University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Five Guys Moving
March 29, 2009 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
March 29, 2009
By Adam Lucas
MEMPHIS--On Thursday, Roy Williams was discussing what impressed him the most about South regional semifinal opponent Gonzaga.
"On the defensive end, every time you see the ball move, all five guys move," he said.
The way he said it, you could tell it was the highest possible compliment for Williams to give. What he didn't know was that three nights later he'd see his own team do the exact same thing.
In the regional final, Oklahoma presented one very big, very powerful problem: Blake Griffin. The Tar Heels were essentially resigned to the fact that Griffin would get a double-double. That's just what he does. The problem was this: how to best minimize his impact and eliminate the contributions from the other four Sooners.
"We really did want to aim our defense at him," Williams said.
Griffin and Tyler Hansbrough presented the type of seismic collision we don't often get to see in college basketball. When the officials called the captains together 13 minutes before tip, they met in the center jump circle, but like two boxers getting instructions from the bout's referee, they never looked at each other. Even when they bumped fists on instructions from the official, they did it while looking off into the distance.
The Tar Heels employed a three-part defensive plan on Griffin and his teammates. First, try to push the bulky Griffin as far from the paint as possible. Allowing him to catch the ball on the low block was essentially giving up two points. When he was forced to catch the ball 10 or 12 feet from the hoop, he looked much less comfortable--unsure whether he should put the ball on the floor, find a teammate, or make a move to the basket.
"We had to fight around him and get him out of his comfort zone," said freshman Ed Davis, who was distinctly outweighed but still turned in a credible defensive effort. "We knew he would be more comfortable inside the lane. Going outside isn't a weakness for him, but it's not his strength and it's not where he wants the ball."
The four-man combination of Davis, Hansbrough, Deon Thompson and Tyler Zeller effectively eliminated Griffin's post-up game early, limiting him to just one field goal attempt in the first 12 minutes of the first half. By that point, the Tar Heels had already built an 11-point lead.
When the Sooners did find a way to get Griffin the ball in his scoring area, the gameplan was to doubleteam immediately. Not a soft double--not the kind that in a press conference about a month ago prompted Williams to deride his team's doubling as, "Look at me! I'm 17 feet away from him but I'm double-teaming!"--but a hard, arm-waving double designed to force Griffin to make an immediate choice.
"He's a big boy," Thompson said. "He's strong. We wanted to front him, and then once he got the ball make sure the rest of the defense came on the help side and in the middle of the paint to discourage that pass. He still got 23 points and 16 rebounds, but it didn't seem like his normal 23 and 16."
Even if the first two parts of the defensive plan worked, even if the big men pushed Griffin away from the basket and then got a quick double-team when he was able to get the ball on the low block, the whole strategy could explode if the third part didn't work. And, in all honesty, this was the part that seemed riskiest. No one doubted that if--as Williams said--the entire defense was aimed at one player, that player's contributions could be limited. But what about the other four Sooners on the court?
This was the area where the Tar Heels have occasionally struggled this year. They can stop a talented opponent one-on-one. But when it has been time to play team defense, when the other four players have had to recognize and react to what their teammate is doing, breakdowns can happen.
Not tonight. This time, when the double-team forced Griffin to kick the ball out, the other three Tar Heels not in the double-team reacted immediately. They reacted like, well, like Gonzaga, with five players moving every time the ball moved. One Tar Heel covered the closest open three-point shooter. The next Tar Heel recognized his teammate's adjustment and rotated to the next open man. And even a couple of passes around the perimeter weren't enough to locate a Sooner with a clear look at the hoop. One player can't do that. It takes all five.
"We knew we were going to put another guy in Blake's lap and he would have to pass out of a double-team or make a tough move," said Wayne Ellington. "A lot of times, he threw the ball out and we rotated as the ball moved. And as a result we got some big-time stops and that led to transition chances."
The signature sequence came late in the first half, when the quintet of Ty Lawson, Danny Green, Davis, Ellington and Thompson first forced Oklahoma to melt 34 seconds off the shot clock before Tony Crocker missed a desperation three-pointer, and then on the next Sooner possession picked up a shot-clock violation. That's 69 seconds of some of the best defense the Tar Heels have played all year.
"We knew we had to sprint off and contain our man if we weren't in the double-team," Thompson said. "If they got a shot, we had to get a hand up on the shot."
It worked. Incredibly, Oklahoma didn't make a field goal outside of the paint until five minutes remained in the second half. Yes, you read that right. For 35 minutes of a college basketball game, the Sooners couldn't make much more than a layup.
That indicates, of course, that Oklahoma missed some shots they might ordinarily make. But might it also indicate something else?
"It means Coach knows we can play that kind of defense now," Thompson said. "He's seen us do it. And that means he'll expect us to play good defense the rest of the way."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
