Point Blank – April 1
Taking the Floor with the Final Four (a Basketball Flood hits Texas; cue some vintage Steve Ray)…Of course you didn’t have Austin Rivers on your Thursday Fantasy team…A bad Philadelphia offense runs into a Hornets nest…
As the Eyes of Texas, and most of the basketball world, turn to Houston, the focus here will be much like it has been through the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight rounds – while power ratings and many forms of technical handicapping are not going to produce significant edges at the hammered out lines of these stages, there is that full dynamic of how the individual teams and players match up, and the possibilities they create.
So on to Houston, and the flood of basketball to the dubious venue of NRG Stadium; for all of its faults that is what the four teams, and those of us trying to shamelessly profit from the proceedings, have to work with (hopefully we do it with more dignity than the NCAA). Since the jukebox has been plugged in all week let’s also push an appropriate button to guide you through today’s read, “Texas Flood”, written by Larry Davis, and then taken to special heights by Stevie Ray Vaughan, as he did with so much of what he touched, this one live in 1983 -
If Saturday’s basketball even comes close to that level of skill, it will mean that we are in for something special.
Item: Is Buddy Hield the kind of shooter that will be impervious to this background?
Sub-Item: What about when Hield isn’t shooting
The shooting backdrop comes front-and-center in determining the Oklahoma/Villanova outcome. Hield is one of the best 3-point shooters the college game has ever seen, knocking them down at a 46.5 percent clip this season, and he just may be such a special talent in that area that even this monstrosity of a venue will not bother his shot all that much. Turn out the lights, and he is still likely to knock them down at a high rate.
Of course, there is also that matter of what happens when Hield is guarded closely, which Villanova has the perimeter defenders to do, and is then forced to put the ball on the floor. As noted in the Tuesday column, for all of the accolades given to Hield from last weekend’s terrific shooting display, his floor game vs. Texas A&M and Oregon was actually poor – 11 turnovers vs. only three assists. That will not be lost on Jay Wright, who can come up with some of the more intricate single-game defensive plans of any coach, and has the kind of veterans on hand to carry out those designs. And the struggles for Hield when he is not shooting are nothing new – he has not had more assists than turnovers in a game since January 26, a span of 16 outings, and it has been an ugly ratio of 53 turnovers vs. 25 assists in that span. What he does with the ball when he does not shoot it is a considerable factor in this matchup.
Item: Villanova has good shooters, not great ones
While Hield helped Oklahoma to shoot a sublime 42.8 percent from 3-point range as a team, rating #2 in the country, the marksmanship by Villanova was nothing special, the Wildcats knocking their long range shots down at a 35.4 percent clip, rating #141. But that degree of mediocrity did not stop them from firing – they were #28 in the percentage of their shots that came beyond the arc.
Six different Villanova players shot at least 100 3-pointers, showing the balance. None of them shot better than Jalen Brunson’s 38.7 percent, showing the potential danger that NRG Stadium brings, or in truth even any random venue for a given game. What happens if the shots aren’t falling? Can they still find a semblance of an offensive flow? Kris Jenkins, Ryan Arcidiacano and Phil Booth all shot more 3’s than 2’s, and Brunson and Mikal Bridges were both close to 50-50 in their distributions.
Item: Syracuse can make stops, but can the Orange clear the boards afterwards?
Jim Boeheim’s zone defense has been a popular topic here throughout the tournament, both in detailing how non-traditional it is, which absolutely matters to the handicapper, since many across the Sports Mediaverse do not break it down properly, and then in noting just how active this group can be when let loose. The Orangemen came up with 20 steals and 17 blocked shots in rallying past Gonzaga and Virginia last weekend, swarming to the ball in those frenzied late surges.
They should have the confidence and energy to keep up that intensity here, but making a stop is only the beginning for this defense – then comes the matter of clearing the boards, and one of the more pronounced matchup issues of this Final Four –
North Carolina Offensive Rebounding 40.3% (#3)
Syracuse Defensive Rebounding 65.1% (#337)
Was this something that the Orange solved in beating Virginia? You might think that based on the Cavaliers being held to only five offensive rebounds. But Tony Bennett’s way is to get back on defense rather than crash the boards, and his team was only #164 in the nation at grabbing their own misses.
There will also be the appearance on a quick glance that Syracuse was OK on the boards in losing 84-73 and 75-70 to North Carolina during the regular season, trailing by a respectable 68-62 in the rebound count. But note that the Tar Heels did come up with 41.5 percent of their own misses in those games. Of course, they got a lot of practice chasing errant shots down because there were plenty of them from one particular source…
Item: Does Marcus Paige have his confidence back, or might this defense again get into his head?
