Over the years, I have kind of enjoyed it when over half of a piece is about one thing. It really allows us to sink our teeth in. That’s what we’re going to do in this one – a churn through our defense on Bruce Thornton from the Buckeyes; what we tried and what we didn’t to guard him. It’s relevant to trying to cover others like him… when, really, he became the biggest and eventually only source of offense for Ohio State.
It was another close victory over a bubble team, this time on a neutral court, in which we eventually clamped down and only allowed them 7 points over the final 10-minutes of the game. It’s likely to end up another Q1 victory… so why do these wins, over solid teams, feel like things aren’t necessarily trending in the right direction?
For one, I’m not sure that’s really true. Playing really good defense IS a positive trend that I love to see… and if just a couple more of our guys start to get hot on offense, this thing could look really good in a short amount of time like it did earlier in the season. On the other hand, the offense was pretty dicey at times. We were again just over 1.1 points per possession, turned the ball over 12 times – in ways that often directly created OSU points – and, after taking a 63-61 lead with 4:43 to go in the game, went on our own three-and-a-half minute drought to keep from making our lead comfortable while we were stacking stops.
I do want to mention a few things that I won’t go into in more detail in this piece that were, nonetheless, true and deserve some mention since they won’t be featured. Ugonna Onyenso actually started out this game a little dicey – but closed the game really strongly on both ends. We’ve talked about him a lot lately, but you’ll see him crop up in some of these.
Defensive rebounding was quite good, limiting OSU to just 18% of their offensive rebounding opportunities – good for just 6 in total. We still nabbed 39% of our own misses.
Finally, foul disparity has been a huge issue all season long. We’ve struggled to keep from fouling and our outside shooting preference has often kept us from making regularly trips to the free throw line. I thought we were much more aggressive about trying to draw contact in this one and did a pretty good job about not fouling – although they were taking a lot of midrange jumpers. Even though we only shot 69% from the charity stripe (and missed a few down the stretch), drawing 32 was nice.
Aright, let’s just get right into the defense of Bruce Thornton!
Defending Thornton
Thornton is OSU’s PG and primary ball handler. At 6’2″ 215lbs, he’s very physical, hard to knock off of his line, and a very good finisher around the rim both at the basket itself and in the short pull up game. He shoots 39% from deep and 83% from the FT line; so you can’t really play off of him and, in this one, he hit a couple of pull up threes on us to prove that point. He averages 19.6ppg and dropped 28 on us off of 12-21 shooting! Some of that work load in this one was because the Buckeyes were without 15.1ppg scorer John Mobley at the SG; so Thornton increased his volume.
A good chunk of Thornton’s scoring came in the early-to-mid second half… but then he ended up going pretty cold down the stretch. Some of that was likely due to fatigue. He played 38 minutes and took 21 shots and, as we’ll see, we were throwing different bodies at him and subbing with our 9-player depth. A good portion of it was that we changed our defensive coverage on him; to good efficacy. Finally, there was a surprising defensive switch that coincided with that that was a positive change. We’re going to look at all of it: some things we tried that didn’t work, the adjustments we made, and also something I’d have liked to see us try more.
Dallin Hall was the primary man responsible for guarding Thornton… to mixed results. I would say this was more of a struggle from him than it was a success, although he had a couple of solid stands early and then closed decently. Despite Hall being able to stay with Thornton, and having a length advantage, and being able to hold up with his strength, Bruce would often get him with body control and strength. You’ll see in this one, below, Thornton wrapping around a curl screen and getting into the lane on the pass. Ugo is being shielded so he can’t really contest. Hall is right there on the catch, and doesn’t bite for the pump fake. Still, Thornton is able to shield with his body and still go up shoot past the contest.
Hall might have, and has, bothered some other guards in a similar spot… but not Thornton.
Here, later in the game, it’s a pretty similar look again where he wraps around a curl, and Hall is just too far into his body/can’t react to the driving angle in time. You’d also like to see TDR more aware and able to help here… he has his back to the play too much.
