I listened to Dan's postgame press conference.
Like I said earlier, I am encouraged by what I saw. Not satisfied. But feeling better than Saturday. I think Dan hurt the team in two areas last night. At one point in the first half, he had a terrible 5 on the floor that couldn't function. It was a terrible substitution pattern at that point in the game. He also let them go on a 14-0 run before he finally took a timeout. You are at home in the middle of the first half. You could see the team unraveling once it hit a 7-0 run. Sitting there not calling a timeout was a huge difference in the game. We went from leading 12-7 to being behind 21-12. That was the difference. Bench coaching matters!
And for the life of me, he has to tell OAK to stop shooting three pointers. He was 0-4 last night. He is currently shooting 17% from behind the arc. Last season, he shot 14% from behind the arc. For a guy that proclaims to study analytics, why won't he have a serious conversation with the young man? Even Ot said last night that when OAK shoots a three in the half-court set "it is pretty much an empty possession".
The only thing that I was encouraged about was that we held our own rebounding and perhaps that Crawford looked like a legit, polished basketball player.
OAK is the bricklayer in Chief for sure from the arc, but DD's system depends on 3's being knocked down in the 36-38% range at a minimum. OAK's not the only one contributing to the current 25.5% rate from three.
Overall FG percentage is a horrid 40%.
There are some bad shots being hoisted up, no doubt. But this team doesn't hit the wide open looks or the bunnies around the basket consistently either. Defensively, we're switching too much, leaving bigs out front checking quicker guards and having the shortest player on the floor guarding 4s or 5s in the paint.
Ball handling skills?
That's a whole other post.
As far as DD's assertion that this team is fun to watch, WTH!
The offense looks jagged nearly all the time. The players may deserve our support, but it definitely is neither an entertaining nor winning product.
Now, the Herd will have a game or two where they shoot lights out, upset a better team or two, and we'll get all excited and DD will say perhaps we have turned a corner. But then the shooting will regress to the mean.
This is a mismatched roster, the parts don't fit together.