Duke Basketball 2017-2018

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

Duke picked a good time to get hot from three in the last two games because they have had uncharacteristically bad offensive rebounding games and haven't had the "shots attempted" advantage that they've otherwise enjoyed throughout the season.

Against Wake, an average defensive rebounding team, Duke was only 27.3% offensive rebounding. Wake attempted 75 shots to Duke's 57, although Duke did go to the line much more than Wake, holding a 34 to 9 FT attempts advantage. Turnovers were basically even. Duke shot 52 percent from 3.

Against Miami, another average defensive rebounding team, Duke was just 21.9% and Miami attempted 78 shots to Duke's 56. Duke turned it over 8 more times and held a 21-10 FT attempts advantage. Duke again shot 52 percent from 3.

Bolden and DeLaurier are actually both very good offensive rebounders in the minutes they've played. Robinson/White/Vrank have grabbed zero in these two games (plus the starters have had to play more minutes). So hopefully this improves when those guys return.

 

[rome8180]

Teams might also be putting all their focus onto keeping us off the offensive glass.

 

[Pantone287]

This is one of the possessions I was talking about. Duke seems to clearly start out in m2m guarding the horns set, but watching Carter and AOC later it looks like they switched to playing 2-3.

Maybe it's just defensive confusion, but it worked and looked cool.

What about that looked like zone to you? Everyone stays attached to the same man, including Grayson and Bagley following their guys across the court.

I think that's just what defense looks like when you back off of screens.

 

[bdotling]

Duke picked a good time to get hot from three in the last two games because they have had uncharacteristically bad offensive rebounding games and haven't had the "shots attempted" advantage that they've otherwise enjoyed throughout the season.

Against Wake, an average defensive rebounding team, Duke was only 27.3% offensive rebounding. Wake attempted 75 shots to Duke's 57, although Duke did go to the line much more than Wake, holding a 34 to 9 FT attempts advantage. Turnovers were basically even. Duke shot 52 percent from 3.

Against Miami, another average defensive rebounding team, Duke was just 21.9% and Miami attempted 78 shots to Duke's 56. Duke turned it over 8 more times and held a 21-10 FT attempts advantage. Duke again shot 52 percent from 3.

Bolden and DeLaurier are actually both very good offensive rebounders in the minutes they've played. Robinson/White/Vrank have grabbed zero in these two games (plus the starters have had to play more minutes). So hopefully this improves when those guys return.

I"ve noticed that too the past couple games, I wonder to rome's point if teams are focusing on stopping us on the glass more which in turn is helping with getting us more open looks on 3

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

Yeah, could be. Larranaga, who seems to never not have cameras around for his pregame speech, mentioned this specifically in the part they showed on TV.

I'm hoping of course we're heating up AND the o-rebounding will improve. Take the numbers with a grain of salt given the somewhat limited sample sizes, level of competition these guys as backups may have played against to-date, and lineup constructions etc, but DeLaurier is 16% O-rebounding and Bolden is 14.1%. Bagley and Carter are 14.3% and 13.3%, respectively.

Robinson and Vrank are 0% and 6.3% in their extremely limited minutes.

 

[krsmith16]

This is one of the possessions I was talking about. Duke seems to clearly start out in m2m guarding the horns set, but watching Carter and AOC later it looks like they switched to playing 2-3.

Maybe it's just defensive confusion, but it worked and looked cool.

What about that looked like zone to you? Everyone stays attached to the same man, including Grayson and Bagley following their guys across the court.

I think that's just what defense looks like when you back off of screens.

Yea AOC sagged off his man to provide some weak-side help...made easier since his guy is standing in the corner doing nothing...but I'm not seeing any zone here either.

 

[childress22]

What about that looked like zone to you? Everyone stays attached to the same man, including Grayson and Bagley following their guys across the court.

I think that's just what defense looks like when you back off of screens.

Yea AOC sagged off his man to provide some weak-side help...made easier since his guy is standing in the corner doing nothing...but I'm not seeing any zone here either.