The majority of Thornton’s points on Hall – and more of his buckets came on Dallin than on others – weren’t Hall just getting completely torched… it was from a ball screen or off ball screen, getting into the lane, and using his strength and skill to finish over or around a contest.
This was a terrible matchup for Chance Mallory, for example, whose quickness and strength himself didn’t really bother a player like Thornton who could combat with just as much, if not more, strength and more size. This first clip from him is over halfway through the first half, with Hall out of the game, and us trying Chance as a change of pace. Notice our standard coverage with the Center, in this case Ugo, dropping into the paint around the ball screen. Mallory does a nice job of working back in front of Thornton (#2) after his prison dribble… but once he’s gotten the ball so deep into the paint, he can just go up strong into his jumper and isn’t bothered by the contest:
There were a couple of other possessions around this time where Chance was on him and Thornton just immediately took him into the post and drew two reach-in fouls on Mallory as he tried to swipe at the ball because there wasn’t much to do to stop the size disadvantage.
So, Mallory was pretty quickly determined not to be a defensive option on Thornton and we didn’t want to continue to risk getting him into foul trouble. We also tried Jacari White on him. Here’s another look, and you’re starting to get a sense of his willingness to hunt his own shot in these. White plays under the ball screen initially, and Ugo does play drop coverage, but it’s not a deep sag; he’s there to shut down the drive early. Thornton is just a veteran, though, is patient, waits for Onyenso to have to recover, and then takes a little side-step to fade away from Jacari’s contest.
It’s a fortunate bounce, but these are the kinds of shots he was making all day – and it’s a good look for him.
Here’s a worse look for White and was the play that, along with the below, was a failed experiment. He’s doing okay but then just over-anticipates trying to deny the ball and gets beaten back door, which creates a two-on-one that Ugo almost defends himself but he can’t quite recover in time:
The other element of this is that our switching defense was rendered less effective. For one, OSU smartly never really targeted TDR in a switch situation – normally using the Center to screen for Thornton and to force drop coverage while the primary defender fought through. The notable exception was when TDR was off the floor and Devin Tillis was on the floor. OSU did target this matchup hoping to get the switch when they could. It didn’t happen often, but when it did like in the clip below, it went poorly.
Hall is on the floor but White is the primary defender here. Tillis is in the game, though, so rather than screening with Ugo’s man at first, they use Amare Bynum (#1) to get the switch onto Tillis and then they screen with their Center. Tillis gets caught and with his foot speed has zero chance of getting back into the play and effecting it any way. Bynum seals the much smaller White easily, and Ugo can’t quite catch up to Thornton who takes the blowby hard to the rim.
Smart offense from OSU to create a mismatch and then attack it while we were still searching for answers.
So, what were the answers? Before we go there, I’d like to take a quick second to look at what I think we could have tried but really didn’t outside of switches. We tried all of our guards who played on him (and they hunted Devin Tillis), but we really didn’t try Sam Lewis. But watch here, at the end of the half, when they go to a similar play that they went to for Tillis (and they didn’t make this mistake often again) of getting Lewis switched onto Thornton rather than Hall. The ball screen is pretty effective, Lewis gets pinned with the prison dribble… but his length from behind and then his reach keep Thornton from being able to go up in the lane as he had been. Watch this clip – Hall was just as on his hip as Lewis… but he can’t get the shot up with Lewis on him. Nice block from TDR, too.
Why not try this? Especially if you’re trying everyone else?
Lewis was primarily guarding the 6’6″ 220lb Devin Royal – who had 4 points on 2-12 shooting in the game. Much of that was good defense from Lewis, but some of that was that Royal wasn’t shooting very well. Here’s the only look I could find, at the beginning of the second half, where we started a play with Sam Lewis matched up on Thornton that wasn’t either a result of a switch or a pressing/offensive rebound matchup situation. Thornton decides not to press the prison dribble issue with Lewis on his back, then passes out to Royal, who misses a contested shot from Hall.
