The "Lack of Motion" Offense

[NotAnAlum]

OK we won the game but if UWM made just a couple of the open 3s they took it would have been a different story.  This is the second game in a row where the 1/2 court offense has looked terrible.  At LSU you could blame it on their size that our guys couldn't get to the rim.  After UWM I fear its more systemic. 
One of the problems I see is the lack of motion.  We start off with a lot of adjacent passes which don't accomplish much.  Then one guy drives but when he does nobody else moves.  They seem to stand around.  As a result there is nobody open to pass to so the driver just has to go all the way to the hoop.  This leads to charges and lots of "prayer shots" thrown up at the hoop hoping for a foul call.  If a team built like our doesn't move to use our quickness to get open we are way too easy to defend.
Thankfully Junior had a good game last night.  He seemed to be the only one moving.  But Junior had to make some very tough pull ups that were lucky to go in.  We ran one play down the base line where Mayo cut behind the defense resulting in a layin.  Thats' pretty sad that its the only thing that looked like a motion play all night.  Got to get better.

[MarquetteDano]

I think the motion was up and down depending on the possession.  One thing I noticed is our lack of motion when the ball goes inside to Gardner everyone just stands around.

Why?  Gardner is an excellent passer for a big guy.  I would understand it for Otule but my god someone should break to the rim when there is any hint of a double team on Gardner.

[GGGG]

They seem to run two offensive sets.  The first is a dribble drive that has very little motion.  (This is what is causing some people to think that other teams are zoning us when they are not.)  The goal is to get in the lane and either score, dump to a big or knock it back out for a set shot.  I would say this isn't working real well.

The second, which they don't run that often, is a motion offense that has some weak side cutting by the guards with the bigs flashing to the blocks.  My recollection is that they created some seems from the motion offense that created some seems that Junior attacked.  The problem with this is that our guards are often moving when they get the ball up top, and our guards don't shoot real well off movement.

[NersEllenson]

They seem to run two offensive sets.  The first is a dribble drive that has very little motion.  (This is what is causing some people to think that other teams are zoning us when they are not.)  The goal is to get in the lane and either score, dump to a big or knock it back out for a set shot.  I would say this isn't working real well.

The second, which they don't run that often, is a motion offense that has some weak side cutting by the guards with the bigs flashing to the blocks.  My recollection is that they created some seems from the motion offense that created some seems that Junior attacked.  The problem with this is that our guards are often moving when they get the ball up top, and our guards don't shoot real well off movement.

Bingo - Mayo being the possible only exception...

[Dr. Blackheart]

Guys, this was a grinder game with the lowest number of possessions of the year in a game, tied with Madison, and one less than LSU--all grinder teams. These teams want to slooow MU down. Most encouraging, MU had its 2nd best defensive game of the season at .78 PPP next to MSM. MU won this and at Madison with perimeter defense, really good perimeter defense. Gulley, Richard and Meier were a combined 2-26 from the field.

MU has maybe had a few team practices over the past two weeks. Break now will allow them to get the motion offense going in the half court as Buzz is on it. That said, BE style of play for the most part is not grind it out.  

[bilsu]

Buzz said on post game show that with exams and travel to LSU they have not had much time to practice and adapt things for Gardner starting instead of Otule.

[NotAnAlum]

Dr I agree that MU's defense was good out on the perimeter.  You could credit that with UWM turn overs and frequent failure to get into their offense.  But a lot of UWM's bad shooting was just having a terrible night.  Many of those 3s were wide open looks that typically they hit.  This is one of the things I hate about evaluating defenses with how the other team shoots.  Sometimes teams are just shooting well (Washington) and other times when they are cold (@ Wis and UWM).  
What I didn't like last night were several times when a guy was left wide open under the basket and a couple UWM drive all the way to the hoop uncontested.
That said the problem last night and at LSU was offense not defense.  If MU executes like they normally do and UWM shoots like that we lead by 20 at the half and win going away.

[Litehouse]

I think the motion was up and down depending on the possession.  One thing I noticed is our lack of motion when the ball goes inside to Gardner everyone just stands around.

Why?  Gardner is an excellent passer for a big guy.  I would understand it for Otule but my god someone should break to the rim when there is any hint of a double team on Gardner.

I wouldn't call him a black-hole, but when Davante gets it down low, it's rarely coming back out, which isn't necessarily a bad thing right now.

[Big Papi]

Dr I agree that MU's defense was good out on the perimeter.  You could credit that with UWM turn overs and frequent failure to get into their offense.  But a lot of UWM's bad shooting was just having a terrible night.  Many of those 3s were wide open looks that typically they hit.  This is one of the things I hate about evaluating defenses with how the other team shoots.  Sometimes teams are just shooting well (Washington) and other times when they are cold (@ Wis and UWM).  
What I didn't like last night were several times when a guy was left wide open under the basket and a couple UWM drive all the way to the hoop uncontested.
That said the problem last night and at LSU was offense not defense.  If MU executes like they normally do and UWM shoots like that we lead by 20 at the half and win going away.

