University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Highlight Reels
March 12, 2011 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
March 12, 2011
By Adam Lucas
Harrison Barnes was historically good on Saturday afternoon in Greensboro. How good? Forty years from now when you're flying to the game on your jetpack, you'll be telling your buddy about the time you saw that Barnes fella put up 40 on Clemson in the ACC Tournament semifinals. This conversation happened immediately after the game:
Me: "Woody, when's the last time a Tar Heel got 40 in the ACC Tournament?"
Woody Durham, Carolina hoops sage/voice of the Tar Heels: "It had to be Charlie in 1969."
That level of familiarity--Charlie in 1969--is the same frame of reference we'll have with this game. Woody didn't have to say he was talking about Charles Scott, or that it was the ACC championship game, or that Carolina defeated Duke, 85-74, in that game. All of that was implied. The Charlie game. Sure, we know that one.
Down the road, we'll know this one--the Barnes game--the same way. By then, we'll be telling the story this way: the fabulous freshman put the Tar Heels on his back, tossing in three-pointer after three-pointer (he finished 6-for-8 from beyond the arc), scoring an absurd 14 of his team's 19 points in the overtime period. When the next generation's Woody Durham tells some whippersnapper about this one, that's what he'll say.
By then, we'll have long since forgotten that in reality, the Tar Heels won this one the same way they've won so many during this incredible season: as a team.
The fascinating thing about Barnes's performance is that it didn't propel Carolina to an easy win. When Lennie Rosenbluth scored 45 points in the 1957 ACC Tournament, his Tar Heels won, 81-61. When Scott did it in '69, it turned into an 11-point win. That seems logical. We've all seen enough Carolina basketball to know that when a player goes off for 40 points (again: Harrison Barnes scored FORTY), it leads to an easy victory.
But this one wasn't. This one was a fingernail from prompting a column about how in the world Barnes could have scored 40 in a Carolina loss. Give Barnes credit for making the big shots, of course. Again, in case you've forgotten, he scored FORTY ("My favorite was the one where he got hit on the arm and had to double-clutch," Tyler Zeller said of Barnes's three-pointer with 1:22 remaining. "That's a very, very tough shot."). To understand this particular Tar Heel team, though, you have to look at a few smaller plays.
Right after that Barnes three-pointer, Clemson had the ball with less than 90 seconds left and a 73-71 lead. All they had to do, really, was get a shot. Any shot. Get to the free throw line. Put the ball on the rim. On the way to building an 11-point second half lead, they'd hurt Carolina consistently with dribble penetration, so it wasn't as if they'd had trouble scoring.
This time, they did. With ACC Defensive Player of the Year John Henson on the bench after catching an inadvertent elbow, the Carolina quintet of Barnes, Zeller, Dexter Strickland, Kendall Marshall and Leslie McDonald forced a Tiger shot-clock violation. It was the fourth time in ACC Tournament play that an opponent couldn't find a shot in 35 seconds.
The scouting report keys to the game, which multiple players recited flawlessly after the game, were as follows: contain your man, know the personnel, and get over the screen on the ball.
"That's exactly what we did on that possession," Strickland said.
It was a marvelous example of team defense. It wasn't that Clemson never got a shot. It was that they never got the ball within 15 feet of the hoop (it contrasted perfectly with Henson's heads-up play in overtime, when he tossed the ball off the rim with one second on the shot clock, a play that led to an offensive rebound and Barnes three-pointer and merited Henson a hard-earned, "Good savvy," compliment from Roy Williams in the locker room). Barnes flashed out to the top of the key to help Strickland stymie an attempted drive by Demontez Stitt. Barnes jumped out again around a screen, helping Marshall contain Andre Young. When the shot clock buzzer sounded, Strickland was on the floor, 22 feet from the basket, fighting for a loose ball.
"We changed up our defensive scheme," Marshall said. "We were hedging on every ball screen. On that play, we decided to trap on every ball screen. It messed with them, and they lost the handle a little."
That led to Zeller's game-tying hook, a shot that feels right at home in a column that has already referenced Rosenbluth. It's the kind of old-school shot the Tar Heel legend might have tossed in at Woollen Gym.
Yesterday, Zeller's last-second shot won the game. Today, it only tied it, which set up another key defensive stand. If the previous possession had been all about team defense, this one was much simpler--McDonald, with four fouls, against Stitt. The Tiger guard gave McDonald a little forearm to create the space to receive the ball at midcourt with 13 seconds left. He crossed over once. No room. He crossed over again. No room. He tried a Kemba Walker-esque step-back move. Nothing worked and McDonald stayed right with him. Stitt eventually hurled a desperation 19-foot fallaway off one leg that never even grazed the rim and settled harmlessly into Henson's arms.
After stoning Clemson's best offensive threat in a one-on-one situation where one false step meant the end of the game, here is how McDonald answered the question, "What were you trying to do on that last play against Stitt?":
"I commend my teammates."
Seriously, that is what he said.
"They were helping me out," he continued. "Clemson had set up four (players) low. I looked back and saw my teammates helping out. Stitt was watching what they were doing in the background, and he saw if he drove John or Z or someone behind me was going to step up. So all I had to do was move my feet and make sure he didn't get an edge on me."
It's easy to say McDonald was simply saying the right thing. But he actually says it and believes it. It's hard to make a play that you know is a winning play, and then get dressed alone while the media flocks around everyone else. Whether we'll admit it or not, we all want credit. Figuring out which credit really matters and being comfortable in your role no matter what the box score says, well, that's an advanced course in basketball chemistry.
This crazy ride is guaranteed to end sometime in the next four weeks. When it does, that's how I want to remember the 2011 Tar Heels. Just beyond the highlight reels--the action that happens before ESPN shows the game-winner or the big dunk or the fancy pass--was a team that knew how to play the game. One individual makes a great play--a highlight play, really, the kind of play where it's easy to turn to the camera and pound your chest--and immediately wants to credit everyone else.
That's not an attitude that's guaranteed to win every game.
But it's guaranteed not to lose many, either.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of six books on Carolina basketball, including the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence, which is available now. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter.
