Alright, this is a drive-by Cuts. I’ve never done this before – doing a game recap after a different game happened… but we’re going to. Partly, because I’m a bit of an obsessive completionist… but not FULLY! There have been times in the past where my schedule hasn’t allowed a write up and we’ve just moved on. This game, however, I think informed a lot about our current and future team and was a quality game played between a very motivated and talented UNC team that got hot and us – who are also very talented but took our foot off of the gas for a little bit at the wrong time.
As this is abridged, I’m not going to do the normal thing where I focus a ton on the outcome of this game. We lost an 85-80 nail-biter after giving up a 16-point lead with just over two minutes to go in the first half. UNC elevated their intensity and we lapsed just enough for them to take the lead, and then lost the dogfight throughout due to some poor free throw shooting, a few poor decisions, and some very good basketball on their end. Overall, I thought there were sustained moments where we looked very good – but some vulnerabilities showed.
I’m going to very quickly run through some of these vulnerabilities as most applied to the Notre Dame game and will apply to the short term and long-term way we navigate the season. Because of the quick nature of this recap and that goal – I will almost exclusively be focusing on areas for improvement/weakness – which is not the balanced view I typically try to bring to these. So, just keep in mind, that there was a lot that was good about this game too and we’re still a very talented team with amazing upside. This is me basically saying, “hey, if we can find solutions or clean up these concerns, we’re looking great!”
As an initial offering of positivity (also very relevant to the Notre Dame game and moving forward), here’s a gratuitous look at Thijs De Ridder being that dude – prison-dribbling Caleb Wilson and then getting his own rebound and finishing over a 7-footer and a 6’10’ ultra-athlete:
And, also very relevant, a look at Chance Mallory being that dude while creating something out of nothing and showing off his strength inside!
I should probably have pulled something for Sam Lewis, too… but, I’m sorry… you’ve had your fun. This is abridged, remember?
Jacari Isn’t Playable Yet – And Rotational Impact
In this game, it was his ball-handling and offensive pressing. In the Notre Dame game, it was mostly his defense – but Jacari White isn’t just not back to pre-injury form yet (and this isn’t blame, he’s still wearing a brace and can’t move his wrist, it’s just reality), he’s not playable yet. His 10 minutes in this one were catastrophic, on the whole, and were easily the worst momentum plays against us. It’s not just the mechanics of his struggle to dribble (and catch, at times); it’s also just not being in the feel of the game yet. He hasn’t adjusted to the urgency or how to navigate the intensity while not being at full health.
This was a devastating turnover from the coffin corner and then poor recovery to the three as well – which basically eroded most of the early dominance we’d put on display in the game.
That pass out just had nothing on it and was so poor – he just wasn’t mentally ready to be in there.
He was making careless turnovers in traffic because of the injury:
Which led to runout easy buckets that gave UNC confidence at a time in the game when we had been defending well.
And his struggles to make something happen off of the dribble with the brace show up when we need him in isolation. In this one, it leads to a terrible quality shot from Ugo with two in his face from deep (Ugo probably should have flipped it back).
IF we do continue to play him (which is probably fine against teams like B.C. but we have to be very aware of the cost if it’s not going well), he needs to be more of an off-ball, run off of screens, spot up shooter kind of offensive player. We have to stop relying on him off of the bounce in great capacity because his ability to quickly create and control the ball is currently diminished.
And his shot selection has also been forced because he’s trying so hard to make an impact while he’s in there. Just difficult and unnecessary shots (one we’ll see later), and one he got blocked because the contest was there.
Right now, I wouldn’t play Jacari in closely contested games until he gets the brace off. Yes, we need to help him get acclimated and absolutely need him as the season progresses, but the detriment is considerable. This means that there’s a lot of strain on our guard depth; especially if Malik Thomas starts slumping again which has been a two-game trend (the yet uncovered N.D. game included). He did have 11 points in this one and did some good things – but the 3-12 shooting from the floor was inefficient and was more reflective of his early season struggles than his recent heater. Of course, all players are going to go through varying form throughout the year, this isn’t really a concern about Thomas more broadly as we’ve already seen how he can contribute when he’s on his game. This is just to say that, the way we play, it’s a lot to ask of our guards if White isn’t playable (especially if any of the other three aren’t on form).
I’d call this a short-term concern, but a real one. Hopefully the next four games (remember, we’ve played N.D.) in B.C., Pitt, Syracuse, and FSU will offer some opportunity to round him into form (and, ideally, get the brace off) – but it’s a hard tightrope to walk given what we’re getting right now. It may be worth some Eli or Martin time.
