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Player Jahlil Okafor

He has to be more of a factor on D. On a couple of replays, he had his hands down when UNC secured a key offensive board. Tired? Or apathetic?
 
In an argument with a troglodyte about why Plumlee doesn't play more. You can't escape them.
 
I don't think it's worth discussing. It's not going to change. Okafor is really good by a lot of metrics, not that far off of Plumlee by any of them. All I would realistically like to see now is a bit fewer post ups and 4 minutes of rest each half. The team seems to understand that Okafor post up possessions early in the game are good because they get key players in foul trouble for later, and they're less important possessions. They also seem to get that Tyus and Cook need the ball late, once the foul drawing is done with and points are much more important. This is all good. It would just be nice to see the switch happen a little earlier and Okafor being fresh to rebound and defend and get up and down the court late.
 
Just 7-8 more minutes of Plumlee. That's all I'm asking. That should be enough good defense and guard-centric offense to win.
 
Marshall is such a hazard on offense though. People ignore him while wide open and he gets caught off guard when the ball is dumped to him (which often leads to a turnover).
 
Fair enough, Chib - I thought all of the bigs were a bit reckless with the ball around the rim tonight. Too many turnovers.
 
ChibCU said:
Marshall is such a hazard on offense though. People ignore him while wide open and he gets caught off guard when the ball is dumped to him (which often leads to a turnover).
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Solution: don't pass it to him. It's like the guards sometimes forget that he's not Okafor.

Quinn had that nasty crossover spin move early and instead of taking the layup, he fired a bullet pass to Marshall from four feet away. The result, IIRC, was a fast break basket for UNC.
 
K thinks he'll be ready Saturday. Hopefully we don't play shitty against the next 2 shitty teams so he can sit a bit.
 
I wish we could calculate our offensive efficiency when we run through this guy. It has to be atrociously bad the last month. His offensive rating was once top ten nationally, sometime in January, and now is out of the top 150
 
deepdarkblue said:
K's obsession with constantly playing him is making me start to hate Okafor.
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That was just unfathomable to me today. Okafor didn't even want to be in there for most of the second half. At one point, he dragged himself over to the bench one on foot during a break, got a towel, wiped his face with his hands on his knees, basically begging to come out. K just barked at him and pointed back where he wanted him to be on defense.

I shouldn't be, but I am just shocked that Plumlee didn't play at all after Okafor came back in last in the first half (I think). Until the very end, Okafor was absolutely horrible in every facet of the game. We were getting like half a point per possession from him, if that, our offense completely stagnated, he was getting schooled by Kennedy freaking Meeks in the post because he couldn't plant on his ankle, wasn't getting back in transition... I maintain that if Marshall had played the last 15 minutes, we'd have won by double digits. Guess I should be thankful that I got to see such a classic instead.

And that's not even bringing up the fact that we played 40 minutes of extended pressure man against freaking UNC. Jesus. It's going to be so goddamned frustrating watching this talented of a team eventually lose in March to an inferior opponent due entirely to coaching.
 
DurhamSon said:
I wish we could calculate our offensive efficiency when we run through this guy. It has to be atrociously bad the last month. His offensive rating was once top ten nationally, sometime in January, and now is out of the top 150
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I generally agree with the posts on this board re: more Plumlee and my position is in line with SM/DSon, etc. But I think it's worth noting how open Cook was on some of those early threes, the cause of which was partially the doubles on Okafor.
 
Each of the four players in the main lineup around Okafor is now shooting over 37% from 3 on the season. No doubt a large part of that is due to the attention Okafor draws, which Duke is going to need to maintain by paying the price of feeding Okafor and suffering through those bad possessions. Ideally, the threat of Okafor is enough to draw attention in a later stage NCAA Tournament game, without Duke actually feeding him in that game. Duke reaping the benefits of the threat without actually using it should result in an unbeatable offensive performance in that game.

Until then, Duke's offense needs to pay the price of using Okafor. I've accepted the fact that we're going to get at least 30 minutes of Okafor in a competitive game and that he's going to suck up at least a mid-20s percentage of the possessions. However, I don't think K is too far gone to change his substitution pattern so that Okafor gets 4 minutes of rest each half and to change the usage so it's something like 24% rather than 28%. I mean, I'm now hoping for Okafor to "only" play 16 minutes per half and "only" have 24% usage - this can't be too much to hope for.

In the big picture, these are small changes that should add up to 1-2 points per game in Duke's favor. That could obviously be the difference in winning a national championship or losing in the 2nd round.
 
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