The beauty of Dallin Hall as a flexible defender is that you can play him down OR up. He could bang with Royal and it would have been worth, in my opinion, gambling that he could have played against that size advantage of a player who wasn’t on their game in exchange for you now making Bruce Thornton navigate against a player 5 inches taller who he was clearly less comfortable attacking.
This is my preferred option moving forward against a strong and physical shot-making guard who is having his way from the point and is taking most of the shots. Try Lewis on him to mix things up and let Dallin see if he can cover the wing.
What we did end up doing worked too, though. We started mixing up our coverages, sending our bigs to hedge and sometimes trap, which worked pretty well. We also started that strategy off with Malik Thomas being the primary ball defender to kick things off.
Honestly, this was only a couple of possessions with Thomas… but I was surprised we went away from it because it set a tone. Thomas is also longer than Thornton and is very strong himself. So, despite Malik being one of our worst perimeter defenders this year, it made some sense to think about it. Here he is with us down 5, Hall resting, and Mallory and White on the floor. Watch now, when they set the ball screen, Grünloh doesn’t drop, he hedges and runs Thornton off to the wing with Thomas chasing. Mallory tags and recovers and Grünloh actually hedges another ball screen on Chance non-Thornton-related. Jacari does a nice job of rotating over to the return pass, but now OSU is going to set up yet another ball screen for Thornton. This time Grünloh is still in recovery, so he can’t hedge as aggressively and, instead, is back in drop coverage. It’s here that you see Thomas hold up his end of the bargain, at first playing under the screen, but then making a nice and aggressive play through to attack the ball and body Thornton on the drive while in good defensive position in the process. Mallory does some nice work to come over and peck at the ball too, and they end up forcing a crazy hurl from Thornton as the shot clock winded down.
Put a pin in this play because we’ll return to the back end of it later.
Now, below, this is really nice team defense in general and I like the rotations, especially from Jacari and TDR; but notice Thomas’s physical defense on Thornton again. This time Thornton chooses to reject the ball screen, which he hadn’t done much in the game, to play away from the hedge (after Thomas does a solid job of getting around a screen and being there on the catch). Thornton attempts the right-handed blowby, but Thomas again is able to body and slow him down, and White’s fake into the lane forces the kick out and deters a shot that had been coming much of the game:
Good stuff from Thomas rising to the challenge; so much so that I was really surprised when they went right back to Dallin Hall as the primary matchup when he returned to the game. Hall did give up one more bucket in the matchup, but the change in supporting defense helped him too. Before we get into more Dallin, though, I should also call out Johann with the nice hedging and mobility in those clips above.
Okay, now Hall is back and the game is tied. This time Ugo is in support on the back end and they don’t just hedge, they trap the wing. Trapping the sideline here is actually something that’s been in their arsenal all year, but isn’t often used because teams more commonly attack the middle (and they don’t always go to it). Here, though, Thornton likely expects Onyenso to retreat but when he doesn’t, he’s caught off guard and Hall has nice hands for the steal:
Here, below, you can see the impact of the strategy. Firstly, Thornton waives off the initial ball screen and, instead gives it to… Cristoph Tilly (#13)? To try to take Ugo off the bounce? That’s not a solid strategy… and when that inevitably fails (good help from TDR pecking at the ball, too) and they kick it back out to Thornton… he again rejects the ball screen to avoid the hedge and ends up shooting a much tougher fadeaway while moving sideways from farther away from the hoop:
So, good defense from Hall but you can also see the impact that the coverage shift had on their approach.
Thornton settles on this next shot where we start off with Sam on him from a rebound pick up situation, but they screen back to Hall. The pull up from deep falls short.
I think that one was some combination of him wanting to try something different and also being gassed. Keep in mind, he’s been playing this whole time and creating his own offense on so many of these possessions while we’ve been rotating bodies on him. So, that’s probably some of it – but you also can’t discount that he hasn’t figured out how to adjust to the hedge yet and so he’s been trying to avoid that look with his play in the recent clips.