Devin Tillis – Matchup Dependent
Fortunately, I think Devin Tillis’s knee is more-or-less back to where he was post-surgery. Unfortunately, he really wasn’t playable in this game at all. Now, couch it, this isn’t the Jacari White situation. Tillis isn’t fighting through injury nor are there zero use cases for him. He played 30 minutes in the following game against Notre Dame and it worked pretty well (for the most part). The problem is that he’s just so matchup-specific and when a team has an athletic and/or long PF, it’s really hard to use Devin. UNC had two, and basically had one of them on the floor at all times between Caleb Wilson (6’10”) and Jarin Stevenson (6’10”)… and it led to Tillis just getting overwhelmed in the post:
This was Wilson’s first shot of the game, almost 6 minutes in, and it got him going (finished with 20).
These weren’t the only ones… but perhaps the most demoralizing re: how little resistance he could put up:
And then, sometimes, we’d send help at Wilson from our Center (in this case because a guard was switched onto him), but then that left Tillis tasked with protecting the rim against their other big (in this case the 7’0″ Henri Veesaar (#13)) where he just doesn’t have the athleticism to be able to contest and challenge around the rim:
For contrast (and, hey, bonus positive content you didn’t expect… look at that!), here’s Thijs De Ridder defending Caleb Wilson in similar isolation:
That’s ridiculously good AND strong, and forces a terrible shot.
The problem is, we run so much and he fouls so much (needs to work on that), that it’s hard to play De Ridder as many minutes as we’d want in these kinds of matchups. He got 31 in this one to Tillis’s 9, with Odom correctly realizing that this wasn’t the matchup for Devin… but those 9 minutes were still very detrimental and a significant part of the loss. We haven’t even talked about their bigs running the floor yet, which was a team responsibility issue but often on Tillis.
There are going to be many games where Tillis is completely fine and even an asset at the PF – but there are going to be games against the most athletic teams like UNC (Duke will offer this later – you can’t put Tillis on Boozer) where we’re going to need to figure out what to do. TDR played 34 minutes against Notre Dame in double OT and was just awesome… but was also clearly gassed and played much of the end of the game with four fouls before eventually fouling out.
This is a matchup-specific crack in our vaunted depth and I don’t think we’ve found the viable solution, yet. It’s something we need to be thinking about and testing. Perhaps a revisit to the dual Center lineups in these cases… perhaps more Sam Lewis at the PF. Those are the two places I’d explore.
UNC Transition Counter-Punch
This might be a very UNC-specific thing with their personnel… but I doubt it. One of their big second half adjustments was to punish our aggression on the offensive glass by having either Wilson or Stevenson sprint up the floor after a rebound and look for long outlet passes to them. This took advantage of us losing a little intensity after getting a big lead, but also just our general awareness. Normally, our transition defense is very good, but the combination of their height and speed (and intention) really tested our guys to identify and recover.
This happened like 4 or more times for easy buckets and, as I mentioned, it was a lot of the team collectively not identifying the threat until it was too late and then also lack of hustle. Tillis was culpable more than once. This one, below, though, showcases the bad Jacari White shot selection and the vulnerable position that put us in. Tillis is behind the play – he takes the corner though and doesn’t identify or get over for the Stevenson threat, and Jacari just stands there and watches his shot and doesn’t get back, either. In fact, the closest person to Stevenson on his catch is Dallin Hall, who crashed the glass himself and was around Stevenson at the time of the rebound but was also slow to identify or communicate the threat.
This wasn’t UNC cherry-picking, as many suggested. This was UNC hustling up the floor with big, long, athletic players and asking questions of our transition defense after we crashed the boards that we did not answer well. It wasn’t that they were simply faster than us, they were fast enough to punish the mistake, but it was more that it took us too long to identify the transition big as the threat and our matchup/handoff process wasn’t tight enough.
This is a risk with crashing the glass as hard as we do and has been something we’ve actually mitigated really well over the whole span of the season. I think the reason we were punished, specifically, in this game is because of a combination of our own loss of defensive intensity/urgency, and UNC’s intention and personnel. I don’t think this is a huge worry over the remainder of the season, but it is absolutely a vulnerability against certain teams with the requisite athleticism and we’re going to need to be much more aware moving forward.
Navigating Complex Ball Screens
Any number of things changed this game. UNC went on an insane heater, hitting 45% of their threes, and some of them were incredibly difficult shots. But the biggest, and most consistent, way they got some of these clean looks and attacked us was an adjustment that they made in the second half. In the first half, they were primarily running standard ball screens with pick-and-pop actions between Veesaar (both he and Stevenson are capable outside shooters for bigs) and a guard. We generally defended this pretty well in the first half and, when we didn’t (toward the end of the half and early in the second half), it was generally either good shot-making by UNC or a little lack of urgency on the defensive end from us once we had a big lead.
