So I did a careful re-watch doing my usual charting (and my "back 10 seconds button" was working overtime). But I also tried to track some things that have come up here repeatedly over the last couple days like the 2 big lineup, our play against their zone, fouls missed against them vs. soft against us, them getting to more loose balls, Donny's announcing, changes we made on offense, etc.
First off... Thought we pretty much dominated the first half in terms of process. A couple silly reach-in fouls, but for the most part we made them settle for midrange 2s and tough shots, they hit 3 really tough 3s with hands in the face, Hawkins and Calcaterra missed several completely wide open looks, we missed a couple layups on orebs, and the refs didn't call them for at least 3 shooting fouls committed against us. At one point we were up 5 and Newton missed an open floater, got the rebound, found Calcaterra for a completely wide open 3 that would have put us up 8. Instead he misses, they come down, Hopkins shoots a 3 with Hawkins right on top of him and makes it and it's down to 2 point game. A little later Floyd hits the miracle 3 at the shot clock buzzer and now they're up at halftime. Carter also hit a really big late shot clock 3 in 2nd half after Jackson hounded him for 5 seconds after we had cut the lead down to 6 to push the lead back to 9 and stall one comeback.
For the game, we had a 10 point ShotQuality expected points advantage, which means in the context of who was taking the shots from where and defense pressure we were expected to win 78% of the time. Instead we lost by 12. We had a 100th percentile expected points per possession. Other than a handful of random shots, all our attempts were at the rim, wide open catch and shoot 3s from good shooters on kick outs, or FTs. Unfortunately thanks to fouling them a bunch they also had a 90th %tile offensive day. And yet the under hit lmao.
Here's a tip. If you read anyone on this board saying Cooley is a great coach because he mixed up his Ds and zoned us and Hurley never zones (so he's a worse coach), don't listen to them. Probably just put them on ignore. Seriously. They're not even watching the game. We absolutely shredded their zone. In the 1st half. I have them down for 4 zone possessions and we scored 8 points on the 4 possessions, or 2 points per possession, which makes us the greatest offense of all time and on pace for ~140 points for the game (and it could have been more, since Hawkins missed 2 wide open 3s but we got orebs). In the 2nd half I saw only a couple: Clingan got deep post position on one but traveled unforced, and on the next Hawkins hit a 3. Far as I noticed they stayed out of it for the rest of the game.
Donny was awful. He said let them play a few times on obvious fouls, but he made that comment both ways, so fine whatever. But he tried to call Sanogo for 3 seconds on a play he was out of the paint. He said Sanogo was in paint for 6 seconds on another but missed or ignored that there was a shot attempt which resets the count since we didn't have live possession so the real count was 3 or less, He absolutely failed at describing what icing a ball screen means. He correctly identified that Sanogo pushed Croswell in the neck on the one front, but failed to notice that Croswell was literally draped all over and bearhugging him, thus Sanogo was forced to push him off (thankfully the ref saw this one right). He and play by play guy said Hawkins drew the foul by kicking out his leg ("Reggie Miller would be proud") despite the guy literally running into his hip/groin/chest... you know not the outstretched leg. You can't outstretch your groin. It stays in the same place. He also made the joke about us having a million guys in the huddle... but that was legit it was 27 guys in the huddle and we were late to break from the TO lol.
As for loose balls... I generally disagree with the thesis that Providence outworked or outhustled or outtoughed us. Rebounding was dead even by % of total available boards and we had more steals. They got to a couple key loose 50/50 ones in the last 5 minutes, but I don't know we were still getting orebs and steals in the last 5. On one key possession with around 5 minutes to go, they got 2 offensive rebounds. But it was because our D was so good they took bad shots that were way off and caromed so far off the rim right to them. On a couple other plays we got our hands on the ball but either couldn't quite get it or it just got batted around and despite having equal numbers of people in the area it just bounced right to them. I'd generally say they got a lot of bounces in the last 10 minutes. "You earn the bounces" yadda yadda... they got a good bounce. The only one that was a little poor on our part was an "almost steal" we had with Jackson forcing a PC prayer pass against the halfcourt line and then coming back to the play and losing the ball (after maybe getting fouled), and our guys had mostly leaked out into transition thinking we'd get it for sure, so PC had numbers in the area when he stumbled and lost the ball. We also could've blocked out harder on a couple instead of triying to outjump them, but eh, there were rugby scrums going on as is.