And then we get to two of the bigger defensive plays of the game, building off of the momentum from the above. They’ve gone to isolation now, first trying to scrape Lewis off of a screen for Royal, then having Thornton isolate Hall, who stands up to it well and then is able to pounce on the loose ball created on Royal and go coast-to-coast.
That bucket broke a 3:30 scoring drought of our own… and it was created through great defense instead of on the offensive side!
Lastly, this really isn’t Hall or a change in defense. They are trying to free Thornton up off the ball again as opposed to with ball screens, and Ugo is roaming the lane as a result. Hall gets pinned and can’t turn the corner… but this time Onyenso steps up with a really nice block on the jumper.
I had to show that one just because Ugo made some really nice plays down the stretch, this among the biggest, despite not having the best game by his standards contesting some of these shots throughout the game.
So, yeah… the adjustment around the 10 minute to go mark was huge and sent the game on a different trajectory. Hall played some clutch minutes down the stretch including his run out layup. That being said, I was really pleasantly surprised by how Thomas supported the defensive adjustment too.
I don’t love that none of Hall, Mallory, or White were effective at defending Thornton in our standard defense. If we’re not looking to alter our defensive strategy down the road (and I’m not sure we shouldn’t… because it did work well), then I’d really like to see us try Sam Lewis is the primary point defender on a player like this and move Hall around to defend players who aren’t taking the same shot volume. Good to have found an option that worked – still at least one yet unexplored, though.
Alright, moving on to some other things worth mentioning:
Devin Tillis’s Low Key Comeback Efforts
Apparently, Devin Tillis as in a boot prior to the game which is crazy because he didn’t really look any different. I wanted to include him, though, because even though he only played 14 minutes and scored 5 points – which I think is pretty spot on for where all of that should be for him – I thought he did a really nice job playing a role in our comeback efforts throughout the game.
I mostly mean offensively, where I thought he made a couple of timely buckets, like this drive on the baseline taking his time on the finish:
That was the one that closed their biggest lead of the game after our early struggles.
And then there was this trailing three off of a pass from Thomas that trimmed the lead to two:
Those were timely for just five points, but he also had a good continuation pass to Mallory for a three, I really liked this vision and lead to Ugo, drawing a foul, in transition:
He sees that one like a soccer through pass – and I liked how even though he didn’t blitz the ball up the floor, he kept looking to make something proactive happen rather than setting the offense from scratch.
And then, late in the game, tied at 59, this was just winning basketball from Tillis. He gets an offensive rebound off of a missed free throw, kicks it back out, then makes a nice cut baseline, and then drops off a nice pass for an easy Onyenso lay in.
That’s such a good combination of hustle and headiness in an increasingly tight moment.
I’m not sharing these to say let’s play more Devin Tillis. I actually think that 14 minutes is roughly perfect, give or take a couple, for the sole purpose of resting TDR. But Tillis is the kind of role player who can step in cold and contribute just as he would if he’s been playing – better actually because of less fatigue. I like using him in this capacity as well as the toughness he put on display considering he was injured coming into the contest. Just throwing a little love the way of a player who I often worry about but who is very well suited to play this “sometimes food” role.
Turnovers
When you’re an aggressive team taking chances in a transition style, you’re naturally going to turn the ball over sometimes. I think that’s the cost of business when you’re pushing the envelope. When you’re in the half court setting, though, running offense, we need to be better about limiting careless turnovers – especially those that lead to runouts and cheap points the other way. You can’t compound an empty possession by making it points where the offense doesn’t have to play against your set defense and schemes.
Here are some examples, below, that we need to cut out. Here’s one where Sam Lewis drives the lane, comes to a jump stop, and doesn’t feel like he can get into a shot. I’d have encouraged him to try to draw a foul on the initial drive or maybe get into a little right-handed baby hook. He drew contact on something similar in the second half. Either way, Devin Tillis as his closest perimeter support, just stands staring at him and doesn’t react to Lewis being stopped. He should have been sliding down to the open wing as soon as Sam starts pivoting. This way he can lose Thornton, who has his back to him, ball-watching, and possibly get an open look. Tillis’s stationary approach keeps his defender between him and the ball, and then by the time he decides to break, Lewis has already tried to force the pass out to him, leading to the layup the other direction.