One of the running themes here throughout the tourney is that if Paige is shooting well from deep, Carolina will be cutting down the nets – the Tar Heels are just too deep, talented and athletic in the front-court to be held off by the others. When the brackets were first drawn it was indeed an “if”, his 3-point shot misfiring across the regular season, but it was a confident Paige using that left-handed stroke to score 34 points in beating Indiana and Notre Dame last weekend, connecting on 8-15 beyond the arc.
That certainly was not the case in those early meetings vs. the Syracuse zone. Paige only had nine points in the two games combined, shooting an ugly 2-13 from 3-point range. It leads to a key handicapping question, the nature of which comes up often – does current form and confidence indicate the next step on a player’s path, or is there something about a particular matchup against a given opponent that indeed should carry more weight? The combination of shooting into wide-open space, and facing a defense that was #13 in the nation at defending 3-pointers (30.8 percent), will be a test of Paige’s confidence. Of course, any time he misfires it also opens the door for that rebounding matchup to come front-and-center. Basketball’s questions do not always bring easy answers.
About Last Night…
Thursday brought a classic exercise in what late-season NBA ‘capping must necessarily be about – weighing the fact that “must win” games are not necessarily easy to grab for teams unaccustomed to victory (Indiana was dominated 114-94 at home by Orlando, which can happen – teams that have only won 52 percent of their games have already shown flaws, which sometimes get magnified by pressure); while continuing to add the evidence that lesser players forced into action will often play harder than starters, since some of them are fighting for the NBA lives in terms of making a roster next season (since losing Anthony Davis and Ryan Anderson, which has left the Pelicans without four of their top five scorers, they are 3-4 SU and 5-2 ATS, beating the market projections by 41 points).
And then there was the stunning entertainment provided in Oklahoma City, where the short-handed Clippers forced the Thunder to the very edge of a cliff, without having the finishing kick to push them off of it. How much weight do you attach to those specifics in the post-mortem? Almost none. Austin Rivers had been shooting 30.9 percent from 3-point range across 103 regular-season games as a Clipper prior to Thursday, then went out and scored 32 points, knocking down 7-9 beyond the arc. That does not necessarily tell you anything about Rivers or the Thunder defense (most opponents are actually happen with a Clipper possession ends with Rivers firing from beyond the arc); what it does tell you much about is the nature of late-season NBA play, and the inevitable peculiarities that are attached.
In the Sights…
Back on Tuesday there was a focus on just how unique this week laid out for the surging Hornets, who are now in a major battle for that #3 seed in the Eastern Conference with Atlanta, Boston and Miami – they got the unusual draw of only facing the 76ers twice within a span of seven days. It meant no excuse to not put both the full physical effort, and also a proper tactical game plan, into play, and it led to an easy First Half ticket (52-36) in their eventual 100-85 triumph. Now it is time to stay in play, with the best path this evening #501 Philadelphia Team Total Under (7:05 Eastern), with 96.5 the going rate this morning.
To show how one-sided the matchup can be, note that since the All Star break this is the #6 defense vs. the #29 offense, and the trending is for each direction to continue – Charlotte should have a terrific sense of purpose on the defensive end down the stretch, while the short-handed and disinterested 76ers are merely limping their way home, having only experienced the thrill of victory vs. Brooklyn since January. This one is all about grinding and taking care of business, something that Steve Clifford is showing an awareness of.
In the Sights, NBA Saturday…
It looks like we can dip the buckets into the same well that has filled them a couple of times already this week – once again a team is in a position in which they will take the downtrodden 76ers seriously, and that puts #801 Indiana First Half (7:35 Eastern) into play, falling into range when -6 began showing this morning.
The Pacers have almost no margin for error in their battle with the Pistons and Bulls, three teams fighting for two playoff spots, and that means fully zeroing in on this target, especially after Thursday’s 114-94 disaster at home against Orlando. But that loss can turn into a positive here – a Friday practice session that bore the intensity of something back in training camp. I’ll let the key cogs set the stage –
HC Frank Vogel – “We worked a lot and had a defensive-minded practice. Hopefully we’ll be better against Philadelphia. I felt like guys are not happy with where we’re at and everybody came in ready to work today. The attitude was good.” Then to the players with Paul George – “We got after it. One practice where everybody was in and nobody sat out. That’s a good sign.” And Ian Mahimni – “It felt like we had good energy and we feel like the whole group wants to turn this thing around. … There’s a willingness to play better as a team.”
While Indiana was having the positive prep day, the 76ers were only going through the contractual obligations of losing at Charlotte last night, and there is nothing about this setting that calls from them to bring any special level of intensity. With the Pacers having built leads of 11 and 14 by halftime in the first two meetings this season, the last less than two weeks ago, there is not much in the way of them taking early command again, and I will make that the path instead of the Full Game, since they do play the Knicks in the Garden tomorrow, and Vogel could back off the throttle with a big late lead.
For more Final Four...
If you want to get a jump intake a deeper dive into the Final Four, including some Props talk, here is the podcast that I did earlier this week with Ralph Michaels and R. J. Bell -
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