University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Defense Changes Script
February 19, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 19, 2006
By Adam Lucas
WINSTON-SALEM--About the time Justin Gray tossed in his fifth 3-pointer of the game with 18:30 remaining, you understood the script. Wes Miller was draped all over the Wake sharpshooter, but he still found the bottom of the net from the corner in front of the Deacon bench.
The shot gave the Deacs a 50-41 lead. And, well, it looked very familiar.
It looked a little like Marc (13 surprising points in a 1994 Tar Heel upset loss) Blucas. Maybe reminded you somewhat of Robert (back-to-back seasons of making at least seven 3-pointers in one game against the Tar Heels) O'Kelley. Maybe even--shudder--made you think of Randolph ('95 ACC Tournament, enough said) Childress.
You could feel it. 14,665 Wake Forest fans--well, maybe 4,665 Carolina fans and 10,000 Wake Forest fans--in Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum could feel it. Heck, even the man guarding Justin Gray, Wes Miller, could feel it. Miller knows the script for Wake-Carolina. He estimates he attended approximately 10 games in the rivalry in this building back before he escaped the Demon Deacon brainwashing prevalent in his family. In those days, although he didn't have a tie-dyed shirt and therefore would not officially qualify as a member of the Wake fan base today, he rejoiced as Deacon after Deacon experienced career days against the Tar Heels.
On this day, he appeared to be on the wrong end of it.
Miller didn't see it that way.
"That shot he made from the corner, that was one of those where you just say, `Good shot,' and there's not much you can do about it," Miller said. "I wanted to make him take a tough one like that the next time down. We had talked before the game about five guys helping to defend Justin and Eric Williams. We didn't do that in the first half. In the second half we made it a little more difficult for him."
Actually, it was a lot more difficult. The shot would be Gray's last 3-pointer of the game. He didn't make another basket for over 18 minutes; his next basket was a meaningless jumper with 25 seconds remaining and the game already decided.
Miller and Marcus Ginyard combined to turn in one of Carolina's best defensive halves of the season. It wasn't that Gray wasn't making shots. It was that he couldn't find many openings to even take a shot. He shot 12 times in the first half; over the first 16:30 of the second half, he attempted just 6 field goals while taking only 2 free throws.
"You know if he gets the ball he's putting it up," Ginyard said. "And you know he's a great player, so if he puts it up he's going to make them. So we wanted to play him to the point that we weren't letting him catch the ball."
Ginyard and Miller were helped by a key strategical switch. Down 52-45 with 17 minutes to play, Roy Williams called for the point zone. Carolina had played exclusively man-to-man until that moment, and the changing defenses seemed to befuddle the Deacons. The point zone led almost immediately to a Bobby Frasor steal and dunk, and as Williams sprinkled it in occasionally over the next few minutes, it took Wake entirely out of the flow of the game.
"It changed the rhythm of the game a lot," David Noel said. "Our point zone is deadly, especially against teams that aren't great outside shooting teams. We wanted to make sure we found the shooters and kept an eye on Justin Gray, and it really worked well for us."
The multiple defenses combined with dramatically increased defensive intensity sent the Tar Heels on a gamechanging run. They did it with Reyshawn Terry's deadeye sharpshooting, but they also did it with defense--one of the biggest plays of the game's decisive run was when Ginyard noticed Wake's perimeter passes weren't very crisp. He stepped into the passing lane, knocked the ball away, and converted a layup for a 7-point Carolina advantage.
By the time the game was decided, and by the time a "Tar"/"Heels" chant was bouncing from the upper deck to the lower deck of the arena, the frustration on Gray's face was apparent. He would finish with 20 points, but it took him 23 shots to do it (no one on Carolina's roster finished with more shots than points). He not only has to be Wake's primary perimeter scorer but also, frequently, their primary ballhandler. And he'd been hawked all day by two determined defenders.
So when Miller harassed him into a timeout with 2:45 remaining, you no longer saw Blucas or O'Kelley or Childress. You only saw a frustrated college basketball player, one who walked to his team's huddle shaking his head with his hands outstretched, palms to the sky. It was the classic, "I don't know what else to do," gesture.
It was extremely satisfying.
Miller's first reaction was to say that a win was a win, that it wasn't any more special for him winning at Wake than it would be anywhere else. Then he caught himself.
"It was, actually," he said. "To play and get a win somewhere you grew up watching basketball was a pretty special thing for me."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
