In Reply to: Morning after sour grapes posted by lafong on February 14, 2025 at 10:02:00
First, to get it out of the way, I still say that on this team, Iriafen ain't all that. She went 4-14, with 9 rebs (3 offensive) in 36 minutes. I'll take that stat line for an opposing forward every time.
The rest, TL:DR: Betts has got to initiate quicker and pass out of double teams; We need to post up Barker some; we have to not just give Watkins all day to shoot threes.
Regarding our team, with a focus on last night. We are toooo Betts reliant. cramming the ball into her when everyone knows that's the play, bogs down the offense. She gets the ball and everyone stands around waiting to see what will happen. When Lauren get's the ball, the movement of the rest of the team is frozen. Dead. Now, when she's defended one-v-one, it doesn't matter. She can score or draw a foul on anyone. But, when there is a double (or triple, or quadruple) she's not going to be successful. She went 5-13 last night, and I'll bet none of those 5 baskets came when she was doubled.
And, sc was smartly doubling off the entry passer. When the ball came, the doubler came. And, when Lauren passed the ball back out, the doubler picked up her man again. sc often effectively had 6 players in half-court defense.
It's stupid to critique a POY candidate, but I've never been accused of being smart, so .... Lauren has to be mroe decisive in the post. She was taking 2 beats. That allowed a seconed, and often a third, defender to collapse, before Lauren started her moves. She needs to start her moves as soon as she receives the ball. I would suggest that she start her post ups on either side of the key, not the middle. This would leave the backside open to hit cutters, which we did a couple of times last night.
When Betts sets up in the middle, not only can she be clogged with multiple defenders, but we have no chance at getting a layup from anyone else. Multiple times last night Kiki or Londyn drove the basket and ended up eating the ball, because there were 3 sc bigs there. People have been criticizing the fact that our offense is either Betts or a 3. The way we're playing, no one besides Betts can get a layup in the half court O. We need to run plays that are designated for Lauren to pass to a cutter.
And, Barker is a very good post player. Betts was 5-13 last night. Barker was 4-5. Like I've said before, we need to run post plays for Barker. When Betts is not in, and when Betts is in, have Betts play the high post. Janiah can torch 1v1 coverage in the post.
Juju: Close's decision to give her the 3 point shots was crazy. Juju shoots 34% on 3 pointers. But she doesn't shoot that low when no one is defending her. She gets as much defensive attention as anyone in the country, which contributes to her truly mundane shooting %'s. She shoots 43% from the field, 34% on 3 ptrs. Boring. But, you can't just not defend her. I'm at a loss as to what Cori was thinking in the first half.
Last night was a classic Juju stat line, except for the fact that we gave her all night to shoot 3 pointers. She was 12-26 from the field: 46%. Take away her 6 of 9 on 3's, and she shot 35% on 2's. That's horrible. I hooooope Cori learned her lesson. Watkins also got to the line 10 times and there is nothing you can do about that. You've got to be ahead of sc in the 4th quarter, b/c in the 4th Watkins is going to just dribble into people, create contact or not even create contact, and get calls. It's ridiculous what she gets away with.
I will say, in the 2nd half, we started defending her on the perimeter, she put her head down, and we sequentially threw multiple defenders at her. That's what you do against her. Teams have figured that out and that's why her numbers have been down. She's been sussed. For some reason Close made a crazy decision to give her wide open 3's. Unless she adds something different to her game, or unless another coach makes the moronic decision to just give her 3's, Watkins will never have another night like last night in her career.
TL:DR: Betts has got to initiate quicker and pass out of double teams; We need to post up Barker some; we have to not just give Watkins all day to shoot threes.