False Sense of Comfort

I don’t see how we could have a false sense of comfort mentality. We lost two games in a row, and we are playing like the 3rd or 4th best team in the conference. I think that won’t be a problem.

The potential problem, as I see it, is a sense of panic and lack of confidence. Confidence is earned through solid play against good teams, and that is one area where we have struggled. I think a lack of confidence is our biggest enemy right now—and it highlights how important our crowd will be this Thursday.

Danger of Relying on Defense to Create Offense

I have heard a lot of talk about defensive intensity recently, and particularly during the four game win streak, we heard about how it was our best offensive weapon. Obviously good defense leads to less points scored by the opposing team, which helps us win. However, what I am driving at here is our seeming reliance on our defense to play good offense. It seemed like after the four game win streak we heard a lot about how our defense gets our offense going. Well, I wonder if relying on our defense to create easy points is not a little dangerous against good teams. Not that good defense isn’t helpful against every team—but I wonder if this team relies on it too much (particularly against good teams, where you can’t expect them to wilt under pressure).

We didn’t deliver our best defensive performances in Arizona. That is certainly true. However, I thought we lost to ASU in part because we couldn’t score when we had to in the half court set. Same goes for the game against ASU at home, and against Washington on the road. It has me thinking—does this team rely too much on our defense to get our offense going? This is kind of a complicated argument, since we have been, relatively speaking, very sucessful this year. However, maybe it explains our losses to the best teams on our schedule.

Generally speaking, I do think our best defense will help our offense. No doubt about it. But against the best teams, and particularly on the road, I do not think our best defense will automatically lead to victory. The reason: one would expect good teams not to falter under extreme defensive pressure, which means regardless of our defense, a victory will require our execution in the half court. It also means that, if we are relying on our defense to get us points, we could run into trouble.

Statistically, our offense is very good. And I think that is completely valid. But, I wonder what our offensive numbers are against good teams in late game situations (in other words, when it really matters). Without crunching numbers (and I don’t even know how I would begin to do that), it seems to me that against the best teams, our offense has lagged in critical late game minutes. And I think that might be an important reason for our losses this year.

Bottom Line (and stat people, please correct me): I am beginning to think that our inablity to reliably score in the half-court during crunch time might be a just as important deficiency in this team as our hot-and-cold defensive effectiveness. Of course, our defense is still critical. But with all the talk about our defense and lack of heart costing us, I wonder whether our offensive execution when it really matters may not be worthy of equal blame. (E.g.- in each ASU game I thought we played relatively good Defensive, and in each, just one or two buckets would likely have meant victory).

Press

Let’s assume this team’s best offensive strategy is good defense (and it entirely possible). If that is the case, perhaps we should try instituting a press during the game as a strategy. We have a relatively deep team, and it might just kick us into gear. Who knows.

Early on, I started posting that this team seems to have the talent and balance to press, and I, too, would love to see us try. However, it’s not something one just throws in and if we haven’t practiced it I’m not sure we can master it for use in crunch time.

As for D to O, I don’t think you disagree with those who say our best O stems from our D. In essence, what people are saying is that we score better in transition than in our half court sets — and that most of our transition scoring comes from (1) turnovers or (2) D rebounds with fast outlet passes.