Been watching very closely over the past 3-4 games at how our guards utilize the screens set by our bigs. With the exception of Spike, it seems that all of our guards/wings either start penetration before the big has actually set the screen, or fail to get close enough to the screener in order to compel the defender to absorb the full pick…really poor use of the screen by both Caris and Walton in my opinion.
I was initially of the opinion that our bigs were subpar setting screens, but the guards aren’t helping in my view. Doyle sets a decent screen, but Donnal is pretty poor in that regard.
Dylan - would you mind breaking down some film to either refute or confirm my view on this. I think this may really explain our lack of effectiveness on PnR and the difficulty we’ve had generating easy buckets in general.
IMO, Caris is too indecisive. If his man goes under the screen, he doesn’t take the open three, but often hesitates which allows his man to recover. If his man fights over the screen, he might head down the lane but rarely takes it to the rim, instead he’ll stop, pivot, look for someone to pass it to. If you compare him to Nik last season, Nik would go hard to the rim if he had an opening. He’d force help and find the open man. Or he’d pull up at the free throw line. If the big came out, he’d dump it into Morgan for an easy bucket. Against Illinois, we were able to exploit that with Doyle late in the game. Today, not so much.
IMO, Caris is too indecisive. If his man goes under the screen, he doesn't take the open three, but often hesitates which allows his man to recover. If his man fights over the screen, he might head down the lane but rarely takes it to the rim, instead he'll stop, pivot, look for someone to pass it to. If you compare him to Nik last season, Nik would go hard to the rim if he had an opening. He'd force help and find the open man. Or he'd pull up at the free throw line. If the big came out, he'd dump it into Morgan for an easy bucket. Against Illinois, we were able to exploit that with Doyle late in the game. Today, not so much.
Would really help if Caris were able to do 2 things a) go left on occasion b) attempt to finish with authority instead of going to the jumpstop over and over and over.
I am so confused as to how this team beat Syracuse and nearly knocked off Nova…It’s so obvious that MattD was completely spot on early on about how our lack of top talent recruiting would hurt us. Chatman, MAAR, and Wilson just look absolutely lost out there, Dawkins had one good game but has yet to show consistency, and Donnal does NOT look like he had an entire year to get to know the offense last season. I do have to say Doyle has been the one saving grace to this class, especially if he develops that mid range jumper. One more point: Is is just me or is Walton JUST a small, speedy shooting guard that takes the ball up? In the half court offense he rarely does much else besides catch and shoot. I think that is the main problem with this team and why so many expected us to do well. If Walton was actually using screens and penetrating to kick out or get it to a big, as many expected him to do, I feel like we’d be much better. We don’t have a dominant ball handler this year, and if you look at the film from last season, although Walton was the “point guard”, Stauskas dominated the ball on offense. We need someone who can execute the pick and roll, and LeVert and Walton just aren’t cutting it. Getting Derryck Thornton would solve a lot of these problems (Oh and Irvin deciding to suddenly suck at shooting doesn’t help).
Yeah, it’s hard to know much of Walton’s struggles are related to the toe injury and how much of it is he’s just not that good. He had a nice freshman year but he wasn’t asked to dominate the ball and create a lot of offense. A lot of times he stood in the corner and he became a good three point shooter from that spot. However, he has never proven to be much of a distributor or excel at using ball screens.
I think a lot of this season’s hope was that Walton would be one of the best PG’s in the conference and among the better ones the country. His shooting has been awful this year. He’s at 35.5% from the field. He definitely looks like he’s lost some explosion since he can’t push off that toe. I think he’s at his best in the open court where he can use his speed but we haven’t been able to run much his year. I’m not sure he will ever be a good halfcourt PG. His shot is suspect and I don’t know that he’s a guy that is going to get into the lane consistently and break down the defense.
Hopefully, he can get healthier as the year progresses but right now, his play is definitely a major concern. The offense is just a mess right now and has been for a while. Really it took a miracle performance by Dawkins for us to beat Illinois. We need to get a lot better in a hurry or it’s going to be a real struggle in the conference.
You’re right, I did forget about the injury when I wrote my post. A lot of his early success this year was in fast break situations but he can’t really do that anymore with his toe.
Walton can get into the lane, that is not the issue, the issue is finishing…he simply isn’t very good at it. Levert is below average in that regard as well. I think both could help themselves with better timing and spacing on the screens.
I have to disagree. Walton doesn't seem to get into the lane much at all.
I didn’t say he did, I said he can…he doesn’t have the opportunity to do so, whether by injury or design. Caris is nearly the exclusive PnR player on this team…and not a very good one. Walton got into the lane enough last year, but didn’t finish at a high clip, did better in that regard down the stretch though.
Early this season, Walton did have that explosiveness, did get into the lane and at the rim. Most of the time he didn’t finish but got fouled. So that was good to see. But since Nova and the injury, this hasn’t happened at all…
I have to disagree. Walton doesn't seem to get into the lane much at all.
I didn’t say he did, I said he can…he doesn’t have the opportunity to do so, whether by injury or design. Caris is nearly the exclusive PnR player on this team…and not a very good one. Walton got into the lane enough last year, but didn’t finish at a high clip, did better in that regard down the stretch though.
My bad, I totally misread that… But yeah in that case I do agree that he can, but doesn’t. I just hope that it’s the injury that’s not letting him, and once that heals we’ll see the Walton from the first couple games again. He was so dominant running the fast breaks…
On that subject, it would be very interesting to see LeVert’s points per PnR possession for the year. With all the wild mid-range jumpers he’s taken off of them, I’d imagine it’s quite bad compared to the rest of the Big Ten teams’ number 1 options.
Caris is a much better catch and shoot player at this point in his development…he lacks the assertiveness and strength to finish with authority over bigs as it stands now.
(Oh and Irvin deciding to suddenly suck at shooting doesn’t help).