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Message: [QUOTE="Billy Jack, post: 4515873, member: 4173"] I agree with your assessment and think you did a really good job capturing many of the issues. The fundamentals of position defense do seem to be lacking, i.e. the idea of playing D with your feet and not your hands. Probably one of the reasons we’ve been getting so many fouls called against us. I certainly agree that they should run a zone press from the opening of the game to become the aggressor. It should be our personality. John Wooden had a 1-1–2-1 zone press that he used at UCLA very effectively. Having Clingan at the back of that kind of press would be a killer - sort of like having Walton or Kareem back there as the goalie if the other team beats the press. I saw them use at least 2 different zones against X in the 2nd half. They didn’t just draw that up in the locker room during half time. So, I have to think they’ve been practicing it. Maybe they just unveiled it in this game because Hurley finally had confidence that they could do it based on what he was seeing in practice. I agree with everything you said in Defense #2. I would add to that that the zone pressure is not just our best defense, it’s our best offense. It ramps up the pace of the game so that the other team doesn’t have time to set up their defense when we hit them wit our transition game. It has the other team’s defense scrambling so that we’ are the aggressor on O as well as on D. With regard to the offense, Wed night Captured it perfectly. In the first half Newton was forcing the ball into a clogged up middle. The guards can’t penetrate unless the middle is open. The defense backing off Jackson certainly contributed to that. As valuable as he is on defense, he’s got to come out in that scenario in favor of someone who’s at least a threat to score so that they will legitimately defend that guard. In the second half, hitting the 3’s had the added benefit of opening the middle for penetration. They have to take what the defense will give them. With that in mind, the shot selection was so much better in the second half. Bringing Sanogo out high also helped to open up the middle. To improve the offense they have to become a better passing team. Half court motion offense depends on crisp cuts and crisp passes. Getting both ball movement and players moving better without the ball are key. Otherwise, we get players standing in place. Even if they’re passing the ball, nothing is happening. I’m not going to get into the 2 bugs issue, but it will only work if they too can pass the ball effectively and move without the ball effectively. Hurley has seen them in practice. He knows better than I do if they have what it takes to make that work. Just elaborating on some of the themes you introduced.. thanks for the analysis. [/QUOTE]

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