In the second half, though, they started to run more complex dual screening actions with both their 4 and 5 and their ball-handler. Instead of the 5 setting most of the screens, the 4 was almost always used (sometimes the 5 was a decoy but still around the play). This was designed to generate undesirable switches because they know we love to switch 1-4. It was also designed to put our 5 in conflict and draw them away from the basket, while creating responsibility confusion. Frankly, it was really well done and, while we had moments of defensive quality, we never really solved it.
Let’s take a look. In this first one, Veesaar (#13) and Wilson (#8) are the 5 and 4, respectively. There’s some decoy action early with Veesaar setting a pin down screen on De Ridder to free Wilson. This really just serves to get him a decent running path as they both run across the court representing a ball screen for Dixon (#3), who had a great game. Notice that Ugo stays in sag defense in the lane for this. Veesaar doesn’t actually screen, but pops to the wing (credible shooter, but this was better punctuated with Stevenson later on). The issue here is that, while we normally like to switch 1-4, TDR really doesn’t want to switch unless he has to because we really don’t want Hall on Wilson, so he kind of poorly tags Dixon to steepen the angle but stays home. Given Ugo’s stance in the lane, though, the switch is preferable. Dallin stays too home on Wilson and can’t recover in time to contest the Dixon three.
It’s a lot of decisions to navigate in real time, and they didn’t get it right here as Wilson wasn’t the threat because, if he dives, it’s right into Ugo. You probably switch this and then have Hall pop out to Veesaar if the pass comes back to him on the perimeter.
This next Cut, though, illustrates the danger of the switch – which is something UNC was trying to force. It’s a similar design with Veesaar setting the pin down for Wilson and then him coming to set the ball screen – but this time it’s down on the wing and this time Veesaar sets up for the stagger screen behind it. Ugo is, again sagging in the paint, and this time we do switch with TDR chasing Dixon out at the point. This time, though, UNC passes it back to Veesaar on the wing, whose shooting credibility forces Ugo to close out. Guess who that leaves guarding Wilson one-on-one in the post? Yep, 5’9″ Chance Mallory, who picks up the smart foul being aggressive on the entry.
Chance was put in this action a couple of times and actually held up very admirably, forcing a travel once. Hall had moments where he stopped Stevenson with his strength and Thomas even had a few moments defending the interior that were solid – but, generally speaking, getting one of their PFs matched up with our guard on the block like this was a huge advantage to UNC which they scored off of frequently and/or got trips to the FT line. It was a smart way to exploit our switching/sag coverage. If TDR doesn’t switch there, now Dixon gets an open three like we saw in the clip earlier unless we stop playing drop coverage with Ugo – not something we’d love to pursue but something we can discuss (as we will in the last clip, below).
Okay, last one, below. Now UNC has Jarin Stevenson in the game (#15) along with Wilson as their two bigs. Ugo is guarding Wilson, presumably because he’s not a shooting threat from beyond the arc. Our guy Jarin shoots just 30% from deep for his career and 27% this season, so this may not have been high on our scouting report threats – but he did go 2-4 against us on clean looks and had 17 points in this game off of some of these mismatches. Here Wilson sets the initial ball screen and Stevenson staggers. Ugo stays with Wilson but now this time both Mallory and TDR go with the ball handler, which frees Jarin up for the open look.
I actually think this might have been the solution, we just didn’t execute. Ugo guarding Wilson (and potentially letting TDR guard Veesaar OR Stevenson) allows Ugo to stay in sag off of Wilson screens and not have to recover to the perimeter. It allows him to deny his post game as long as he’s able to hold up in isolation from the perimeter (which was definitely worth a shot). Meanwhile, TDR and Chance could just switch this as normal on the perimeter. Yes, that still puts Chance on a much larger player, but at least it’s not on the interior (Ugo would still have better access to recover while on Wilson) and we could potentially finagle a more proactive switch to help if he tries to back him in from the outside. Conversely, you could try to have Chance not switch this and have him fight over the screen again, with TDR sagging and then recovering to Stevenson AND with Ugo, again, more accessible to drop into the lane from Wilson without being punished from three if Dixon is able to turn the corner
They’re really good questions that UNC is asking and I didn’t think we ever found all of the right answers. Surely, we wouldn’t often – but that confusion that these actions created was just getting them so many good looks both inside and out. Again, some of this is UNC’s personnel posing those matchup issues (sometimes they played ALL of Wilson, Stevenson, and Veesaar as well) and the heater they went on – but the screen defense was relevant again against N.D. and will be the biggest key to our defense’s success moving forward.
In Conclusion
No real time for this, even! We’re just going to barrel along into the Notre Dame write-up which I will cover with a full-fledged recap prior to the B.C. game (though it may be tight). Keep these things above, in mind when digesting that game too, though, as there’s a lot of overlap in theme and it makes the biggest questions for the remainder of the season take shape, in my opinion.
Okay! Thanks for reading the abridged UNC Cuts even after another game just happened! Be back soon!
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