1. We lost 5 games this year. In those 5 games, Mike Smith was 9-42 from the floor, and Franz Wagner was 10-50. Mike and Franz were generally the only 2 guys in the playing rotation who could and did create for themselves and others off of the bounce. It is no accident that when both of those guys were off (2-17 last night), we had massive trouble scoring, both while we had Isaiah Livers playing and when we did not.
2. So why, you ask, were those the guys getting the last shots last night? Why, in particular, the play run for Franz run instead for Chaundee Brown, who had hit 2-3 from deep? It's a reasonable question, but the answer, I believe, is that UCLA was going to defend the play completely differently if it was designed for Chaundee, and we were going to far less likely to get a clean look in that circumstance. Teams all year long tried to defend both Franz and Mike by going under (or around) any screen set to free them up so as to try to cut off lanes where they could drive and create for others (including Chaundee) or finishing, thus living with 3s out of such action. As a result, Mike and Franz had the highest percentage of unassisted 3s in the rotation, and by a wide margin at that.(over 1/4 of Franz's 3s were unassisted, and over 3/8 of Mike's were unassisted). By contrast, teams defended Chaundee all year long by going over (or through) any screen to take away the 3 and force Chaundee to drive, as evidenced by the fact that Chaundee had exactly 1 3 on the entire season which was unassisted. Put another way, Chaundee lived off of 3 point looks created largely by from Mike and/or Franz. When those guys could get in the lane and finish, or hit shots from the perimeter, things worked beautifully. When couldn't finish, as was the case last night (1-10 combined from 2), and couldn't convert when given clean looks from 3 either, it shrunk the court for everyone, and Chaundee in particular, who got an early 3 before it became apparent that our creators weren't creating and little thereafter. Maybe Chaundee would have been able to hit a contested 3, or maybe he would have been able to drive and finish (though his only made 2 last night in 28 minutes of action was a putback)--maybe that should have been the calculation at the time given how badly Franz and Mike were converting their shots, and certainly you'd take that chance in retrospect. However, the choice was not between running an action to get an open look for Franz or Mike on the one hand, or one for Chaundee on the other; rather, it was a choice between getting open looks for Franz (and later Mike) from the perimeter and a driving action from someone who didn't do so very much throughout the year. That's the debate to be had.
2. So why, you ask, were those the guys getting the last shots last night? Why, in particular, the play run for Franz run instead for Chaundee Brown, who had hit 2-3 from deep? It's a reasonable question, but the answer, I believe, is that UCLA was going to defend the play completely differently if it was designed for Chaundee, and we were going to far less likely to get a clean look in that circumstance. Teams all year long tried to defend both Franz and Mike by going under (or around) any screen set to free them up so as to try to cut off lanes where they could drive and create for others (including Chaundee) or finishing, thus living with 3s out of such action. As a result, Mike and Franz had the highest percentage of unassisted 3s in the rotation, and by a wide margin at that.(over 1/4 of Franz's 3s were unassisted, and over 3/8 of Mike's were unassisted). By contrast, teams defended Chaundee all year long by going over (or through) any screen to take away the 3 and force Chaundee to drive, as evidenced by the fact that Chaundee had exactly 1 3 on the entire season which was unassisted. Put another way, Chaundee lived off of 3 point looks created largely by from Mike and/or Franz. When those guys could get in the lane and finish, or hit shots from the perimeter, things worked beautifully. When couldn't finish, as was the case last night (1-10 combined from 2), and couldn't convert when given clean looks from 3 either, it shrunk the court for everyone, and Chaundee in particular, who got an early 3 before it became apparent that our creators weren't creating and little thereafter. Maybe Chaundee would have been able to hit a contested 3, or maybe he would have been able to drive and finish (though his only made 2 last night in 28 minutes of action was a putback)--maybe that should have been the calculation at the time given how badly Franz and Mike were converting their shots, and certainly you'd take that chance in retrospect. However, the choice was not between running an action to get an open look for Franz or Mike on the one hand, or one for Chaundee on the other; rather, it was a choice between getting open looks for Franz (and later Mike) from the perimeter and a driving action from someone who didn't do so very much throughout the year. That's the debate to be had.