Big lineup- Inconclusive. Went on a mini run in the 1st half with it. Mixed success elsewhere. Needs some more practice time. I did really like the Newton-Hawkins-Calcaterra-Jackson-Clingan lineup we had in at some point in the last 10 minutes.
Newton (19/11, +8) - Newton did a great job this game adjusting from last game. Today he consistently attacked the paint. I counted at least 11 successful drives into the paint. He made a couple, missed a couple floaters, kicked out a few times, and got fouled a couple times with no call. 5 assists and multiple other potential wide open assists to only 2 turnovers is good. But he had a a bunch of other small mistakes and fouls that boosted his negative in double digits.
Hawkins (19/6, +13) - Surprisingly good game from Hawkins despite his shooting. He was all over the glass with 5 offensive rebounds. 2 assists, a steal, and no turnovers. Decent defense for the most part, good rotations. Had a couple nice drives to rim, too, but was blocked by rim (defender made have gotten a piece and changed trajectory) on one key moment.
Jackson (24/11, +13) - Fouls were killer and the opportunity cost of not having him in end of 1st half was rough. He threw a bunch of good entry passes, outlets, and transition finds when he was in there. Credited 4 assists to 1 turnover. Fouls on D, couple quick bad shots, and sloppy pass or two led to his double digit negatives.
Karaban (18/8, +10) - Graded out a lot higher than I thought he would considering Hopkins day. Had his best passing day in a while (Jackson foul trouble helped put him in bigger role, especially against the zone D in 1st half). Had some big traffic rebounds and orebs. There were a few obvious times he got roasted, but he also drew a charge, got a couple blocks/steals/deflections, and strongly contested a bunch of jumpers. Hopkins was only 4-10 from 2 and did a bunch of his damage against others (Sanogo, Hawkins, Jackson), including some on random fouls that awarded 2 FT. The moving screen called against him when we had cut the lead to 5 was somewhere between borderline to horseshit on replay (depending on if ref had better angle of Karaban's arms). Was a huge call after we had a great D possession, he drew the charge on Hopkins, and we had just cut down the lead to 5.
Sanogo (18/10 +8) - Tale of two halves for Sanogo. 12/3 in first half, 6/7 in 2nd half. First half he was our finisher and hit the offensive boards hard. Turnovers, poor shot selection, missed bunnies, and fouls on D in 2nd half doomed him (and maybe us). One note I will make, I thought Sanogo got beat back by Croswell with about 12 min left, but it wasn't Sanogo's fault. Diarra cheated in on offensive rebound and didn't even get close to it instead of getting back, so Sanogo had to stop his man/ the ball, leaving Croswell open for the transition dunk. +8 is 2nd worst performance of year for Sanogo after the foul trouble Oregon game.,
Diarra (5/8 -3) - Not a great game by Diarra. Not enough impact compared to his fouls, even a few of his positive plays only happened in garbage time. Plus a couple mental errors (the aforementioned Sanogo play and late closeout on a 3pt shooter in scramble play). With Bynum out, we should've been able to eat Breed, Locke, and their guards alive and it didn't happen. 1/4 from FT line.
Alleyne (5/6 -1) - Good with the bad. Good energy and activity on defense, but went too far a couple times with some real boneheaded fouls (20 feet away from basket, 1 sec left on shot clock). Had a couple real poor decision early shot clock iso mid range pullups.
Calcaterra (5/4 +1) - Some good passing to Clingan, they continue to have a nice connection, couple under the radar defensive plays, but missing 4 completely wide open 3s was killer. And all 4 were completely wide open not even contested (1 was really deep, but probably shouldn't have shot it from that deep in the first place).
Cingan (21/6 +15 MVP) - Clingan with another bench MVP. Rim protection was stellar, strong rebounding, one of the few guys drawing fouls on Providence, consistently open on rolls thanks to poor Providence D. At least one of his personal fouls was bologna (ref made tripping motion signal but his feet were 2 feet away from opponent, foul may have actually been on someone else reaching in if you think it was enough to make the guy fall), couple other were borderline but no good replay angle to exonerate fully. 4/8 from FT line and a couple legitimate fouls the only negatives.