These are the same issues we often run into when TDR is posting up. Move proactively without the ball so that it’s easy to determine your intention and play off of each other/much harder to defend.
Okay, this next one shows some of the success Thornton had shooting over Hall, but the cause of the opportunity is due to a lack of awareness from Thomas. He does a nice job pushing the ball in transition after the defensive rebound – that’s great – but he doesn’t really have an idea of what he wants to do and loses sight on kick out opportunities. His hesitation/slowing down allow the chase defender to get back into the play and steal the ball.
I understand Thomas is making an effort to play under more control… and he had a nice pass in transition to Lewis early in the game… but he can’t be comatose bringing the ball up the floor. He’s got to be aware of when a chase defender is nearing.
This next one is Mallory not anticipating that the help might come from Bynum to attack his dribble. I’m not sure what he was doing on this one because he appears to see the defender there; maybe he under-estimated the attack on the dribble with which Bynum was going to play, but he’s loose with the ball at the wrong time, leading to another fast break layup.
OSU only finished with 66 points in this one – that’s 6 already just gift-wrapped.
Here’s one where Ugo panics and tries to skip the pass out of the post when the double team comes. Thornton makes a nice read but, again the static shell around the perimeter on the kick makes it really easy for him to know where this pass might go.
And, finally, here’s a rough one from Dallin Hall who first gets blocked in the lane, gets the ball back, but tries to thread way too tight of a pass to Mallory cutting through the lane. He’s then outmuscled in transition again:
My least favorite part about this is the pass to Mallory because, not only is it difficult and ill-advised… what is Chance going to do catching the ball on the move like that running right into the 7-foot Tilly (#13)? It’s a combination of low completion % plus very little reward if that pass is completed.
The Buckeyes finished with 16 points off of turnovers – but all 10 of these that I showed were direct layups/shots around the rim because of the nature of the turnover. It goes without saying that we want to limit these… but just not being stationary around the perimeter when the ball touches the paint would likely be an adjustment that could go a long way.
Two Nice Improvements
I’m going to close now by calling out two players who haven’t really been on their game recently but who I thought showed some promising signs of improvement overall – Johann Grünloh and Malik Thomas. I’ll do a mini section on each, but I’ve also made some of these selections where both do something beneficial.
Johann Grünloh
I’ve spilled quite a few words recently contrasting his struggles with Ugo’s surge in quality play. Ugo was the player of the game in this one and got a lot of love for his 8-point, 10 rebound, 4 block performance – as he should have. That being said, Onyenso didn’t really play great in the first half, and I thought Grünloh was much closer to his earlier in the season play. Not to mention, his 19 minutes were plus 11 – tied for most on the team with Chance and in fewer minutes.
His activity and ability to be bothersome on the defensive side were what most reclaimed form. Here’s a really nice dual action from he and Malik Thomas working together. This could be a Thomas clip, too, so give both credit. Grünloh is guarding the 7-foot Tilly (#13) initially and Thomas is guarding Taison Chatman (#3). OSU runs a neat little action where Chatman takes a ball screen from Royal (#21), who Lewis is guarding, causing Sam and Malik to switch the guard-to-guard screen. The Buckeyes then compound this action by setting a screen from Tilly on Thomas to try to free up Royal even more as Malik is still trying to recover. Grünloh is alert here, and even though we don’t like to switch guard to 5, he steps out to take Royal which puts Thomas on Tilly. In theory, we have two mismatches now… but Johann does a really nice job sliding on Royal’s drive down the lane and contesting with two hands… and then Thomas manages to keep good positioning on and go up with Tilly to come down with the rebound under the hoop – and then quickly uses the matchup advantage to start running out the other way.
Really nice possession, I thought, both in Johann reading the need to switch when they normally wouldn’t, and then both he and Thomas holding up to guarding out of position.
