Stanford at Arizona
What a game in Tucson this afternoon! The game essentially turned into Jerryd Bayless and Chase Budinger vs. Brook and Robin Lopez. Bayless' 31 points -- which, following a 39-point game against Arizona State last weekend and 33-point effort against California on Thursday, gave him the Arizona record for scoring over a three-game stretch -- weren't quite enough, as the Cardinal prevailed 67-66.
1. I wrote recently about being sick of teams who go away from their bread and butter in crunch time. It's been a pleasure, then, to watch Stanford twice in the last three days. The Cardinal's offense today consisted of -- as it did Thursday against Arizona State -- throwing the ball into a Lopez on the block and letting the seven-footers go to work. Brook tallied 30 points against the Sun Devils in a game Stanford somehow lost -- blowing a nine-point lead in the last 4:35 before falling 72-68 in overtime -- and Robin had 14 to go along with Brook's 23 to key the win today. The Cardinal know that having two capable big guys is to their advantage, and the rest of the team does a great job of understanding that and feeding them down low.
2. I thought Arizona coach Kevin O'Neill made a big mistake bringing Jordan Hill back as early as he did with four fouls. The Wildcats were down 55-51 and there was 5:34 on the clock, but a minute earlier, Brook Lopez -- the more talented offensively of the twin brothers -- had gone to the bench with foul trouble of his own. On this possession, Stanford fed it into Robin, and seven seconds after checking back in, Hill had fouled out. Yes, the call was very bad -- Robin Lopez appeared to clear space with his elbows before jumping into Hill as Hill stood still with his arms in the air -- but it seemed unnecessarily risky to bring him back in to play against a weaker opponent. Brook Lopez had done a lot of damage against Hill in the first half, but by the second half had figured out to move to Brook's left shoulder to bother the jump hook (although to his credit, Brook still made a couple anyway with Hill guarding him that way).
The only justification for it that I could come up with is that Hill had been sitting with four fouls since the 9:14 mark, and that his replacement, Kirk Walters -- who doesn't play much -- may have been getting tired. If that was the case, O'Neill could have thought that he could buy a few minutes with Hill on a player less likely to draw that fifth foul. If that wasn't the case, it's an inexplicable move.
(Parenthetical aside #1: I suspect that most Arizona fans will crow about the bad foul call at the end that gave Brook Lopez the opportunity to hit the two-game winning free throws, but the disqualifying foul on Hill was just as egregious and ultimately more harmful. Indeed, on Stanford's last possession -- when Walters challenged Brook from one side and Budinger came in from the wing and cleanly stripped him -- the Cardinal probably would have ended up with the points anyway. Budinger blocked the ball down, directly into Brook's hands, and with Walters out of position, Brook had a clean path to the basket. Lopez would have had to just turn, maybe taken a dribble, and laid it in. The best-case scenario for Arizona would have had someone else fouling Lopez and sending him to the line, and a three-point play -- given that no Wildcat was in position to stop him but they all would have tried given the situation -- may have been likely. The call that sent Hill to the bench for the last five and a half minutes was a much bigger deal.)
(Parenthetical aside #2: I know Walter doesn't play much, and he did a valiant job despite being overmatched, but I'd like to think that a veteran like him could do a better job of fighting for position. Time and again in the second half, he set up on Brook Loopez's right shoulder and let him catch the ball. When you're at a height and skill disadvantage, as he was, you need to work harder early in the possession to keep your man from getting the ball.)
3. How about Jawann McLellan's three that tied it at 62 with 2:30 to play. Up until that point, McLellan had taken just three shots the entire game, and missed all of them. Eleven of the 15 shots Arizona had taken in the second half to that point had been taken by Bayless or Budinger, and there was a long stretch where the offense consisted of watching Bayless do his thing. (And what a thing it was! Bayless was getting to the rim and the free throw line at will.) Bayless again did much of the work on this play, driving past his man and drawing the defense before hitting a wide-open McLellan in the right corner, but for McLellan to be ready to take and make that shot speaks volumes about his focus and selflessness.
1. I wrote recently about being sick of teams who go away from their bread and butter in crunch time. It's been a pleasure, then, to watch Stanford twice in the last three days. The Cardinal's offense today consisted of -- as it did Thursday against Arizona State -- throwing the ball into a Lopez on the block and letting the seven-footers go to work. Brook tallied 30 points against the Sun Devils in a game Stanford somehow lost -- blowing a nine-point lead in the last 4:35 before falling 72-68 in overtime -- and Robin had 14 to go along with Brook's 23 to key the win today. The Cardinal know that having two capable big guys is to their advantage, and the rest of the team does a great job of understanding that and feeding them down low.
2. I thought Arizona coach Kevin O'Neill made a big mistake bringing Jordan Hill back as early as he did with four fouls. The Wildcats were down 55-51 and there was 5:34 on the clock, but a minute earlier, Brook Lopez -- the more talented offensively of the twin brothers -- had gone to the bench with foul trouble of his own. On this possession, Stanford fed it into Robin, and seven seconds after checking back in, Hill had fouled out. Yes, the call was very bad -- Robin Lopez appeared to clear space with his elbows before jumping into Hill as Hill stood still with his arms in the air -- but it seemed unnecessarily risky to bring him back in to play against a weaker opponent. Brook Lopez had done a lot of damage against Hill in the first half, but by the second half had figured out to move to Brook's left shoulder to bother the jump hook (although to his credit, Brook still made a couple anyway with Hill guarding him that way).
The only justification for it that I could come up with is that Hill had been sitting with four fouls since the 9:14 mark, and that his replacement, Kirk Walters -- who doesn't play much -- may have been getting tired. If that was the case, O'Neill could have thought that he could buy a few minutes with Hill on a player less likely to draw that fifth foul. If that wasn't the case, it's an inexplicable move.
(Parenthetical aside #1: I suspect that most Arizona fans will crow about the bad foul call at the end that gave Brook Lopez the opportunity to hit the two-game winning free throws, but the disqualifying foul on Hill was just as egregious and ultimately more harmful. Indeed, on Stanford's last possession -- when Walters challenged Brook from one side and Budinger came in from the wing and cleanly stripped him -- the Cardinal probably would have ended up with the points anyway. Budinger blocked the ball down, directly into Brook's hands, and with Walters out of position, Brook had a clean path to the basket. Lopez would have had to just turn, maybe taken a dribble, and laid it in. The best-case scenario for Arizona would have had someone else fouling Lopez and sending him to the line, and a three-point play -- given that no Wildcat was in position to stop him but they all would have tried given the situation -- may have been likely. The call that sent Hill to the bench for the last five and a half minutes was a much bigger deal.)
(Parenthetical aside #2: I know Walter doesn't play much, and he did a valiant job despite being overmatched, but I'd like to think that a veteran like him could do a better job of fighting for position. Time and again in the second half, he set up on Brook Loopez's right shoulder and let him catch the ball. When you're at a height and skill disadvantage, as he was, you need to work harder early in the possession to keep your man from getting the ball.)
3. How about Jawann McLellan's three that tied it at 62 with 2:30 to play. Up until that point, McLellan had taken just three shots the entire game, and missed all of them. Eleven of the 15 shots Arizona had taken in the second half to that point had been taken by Bayless or Budinger, and there was a long stretch where the offense consisted of watching Bayless do his thing. (And what a thing it was! Bayless was getting to the rim and the free throw line at will.) Bayless again did much of the work on this play, driving past his man and drawing the defense before hitting a wide-open McLellan in the right corner, but for McLellan to be ready to take and make that shot speaks volumes about his focus and selflessness.
posted by H.S. Slam, Ph.D at 10:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home