So which is it?  Was MU's defense good out on the perimeter or did UWM have many wide open 3s?

I think we defended the 3 fairly well as that was the point of emphasis on the defensive end.  What we didn't do well was rebound off the missed 3s and allowed a few too many easy buckets.  I am ok with our defense except for Junior pressuring in the back court.  We get beat of the dribble too many times and end up chasing.

Offensively, we get in trouble by turning the ball over way too much.  Lanes get closed and we throw the ball around blindly.  We want to play a dribble drive attack offense and that is fine but players need to be in better positions to accept the pass and start the process all over again.

[DCWarriors04]

I wouldn't call him a black-hole, but when Davante gets it down low, it's rarely coming back out, which isn't necessarily a bad thing right now.

Right now with the match up problems Gardner is causing teams, I'm a huge fan of the offense being worked around him. Figure when he gets the ball one of four things will happen;

1) he make's a basket
2) he gets fouled taking a shot
3) he dishes it out to someone else
4) he takes a shot, misses and possession is determined by who gets the rebound

Also, one of the announcers made the comment last night that when Gardner goes up for a shot, he doesn't throw all of his energy into it, leaving him in good position to grab the rebound and go back up.

[bamamarquettefan]

But a lot of UWM's bad shooting was just having a terrible night.  Many of those 3s were wide open looks that typically they hit.  

This is all a good discussion.  The only difference I'd have with that statement is that I believe if you charted their shots their open looks at 3s were several feet outside the arc.  I thought our defense was doing an excellent job of not letting them get near the arc for treys, and with the computer charting of opponents now, if you see they are shooting 15% from 3 feet future back and 45% from right on the arc, then all your defense is designed to do is make them take the shot from 3 feet future back until they show they can hit that shot.

On the flip side, I also believe 3-point accuracy is the most random part of the game.  Your 2-point percentage and other stats are the result of being your opponent to the rim/ball, but once I ball leaves hands 20-feet or more from the basket there is some luck.  So on an average night 33% of treys go in.  If LSU doesn't hit 7 of 11 treys, but hits 4 of them, then with one minute to go we are ahead 56-51 instead of down 56-60 and they start fouling us instead of us fouling them.  By the same token, if UWM hits one-third of it's threes early, then we have to completely adjust our defense, creating more openings near the rim, and they are probably tied with us near the end like they were against Wisconsin.

I realize my two paragraph's could be viewed as contradictory, and I admit three point shooting is the thing i feel most torn over analyzing.

[Dr. Blackheart]

Meier averaged 17 against Madison and DePaul...Buzz was always throwing a JWilson, Jones or Anderson out on him on the perimeter--a nice match-up advantage for MU with the long-arm switchables. Unfortunately, Allen was going to town on Mayo and Blue inside as a result.

One mismatch creates another, but after rewatching the game, MU's perimeter defense was excellent overall and the difference in the game and something the Badgers and Blue Demons could not shut down--and one MU couldn't accomplish at LSU when they had to resort to a press to speed up the tempo on the road. 

[MuMark]

Actually UW did a great job overall against UWM defending the 3. Panthers have not shot well from 3 agains the good teams on their schedule. 4-28 against us.....5-22 against UW....5-19 against Northern Iowa and 5-25 against MSU.

Now 4-28 is bad even if we were playing good D. Open 3 point shots happen in every game but many of UWM's 3's last night were late in the clock, deep and contested.


ps. I also noticed we were 18-20 from the free throw line....nobody seems to be complaining about practicing free throw shooting... at least lately.....I'm sure when we go 13 for 25 in a game we will see it again......

[MarquetteDano]

ps. I also noticed we were 18-20 from the free throw line....nobody seems to be complaining about practicing free throw shooting... at least lately.....I'm sure when we go 13 for 25 in a game we will see it again......

Funny, our best looking free throw shooter in my mind is Jamil Wilson (who basically plays the '4' for us).  Next followed by Davante (playing the '5').  Our worst free throw shooting is probably from Derrick Wilson & Cadougan (with Otule out).

Strange team we have... frontcourt being good free throw shooters whilst our point guards are our worst.

[tower912]

Don't forget Juan.   Calmly went 2-2 when the wheels were coming off at the end of the first half.   Looked comfortable doing it, too. 

[rocky_warrior]

Don't forget Juan.   Calmly went 2-2 when the wheels were coming off at the end of the first half.   Looked comfortable doing it, too. 

Blue's FTs have been decent this year too (with many more attempts than Juan)

[MuMark]

Yeah with Chris out we really have no bad free throw shooters. Junior is up to almost 70%. Vander is over 70%. So is Jae.....all the guys that struggled last year are much better.

[MUMac]

Don't forget Juan.   Calmly went 2-2 when the wheels were coming off at the end of the first half.   Looked comfortable doing it, too. 

I wouldn't say the wheels were coming off, UWM had a 6 point possession with the foul and T on Garnder.  Without that, the lead would have remained 8 or so the whole half.  That is the only reason they cut into the lead.  The tightness in the game was short lived, though