Dissecting UofL's loss to Duke, and some odd lineup choices
UofL's loss to Duke was stunning to watch in real time. Quite frankly, it was difficult for me to refocus and come up with something to write this week. I do think it's worth UofL fans attempting to find some perspective about this loss and moving on with heads held high, for 3 reasons:
1) Duke has been dominant this year, and losing by 2 to them is a pretty solid result. UofL's adjusted margin for this game is +0.29 after adjusting for Duke's season rating and UofL's home court advantage; by comparison, that's higher than the season rating for all but 4 teams.
2) UofL smacked Duke around more than anyone else has this year. Nobody else got Duke down by 23 points.
3) UofL has some adjustments that could be made to their backcourt rotation in certain situations that may help improve their results against top teams.
The subject of this week's newsletter will be #3, as I dig into some lineup decisions that I think were suboptimal during the critical parts of this game. But first, here's the one page stats profile for UofL's game vs Duke:
Stats Profile vs Duke, Feb 12, 2019
What You Should Know: UofL's starters played 13 possessions against Duke and outscored the Blue Devils by +5 points. This was the fewest possessions they'd played since Jan 6 against Miami, and the first time since that game where they did not play the most possessions of any UofL lineup. Instead, Cunningham/McMahon/Nwora/Sutton/Enoch played 17 possessions together and were outscored by -4 points. There was a stark difference in UofL's results against Duke when McMahon played, compared to when Fore was on the court:
With McMahon in, UofL was outscored by 9 points in 48 possessions
With Fore in, UofL outscored Duke by 16 points in 33 possessions
It's even starker than that when you consider that McMahon played with Fore for 15 possessions and UofL was +10 in them. That means that UofL was -19 in 33 possessions when McMahon played without Fore. It wasn't just the 2nd half collapse either; UofL was -7 in 10 first half possessions with McMahon in and Fore out, and -12 in 23 2nd half possessions.
This is the 4th high profile game in which Ryan McMahon has had a very poor plus/minus; the others were Tennessee, Indiana, and Kentucky. In those games, UofL is -39 in 84 possessions where McMahon plays, and +11 in 68 possessions with him out. UofL is +15 in 29 possessions in these games when Fore plays and McMahon sits.
What Is Happening? When I go back to watch some of the film of these games, it's pretty striking to see the difference between these two players. You would be hard-pressed to think of two players who play roughly the same position but have so little in common about their games. Fore shoots less often than any UofL player,shoots poorly, and takes the majority of his shots inside the arc. McMahon shoots his fair share of shots (20% when he's in the game, perfectly average), shoots fairly well, and takes 80% of his shots outside the arc. Fore is a dogged defender who switches aggressively and challenges ballhandlers, while McMahon tends to guard players who are off the ball and does not often switch onto ballhandlers. On offense, McMahon is nearly always off the ball, often in the corner, and does not move a lot in the half court. Fore can act as a primary ballhandler, and is more frequently coming out to support a ballhandler or making cuts.
The end result is that McMahon can disappear for long stretches if UofL isn't running plays to get him open shots, while Fore is frequently popping up in the action somehow even if he's not taking or making shots. It isn't that McMahon is making bad things happen; it's more that he's not really making anything happen in these games. It may just be bad luck that he happens to be on the court when his teammates are falling apart, but it seems like there may be something going on to cause this. In the 2nd half of the Duke game especially, McMahon's teammates seemed to wear down from their defensive assignments. When Fore is in the game, he takes some of the defensive load off of Cunningham, Sutton, and others by guarding ballhandlers. On offense, Fore relieves some of the pressure on Cunningham, and seems to promote movement. McMahon's teammates did not make passes to him when he was open on the perimeter a few times late in the game; it seemed as though they were fatigued from getting through the Duke pressure and weren't able to process what would normally be easy passes.
What Does This Mean? It seems as though Khwan Fore is a better option in the backcourt for UofL against teams with strong defensive point guards, to ease the burden on Cunningham. McMahon is a dangerous weapon as an outside shooter and is near-automatic at the line late in games, but does not offer as much dynamism as Fore. Against Duke, Fore let the game with 6 minutes left and UofL up 14, never to return. In hindsight, UofL may have been better served having him in the game as a ballhandler and defensive presence, rather than McMahon. Even prior to that final stretch, McMahon had a very quiet game; he only had 1 basket, which came on a goaltending call. He eventually added 2 free throws, but was very quiet otherwise. While Fore only scored 4 points himself, he had a much higher activity level and handled more of the defensive and ballhandling workload. Given the struggles down the stretch in the last 2 games, UofL should consider using Fore to close games consistently as a way to avoid some fatigue for Cunningham, Sutton, and Nwora.
Additionally, it's puzzling as to why UofL played their starters so little in this game, UofL's starters actually played extremely well, as noted above, but played the least time together in over a month. If UofL had taken 5-6 possessions away from other lineups and played the starters, that could have made up the additional few points that would have meant a victory. It's certainly possible that the starters would have given up the lead as well, but that lineup has been carrying UofL in ACC play and probably deserves to get as much time as the coaching staff can give them.
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