Monday, March 08, 2010

Deacon Offense Back Up and Running

Oliver Purnell is all right by me. He takes his job far more seriously than he takes himself, and he knows what he’s doing. In my limited dealings with him, I’ve found him to be straight forward and insightful. And he’s really good basketball coach.

But in one respect, he might be the most predictable coach in the ACC. His teams are going to come get you defensively and they’re going to the basket when they get the ball. That’s the way he does things. That’s how his teams play.

Tonight Purnell’s Tigers played a Wake Forest team going through all kinds of throes trying to score in a half-court game. Last time out the Deacons allowed FSU to score only four second-half field goals, out of 19 heaves, and still lost because they couldn’t score more than 22 points in the second half against the Seminoles’ set defenses. So I asked Purnell if he had any apprehensions about opening the court with pressure defense against a team that has been going though such rough sledding in the half court.

I knew his answer before he gave it.

He declined, in effect, to comment on any problems Wake might be having in the half-court offense, but did say that pressing a player as fast as Ish Smith could be problematic. He also said that, apprehension or no apprehension, Clemson is going to press on defense.

“There’s always apprehension,’’ Purnell said. “But that’s what you do.’‘

The press got to Wake enough to cause problems, and obviously contributed to the Deacons’ less-than-grand total of 18 turnovers. Ish was really shaky early with five first-half turnovers, before settling down to commit just one the rest of the way. And Al-Farouq Aminu, handling the ball at times like it was a wet bar of soap, also piled up six. So it’s not like the Tiger press was useless.

But what it did was open up the court and let the Deacons loose. Aminu dunked off the fast break about four minutes into the game and said later it was a basket he really needed. “It had been awhile since I scored,’’ he said. For pretty much every turnover, there was an easy basket—something that had been mighty hard to come these last couple of weeks. The Deacons scored 18 points off fast breaks and 19 on the offensive boards, at times because the first charge at the basket had opened up the rebounding lanes.

The Deacons look better when they run. Most teams do. And on this day they can thank Oliver Purnell for giving them a chance to.