Okay, this next one was refreshing because during this defensive slump, of sorts, Grünloh hasn’t been as quick to the ball or as successful blocking difficult shots. This one, though, he stays mobile with his feet and is able to block Tilly despite him trying to use the rim as protection.
To add salt to the wound, the ball goes off Tilly out of bounds. I can think of a handful of plays recently where an offensive player was able to draw the foul on Johann on similar looks by getting contact on the arm. He was much more spry and aware, here, neither making contact on the arm or with his body while reaching. Much better!
And then this last clip on the defensive side is really encouraging because it’s felt like he’s been timid, reactive, and not very impactful while dropping into coverage against ball screens recently. This is so much better. He not only helps to shade Jacari White as he keeps having to jump across ball screens, but his retreat angle completely shades off the return pass to his man and keeping his hands wide allows him to actually deflect that return pass attempt.
That’s smothering stuff… and very welcomed!
I also really liked seeing this on the offensive end, even though he only scored 4-points in total. I like it when he’s able to use his size to his advantage rather than playing a more finesse style. Here, he creates a really nice seal in the lane to take a good high-low pass from TDR and, rather than laying it in, he just goes right up and dunks it.
Those are the kinds of bunnies we need him to chip in from game-to-game. More of this!
Malik Thomas
Malik was our leading scorer in this game with 13 (two others tied at 12). He shot 40% from the floor and from three… but we also saw some of his defensive impact earlier, he only turned the ball over that one time I showed before as well, and chipped in two more assists while grabbing an impressive 6 rebounds; which tied TDR for second on the team behind Ugo.
It wasn’t the kind of game where he lit the world on fire like he was doing earlier in ACC play, but it was decidedly a very solid and well-rounded game across the board. I’ll take that! A Malik Thomas who shoots it pretty efficiently, isn’t turning the ball over a lot, and isn’t a liability on defense (he only picked up two fouls as well), is exactly what we need to see as a baseline for this team being quite good… and then if he can splash in some of those heater games in tournament play… heck yes.
One thing that I liked was that when he did miss a shot, from the outside especially, he stayed pretty locked in looking for the next opportunity. Here he misses a three (shout out to the offensive rebound by Grünloh), but then he takes the mismatch with Tilly guarding him and drives it to the hoop.
Very similar, below, this time Ugo with a nice rebound – this time cuts down the lane into space and finishes with the left hand:
And he did hit a couple of big threes in this one – none bigger, in my opinion, than this transition three to pull the game within two points in the second half. This was the end result of that wild chuck from Thornton against Thomas’s pressure. Malik runs ahead of the play, but cuts through all the way to the corner where the defender doesn’t follow, staying under the hoop… but giving up this nice three.
So, yeah, I’m not writing home yet, but both of these guys are players who I’d have said need to start getting going for us during this closing stretch of the season. It was nice to see them contributing quite well and really not having many rough moments.
In Conclusion
I’m finishing this up just as OSU put a pretty bad hurting on a Wisconsin team that just put a bad hurting on Michigan State. FSU has since gone into Blacksburg and destroyed the Hokies. I think there’s a lot of merit in taking these punches from desperate teams away from home and still coming out on top! I know that we aren’t firing on all cylinders yet like we were during the mid-stretch of the ACC season – but the improvement on defense as well as the ability we’ve shown recently to shift our defensive strategy to adjust to the moment IS encouraging.
In the meantime, we’re 22-3 and have won the most consecutive games in the ACC. NOT losing these kinds of games when so many other quality teams are dealing with the fluctuations of the late-middle-season should be encouraging. This time of year, I’m always looking for signs that what we’re doing might not be the best strategic path but, if anything, I think we’ve been making really good in-game strategic adjustments in both how we’re running our stuff and in who we’re playing. All it’s going to take, in my opinion, are a few more guys getting confident/hot at the right time… and we could be in really good shape. We have proven that we can be competitive even when they aren’t. We’ve also built up a pretty solid in the process.
If we can go down to Atlanta tomorrow and avoid any surprises, we should be past the potentially harmful part of our schedule and can start to focus on how well we play against some sharp teams.
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