We are about 40 percent through the season and as we know it’s been a rough start. With 60 percent of our season still left to play there’s a ton of opportunities to get back to playing well. Expectations wise we should just look at this team to be playing well come end of the year.
Covid protocols has us at a reset. Granted we won’t have the whole team practicing but players will be out of protocol at different times allowing us to teach in smaller groups won’t be a terrible thing considering our deficiencies.
Offensively I believe we get enough open looks to win we just don’t make shots. Shot making is definitely something that can be worked on regardless of how many guys are available. Some of this issue is between the ears. I know in practice players make shots at a high level. The only way to get out of shooting slumps is to keep shooting. We also make lots of sloppy passes and at times we seem to just move through the motions. For example player A knows the pass needs to go to wing so player A forces pass to win no matter what. This is a sign the players know our sets just not well enough to know all the counters in the sets. This is fixed through time on court but with 60 percent of our games left this will only get better.
Defensively is where most of my concern is. If we aren’t going to make shots then we have to get stops. In recent games there were many times we were within striking distance of coming back but just needed to make a couple stops and at times 3-4 stops in a row because of our lack of shot making but we just couldn’t do it. The problem is our defensive fundamentals are terrible. We don’t see man and ball. We don’t know how to hedge or bump someone off their cuts. Good defenses move as one, we are very far from that. Combined with that once we miss a couple shots on the offensive end we get very lazy on D. There seems to be no defensive leader someone who is the quarterback on D talking and making sure guys are doing what they are supposed to do. Someone needs to step up in that area.
I believe our problems are fixable and we can get to a point to where we are playing well. Time will tell obviously and I’m a little concerned guys will just give up mentally and pack it in. But I believe Juwan won’t let that happen and I have full confidence Juwan can begin to fixing these issues.
I’m looking forward to the last 17 games and seeing how we grow and improve. The above are things I’ll be looking for.
Covid protocols has us at a reset. Granted we won’t have the whole team practicing but players will be out of protocol at different times allowing us to teach in smaller groups won’t be a terrible thing considering our deficiencies.
Offensively I believe we get enough open looks to win we just don’t make shots. Shot making is definitely something that can be worked on regardless of how many guys are available. Some of this issue is between the ears. I know in practice players make shots at a high level. The only way to get out of shooting slumps is to keep shooting. We also make lots of sloppy passes and at times we seem to just move through the motions. For example player A knows the pass needs to go to wing so player A forces pass to win no matter what. This is a sign the players know our sets just not well enough to know all the counters in the sets. This is fixed through time on court but with 60 percent of our games left this will only get better.
Defensively is where most of my concern is. If we aren’t going to make shots then we have to get stops. In recent games there were many times we were within striking distance of coming back but just needed to make a couple stops and at times 3-4 stops in a row because of our lack of shot making but we just couldn’t do it. The problem is our defensive fundamentals are terrible. We don’t see man and ball. We don’t know how to hedge or bump someone off their cuts. Good defenses move as one, we are very far from that. Combined with that once we miss a couple shots on the offensive end we get very lazy on D. There seems to be no defensive leader someone who is the quarterback on D talking and making sure guys are doing what they are supposed to do. Someone needs to step up in that area.
I believe our problems are fixable and we can get to a point to where we are playing well. Time will tell obviously and I’m a little concerned guys will just give up mentally and pack it in. But I believe Juwan won’t let that happen and I have full confidence Juwan can begin to fixing these issues.
I’m looking forward to the last 17 games and seeing how we grow and improve. The above are things I’ll be looking for.
