Quote Originally Posted by brewcity77 View Post
It was definitely enough time, but if Derrick stays with Chennault, he should be able to slow him a bit. It looked like a completely botched defensive assignment, but I think the mindset was to slow him down and force 'Nova to have to beat us with a potential off-balance Rotnei Clarke type miracle heave rather than risking putting them on the line. Under the circumstances it didn't work, but if every dribble takes a second as you mention and you can go from baseline to baseline in five dribbles, the thought process of slowing them down a bit makes sense. Didn't work even remotely, but makes sense.
Which is exactly how the original post wanted the defense to be set up.

Windy,
There are two philosophies. One is to put the man on the ball, and be a crazy person so that the inbounds pass is tough to make. The other is to play center field like you mentioned. Normally, in a dead ball situation, you would want to play center field, since one of the biggest reasons why you play the ball is so that the inbounder can't grab the ball out of net and inbound it quickly, before a press is set up.

However, if I am not mistaken, that play happened right after Mayo's FT's. Since that was the case, even after the time out, the inbounder is still allowed to run the baseline. Therefore, Nova could have draw up a play which passes to another guy who is out of bounds. If there is not a guy guarding the original inbounder, then that guy can run fee, get the inbounds pass, and go up the floor without a defender on him.

Your honor,
What Buzz wants in that situation is this order:

You guard:
1)The hoop
2)The ball
3)ball side help
4)help
5)help

Since the ball and the hoop were becoming the same, you absolutely want Taylor to slide over to help. Normally, the guy who was trying to block the shot should then rotate over to guard Taylor's guy, but since time was running out, the guy took a gamble to try to block the shot.

Some people want the ball to be the first thing stopped. People yell out,"Stop the ball! Stop the ball!" But if you are the last defender back, and you go to stop the ball, you leave the hoop open and allow an easy pass for a uncontested layup. If there was more time on the clock and this play was just in the run of play, some coaches teach you to not leave a dangerous three point, because it is better to give up 2 points rather than 3 points. Buzz is still old school, in this regard, where a layup is an easier shot than a three, so he stops the layup.