because of the lack of length of American so not as worth calling out.
Here, below, I just really like this scramble. We’re up 28 at this point late in the second. Earlier in the year, there were plenty of moments where this is where we’d take our foot off of the gas. Eli defends a drive with physicality early on but forces a miss so bad that the ball comes off so quickly the offense gets the board. That spurs a scramble drill where we’re recovering to shooters and, although I don’t love that Ugo hovered behind Lewis on his man because of the original matchup, I still like the scramble by all and the eventual long rebound by Ugo.
No complacency.
Finally, I’m going to show what I think was great defense on a made American basket – because there were actually a lot of looks like this. Many of their makes were incredibly difficult on possessions where they netted virtually no momentum.
Look at how just in their pockets we are on the catch. Eli with the quick hands deflecting the entry pass early, Sam with the nice defense on the ball, TDR coming pretty aggressively from his man to try to peck at the ball. They end up shooting an extremely difficult shot over a great contest and…
whoops, I cut it off early, but that went in.
It’s not just because Eli played – Jacari was starting to look more disruptive before his injury, too, and we saw how other lineups were also playing with similar intensity. He certainly helped to maintain that intensity, though, and showcased just some hidden benefits in how we can look and blanket when he is out there.
I imagine, and hope, that this stretch of practice helped nail some of this stuff down even more… and I surely hope we bring the same intensity off of break – but the communication, the anticipation, and the ability to read and react to what the offense was doing with each other as a cohesive unit was something we hadn’t seen sustained for much of this season. Very encouraging.
Offensive Cool Stuff
The offense has the ability to morph and be efficient in a lot of ways depending on who is on. This game looked a little more like what I expected the pre-season blueprint to be with TDR really going off and Thomas also playing a decent role; not from outside, but in getting into the lane and to the free throw line. Mixed in among all of that was some pretty stuff, though.
Here’s a really cool set out of horns where Dallin Hall takes a ball screen from TDR who then cuts across the lane by Grünloh, occupying his man as Grünloh now sets a ball screen for Hall, but slips it, getting wide open in the lane, which allows him to collapse the remaining two defenders, kick out to Thomas in the corner, and then back to De Ridder, now spotted up in the perfect position.
At its core, this really just becomes a ball screen between Center and PG – but the actions prior to are so distracting to American and represent so many different threats, that they aren’t in position to help and get burned on the slip.
Here was a neat little BLOB play between Thomas and Grünloh that took advantage of Johann’s passing and Thomas’s finishing. I thought it was a cool design and was also a neat way to leverage Malik on the offensive end. We’ve seen this action a lot where Malik will start under the hoop and set a back door screen for the PF at the point, before curling off of the Center into the corner for the three. This time, however, he curls tighter and attacks the rim. The initial threat brings help from the inbound defender, so instead he passes back out to Grünloh but then curls around him while he has the ball, taking the back door pass and finishing through contact.
This is the kind of thing where, surely, American would have seen this look on tape – so it’s iterating off of it and doing the next thing that takes advantage of the skills of those two players. I expect we’ll see even more variants off of that set as the year progresses.
Here’s a two-play series right before halftime and is really the only non-junk-time I can remember where we didn’t play one of our two Centers. It wasn’t foul trouble; I think they just wanted to try this out while they had a two-for-one offensive opportunity. This is a designed play after the break where Chance aggressively drives the right side of the floor while Hall curls around a screen by TDR and Eli sets a back screen for Tillis. It works wonderfully… Tillis just misses the shot. No matter, apparently, because master rebounder Chance cleans up the board, lures out, then cuts back for the finish.
The design itself worked for the shot – but having 5-out also helped with Mallory’s clean up.
That gives them time for one more possession before the half and this is a really sweet one. Devin Tillis is running the point! We take advantage of the 6’9″ 200lb Luke Brown (#16) trying to guard Thijs De Ridder on the perimeter, run a curl action for Hall actually designed to let him screen for TDR, and Thijs just explodes off of the dribble to the hoop.
Designed mismatch exploitation 101 – and a really crafty use of players at positions.
Finally, one really nice simple but well-crafted look. You’ve got Malik Thomas running point, which is a nice twist. Dallin Hall makes the Iverson cut to get open and Grünloh sets a back screen for Thomas who cuts through. This action puts pressure on Sam Lewis’s, stationed in the corner, defender, who stays at home in the lane to deter a pass to Thomas. This is where Hall’s passing comes online, as he just rifles a pass from outside of the opposite wing all the way to Lewis in the corner for that pretty spot up:
Just lots of pretty design in this one and classy execution.
Elijah Gertrude
Okay, I can’t, let the Eli re-emergence game go without a proper spotlight. He played 16 minutes – his highest total on the season by 3 – and had 11 points – his most by 7. The most striking thing was that his Achilles’ heel – his three-point shooting- was rebuffed. He went 2-2 from the floor and looked completely comfortable doing so, including this NBA range catch and shoot after a nice outlet to get the play going to begin with:
And then this comfortable-looking corner three:
Both were smooth and in rhythm of the offense. What’s so striking is that, before this game, Eli was an astounding 1-20 from deep for his collegiate career… and then went 2-2 here. So, this isn’t to say that he’s just become a sniper by any stretch – but defending at the level we saw earlier will only come into play on this roster with these offensive players (especially if they’re improving defensively) if he can be a credible threat from outside. Dare I say, it’s probably most crucial to his career here. So, seeing him continue not to hesitate but to have the success this time was very encouraging. It’s just like he knew he was going to get the opportunity and, this time, he was ready for it.
It wasn’t just the outside shooting, though. He showed off his burst and ability to finish through contact:
He showed off a nifty handle and ability to exploit space caused by misdirection (along with a nice left-handed finish):
He even showed off this really neat pocket pass after drawing both defenders, which directly led to foul shots:
Throughout the game (and in many of these clips), he got the ball up the floor quickly, but it was the control and skill with which he played in this one that stood out to me – on both sides, really. He just looked like he’d taken out the shoeshine and given everything a good polish during his time without minutes. He wasn’t forcing things, but neither was he timid; he just took what came to him – which was considerable given his explosiveness on his drives.
This may well end up being Eli’s best game of the season. That being said, I’ve very happy he’s getting this opportunity to reinsert himself into core minutes of the game while Jacari is healing. If he continues to play like this, there’s no doubt there’s could be a 7-10 minutes for him to carve out. Certainly, for the long-term this should help his confidence as well. At the very least, it should give us another player we’re confident turning to in a pinch later in the year. The ceiling, though, is that he’s another part of the Swiss Army Knife we can unsheathe when we need some defensive stops, or want to push the pace more, or want to try to attack the paint more aggressively… etc.
I see very little downside and considerable upside for this second trial period – and like that he seems more ready (or maybe just healthier, too) for the moment.
In Conclusion
If we can replicate that quality of play on both sides of the ball against ACC teams, I think we’re going to really like where that gets us. I don’t care that it’s American, I really appreciated the way we played and executed for most of that game; with marked improvement on the defensive end.
I’m excited to see what this road test looks like for us after 9 days off; and am also hoping that the weird field house situation won’t be an issue. It’ll also be interesting to see how they matchup with Avdalas. I’m expecting a healthy dose of Sam Lewis – but maybe even some De Ridder out there. It could be a decent opportunity for Eli to be disruptive, as well. I’d like to see how Chance fares, as there’s some real potential for disruption there if he can get under the dribble – but wouldn’t expect (or want) to see that for any extended length of time). Interesting, for sure, but if we play to our capability… it could be a satisfying game to watch.
Until then, Happy New Year, everyone!
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