Please don’t flame my crude editing; I’m new at this.
After a successful screen and roll Caden gets the ball and moves to the hoop. A wing defender moves to the lane and sets up a roadblock. This play ends with Caden being fouled. Other times he is simply stopped. A high defender fades low to block the wing pass. The only open man is Peters but Caden would need to stop, pivot, and kick to find him, not an easy sequence.
I think the Ivy coaches have figured out this gambit to stop him.
Good take, 69, although it looks like Hicke is open in the corner if Pierce can get the ball past the two defenders (not a given)
I was trying to see where Pierce might have been favoring. He was doing an unusual stretch at one point, which I can’t quite describe. With regard to the double teams - I think we were seeing the same thing - multiple nice screen and rolls where Pierce gets the ball in good position and the play kind of bogs down. Here I’m guessing that 24 is Pierce’s man and the headband in the paint is Hicke’s man. This should be a mismatch and Pierce should go to the hoop and score (and 1). The spacing is good here, either Peters’ man is doubling Pierce in which case Hicke is open, or he is helping the helper on Hicke - either way could go to Hicke in the corner who could shoot or then rotate to Peters, or recognize the double and find Peters. So this should wind up with an open 3 for Hicke or Peters.
TigerFan:
By the time Caden meets the defender in the lane, the sagging defender has cut off Hicke.
Good cover
He’s been defended well this season, but he’s also missing the same shots he used to make. Pierce lacks spring in his step and is rolling layups off the rim while coming up short on baby hooks.
On Blake’s late steal-and-dish to Pierce, Caden finished with a soft two-hand layup on a ball he normally would have dunked. In fact, according to Torvik, he hasn’t dunked since 1/20! He’s clearly not getting the lift he used to.
GK: agree. There was also a play where he was on the left side of the hoop on a missed shot, the ball came to him, and he made a weak attempt at a two-handed tip-in, with barely no elevation off the ground (and missed). This play to me confirmed all suspicions about a lingering injury.
There was a noticeable pickup in defensive intensity in the second half, even with Byriel’s problems. Lee was much better on that end and the brief injection of Huggins was a huge success.
I still wonder why the Tigers don’t play more zone when they’re getting killed on drives and post-ups. Or at least play a more pressure-oriented man to man from the start. They kind of slowly ease into pressuring the ball in the half-court, denying passes, etc. By then the opponent is in rhythm and it’s a second-half dogfight.
Offensively, if Happy could get that hook to work…As for Pierce, yeah, the help is getting there to cut him off but it’s not really a double team, so you’d think he could beat that guy around the rim. Or a quicker, tight-tolerance pass to the corner. Or the corner guy shadows behind his defender when that guy slides over to give an interior pass opportunity.
The corner guy would need to break to the basket very aggressively to get there in time.
I went back and checked what happened on this play. Pierce did attack the basket and got fouled. Wasn’t particularly close to getting the bucket - but sank the two free throws.
Umbrellaman: Yes, that’s what I stated. I saw this coverage several times during the game. That’s the first one I could find on replay.
Once Caden is stopped about 8 feet from the rim, his options are limited (due to his injury?). I would like to see more pressure put on the sagging defender by someone breaking for the hoop. If it is Hicke, and he is covered, Peters is all the more wid open.
