University of North Carolina Athletics
Turner's Take: Pressure
March 10, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Turner Walston
By Turner Walston
The Jamel Artis Show made a stop in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. For a few minutes, at least.
On the first possession of the ACC Tournament quarterfinal matchup between North Carolina and Pittsburgh, Artis took the ball on the wing, gave a jab step to shake Justin Jackson and knifed toward the basket for two points. On Pitt's next offensive trip, Artis made an entry pass to James Robinson, then floated to the top of the key as Jackson helped down. Robinson found Artis, who then had enough room to rise and nail a three-pointer. Pitt's third basket came from Artis, too, as the Panthers used a Rafael Maia screen to free him on the wing, giving Artis space to hit again from three over Brice Johnson. In 89 seconds, the 8th-seeded Panthers were up 8-0 on the regular season champion Tar Heels, all from the hand of Jamel Artis.
“A good player is going to find ways to score, but he was too comfortable in that first half,” Jackson said after the game. “A lot of that was on me. He came out, got the drive –it was too easy of a drive that I let him get– and then he got the three. He just kind of had his feet set.”
Artis' hot start was a cold splash of water on Jackson's face. After the wake-up call, Jackson stuck to his man, fighting through screens and denying the ball. With the defense taking away a scoring option, the Panthers had to make other plans, settling for jumpers and shots out of rhythm. When Theo Pinson came in for Jackson, he kept up the intensity. “We felt like we made him too comfortable and we had to just get him rattled a little bit, put a little more pressure on him,” Pinson said. “I think we did a good job.”
Indeed. Pinson and Jackson frustrated Artis and by extension his teammates. The Panthers looked for their hot hand and tried to force things that weren't there, leading to long rebounds and run-outs for the Tar Heels. “They just wanted to feed him early and he got in a rhythm and stayed in it for a while, and we did a good job on him,” Pinson said.
Carolina's defense on Artis helped spark a late first-half run to make the intermission much more comfortable. Berry pressured Robinson, who turned the ball over. “I just told Joel, because it starts with him and Robinson bringing the ball up, I said, 'Put pressure on him. Me and Marcus, we're going to be right behind you. We put pressure on him, too and so from then on he got a turnover, we got a bucket.” The ensuing Marcus Paige lay-up cut Pitt's lead to four with 2:27 remaining. Artis then missed from three, leading to a run-out for Joel Berry. After a Brice Johnson rebound, Kennedy Meeks tied the score. “We got on a run, and they start thinking a whole lot more,” Pinson said. “Once we picked up the pressure, they were thinking way too much and that just helped us get on our little run.”
The Tar Heels had turned a four-point deficit to a four-point lead, thanks to six points off of turnovers and three Pinson assists (he led the Tar Heels with seven on the day).
But the Panthers didn't run and hide after halftime. In fact, Pitt would tie the score at 45 in the second half. Almost immediately, Paige hit a three (on of two on the day) to give the Tar Heels the lead for good.
After making his first three shots, Artis was just two of nine from the field the rest of the way. He finished with 19 points in 36 minutes, but had to get seven from the free throw line. “In the second half, I tried to make his touches a little bit tougher and tried to make everything that he got not just in rhythm,” Jackson said. “He's a good player; he had a really good game, but that's just what I tried to do in the second half.”
It wasn't just Jackson, of course. Freshman Kenny Williams gave the Tar Heels big minutes on Artis midway through the second half. Artis missed his only shot in the three minutes that Williams guarded him, and Williams himself gave his team a huge lift with the first made three-point basket of his career. “We're not saying Kenny is going to guard Jamel Artis like that the whole game,” Roy Williams said, “but he never got to the basket (on) three straight possessions.”
Gradually, Carolina built a comfortable lead on hot shooting and strong defense. Thursday was the second time all season that the Tar Heels had shot 50 percent or better in the first half and 60 percent or better in the second; both times came against Pitt. The flow of the game also allowed Carolina to use 11 different players for five minutes or more; only Paige played more than 30 minutes. The ability to utilize kind of depth is crucial in a three-day scramble against escalating competition like the ACC Tournament. Last year, the Tar Heels played four games in four days and ran out of gas in the second half of the championship game. Staying fresh, and, let's be honest, playing at noon on Thursday and 7 on Friday, should allow for ample recovery time, or as much as is possible in this setting.
The Tar Heels will also need to maintain composure to come through D.C. with three victories and a championship. Late in Thursday's game, up 13, Paige raised a calming hand to settle his teammates after a scrum for the ball. He pulled the ball out, ran some clock and found Johnson for a hook shot. “It was double digits, but it was the difference between putting the game away for good and allowing them to have some ability to hang around,” Paige said of the sequence. “We just went to the flat screen with the ball in my hands, and Brice or Isaiah (Hicks) coming to set a flat screen. We've been doing that a lot more late-clock, because it puts the defense at a serious disadvantage with two shooters, Joel and Justin on the wing, myself handling the ball and our two good punishing big men. And Brice can knock down that little 15-footer, so that's something we're going to probably do a lot more late-clock instead of getting stuck having to force up a crazy jump shot or something.”
It was just a wave of the hand and the running of a set play, but it was the presence of mind of a senior –and a mature team– in a frantic moment. The whole sequence took fewer than 30 seconds, but it was a good sign, something that can be applied across three days.
Friday's semifinal will be tough, as these games always are, but with absolute commitment on the defensive end and the presence of mind to navigate the emotions (and it wouldn't hurt for some more hot shooting), the Tar Heels can advance.
Turner Walston is the editor of CAROLINA digital magazine. Follow Turner on Twitter.