Yeah, okay, I see what you guys are saying. Looking at the man-to-man defense in the first 8 minutes of the game, Grayson also did what Alex is doing here when he was on the weak side -- sagged way the fuck off his man, even 15 feet away, to be just outside the lane to help.

I think they must've worked on this aspect of the man-to-man in conjunction with having the big drop on the PNR, because it looks dramatically different than what I'm used to seeing.

 

[krsmith16]

My memory sucks so i’d have to go back and look but i dont recall ever seeing a duke guard cheat that far off a shooter.
Perhaps K is coming around to belief that 90% layup/dunk is less desirable than 30-40% open 3.

 

[childress22]

Me neither. But we did that a lot last night.

 

[physicsfactor]

That’s the way I was always taught to play helpside man-to-man. Get a foot in the paint. Of course I didn’t play D1 where players can zip a skip pass to a 40% 3pt shooter. Some packline coaches want a foot all the way on the midline. Slap could tell us about this.

 

[childress22]

While I'm screenshotting the game, this is the newish zone stuff I was talking about yesterday.

The second and third pic are from the same possession. You'd have to either call this a matchup zone or a 2-2-1 right? It's no longer a 2-3.

 

[rhfarmer]

K used to teach that if you were two passes away, to sag to the same side of the rim as the ball! Of course, this was the early 80's. He would also teach the weak side defender to sag to the same level as the ball, so if your opponent has the ball on the baseline, you would station yourself in the paint, at the baseline.

The game has changed significantly.

 

[rhfarmer]

@childress22 it looks like they are playing a 2-3, but the zone is being bent to guard people more closely. It's smart really.

A matchup zone is similar. You guard people in your "area" man to man, but you never leave your area. Makes boxing out easier.

What would really be helpful, would be if the defensive players would extend their arms. If you're not guarding closely, you don't need those arms for mobility. Raise your hands to make the zone look bigger and to close off passing angles.

 

[physicsfactor]

@childress22 that’s a 2-3 with the wings pulled up higher. Like farmer said, it’s smart when the offense has so many guys above the free throw line extended. Syracuse does this a lot. And as other have pointed out, allowing Carter to stay parked in front of the rim was great as well.

 

[Slap the Floor]

That’s the way I was always taught to play helpside man-to-man. Get a foot in the paint. Of course I didn’t play D1 where players can zip a skip pass to a 40% 3pt shooter. Some packline coaches want a foot all the way on the midline. Slap could tell us about this.

In Packline terminology, this is described as: "Build a wall to stop the ball".

 

[Slap the Floor]

It is still a 2-3 zone. Most college teams run their 2-3 zone extended because you have to. Duke (to my knowledge) has not run a 3-2 zone this year. I recall them doing it a few years ago, maybe in 2016

Also, Miami was running some AWFUL zone offense yesterday. Duke never had to worry about anything behind them. This is the worst coached Larranaga team I've seen. They are low IQ and he's not putting them in positions to succeed offensively.

 

[childress22]

Thanks, guys. I guess I'm just not used to seeing that from our zone; it seems like since that 2015 Louisville game, our 2-3 has usually been more baseline-oriented.

 

[Topher]

Pantone got a shout out on this podcast

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

I think the 2-3 has always looked stationary in the past, no matter what the opponent was doing on offense, because the players had no idea what they were doing in it. We had guys guarding the corner with nobody there to guard. The fact that so many fans were clamoring for more of that stagnant zone all these years tells you how gross our man to man was; 5 guys literally standing in place watching the opponent’s offense was preferable to 5 guys running around like idiots a mile away from the rim.

The coaches seem to have accepted that they weren’t coaching perfect defense all the time, and are trying to fix things. There are people out there who are far worse, who believe they are never less than perfect and never react positively to criticism. It took years, but Duke appears to be trying to improve now.

 

[rome8180]

Pantone got a shout out on this podcast

Good ep. I really like Ray as a guest.

The stat about us holding Miami to 16-58 in the halfcourt is incredible.