Squishing the Spiders
By: Pete Buckets
With just the one game this week, the breakdown is a little shorter. Since the one game was a road win against the first place team, the breakdown is a little happier too! Also, more pictures and fewer stats, since the numbers we reviewed last time haven’t changed. Let’s get started.
Jalen had a fantastic first half. On the first possession of the game he backs Cline down far enough to where Otis’s man comes off to help (red arrow). Jalen delivers this pass right to Otis’s chest and Otis cans a wide-open three:
A few possessions later, Cline plays off Jalen and concedes the jumper. Jalen hits the jumper:
Here’s my favorite play of the game. A little bit of luck and a little bit of smarts lead to a wide-open three. Marquise brings the ball up. You can see Otis setting a downscreen for Jalen. Otis’s defender (red arrow) switches onto Jalen:
When they switch back, Otis’s defender goes to double team Marquise at the top of the key instead of going back to Otis. This looks like a mistake. Otis is open, so the weak side corner defender scrambles to cover him:
Otis reverses the ball to Boyd as Otis’s original defender has taken himself totally out of the play. Boyd cans a wide-open three:
I heard the announcers talking about TJ Cline as an A10 Player of the Year candidate but that can’t be right because he got turnstiled on consecutive plays. Here’s where Jalen starts this play with the ball, isolated on Cline:
A simple spin baseline, and here’s where he ends up. Somehow Cline starts this possession between Jalen and the basket and ends it behind Jalen, who has an easy layup at the basket:
Here, Jalen has effectively screened Marquise’s defender out of the play. Step up TJ! Your team needs a stop!
Nope. Easy layup:
Kier’s prayer three as the clock expired. No breakdown, just including a picture because it was awesome:
Writing about the bigs on the bench is probably going to be a weekly thing, since the team’s ceiling hinges on their development. I promise I’m not picking on them, I just want to track their progress over the course of the season. Relvao still has a long way to go. Here he catches this pass in great position and somehow gets stripped. He did a good job feeling the defender behind him and ducking the block attempt, but the guard (#2) gets in there and takes the ball away from him:
Temara gave us a glimmer of hope for the post-Jalen future on this play. Cline has him isolated in good position here:
Cline spins, and Troy gently nudges him a little too far under the basket. Cline is pinned and gets stuffed by the underside of the backboard. This is good defense:
Apropos of nothing: I don’t love when we abandon a corner shooter to send a simple double team into the post. In this picture Otis (blue) leaves a corner shooter (Julius Johnson, red). Cline kicks out for an open three. Johnson misses, but this still doesn’t feel like a smart strategy in this spot. This is a scheme thing, not an Otis thing, since we do this all the time:
Here’s a play I want to highlight to show you all why I love Justin Kier so much. This is a 4 on 3 fast break with Richmond pushing. Kier and Otis are two guys stuck choosing four guys to guard (Jalen is only kind of in the play):
Otis stops ball. Jalen collapses on the ballhandler’s left. Kier feels that Jalen is cutting off the open shooter on the left, so he swims under Otis to stop the cutter heading to the rim from the right:
The result is that Kier deflects a pass intended for the cutter. The pass bounces off the backboard and Mason recovers. A fastbreak opportunity passes by harmlessly. We’ll be talking about Kier’s IQ plays a lot in this space.
TJ Cline can’t be the A10 player of the year, part two: he gets a post-up on Marquise on the low block. Quise is 6’2″, he’s 6’9″. He’s in great position. He’s licking his chops at this opportunity:
Marquise tosses his shit back at him with some weakside help from Jaire. Don’t tell me your A10 POY is a big man who can’t post up a 6’2” guard.
I suppose I have to acknowledge Richmond’s comeback at some point. I think the comeback was a product of Richmond pushing the pace more than anything – they got to the line, hit some threes, and got Mason out of their game for a stretch. It also looked like Mason was gassed towards then end. That’s one of the perils of riding your starters so much. There were some mental errors, some slow rotations, and a lot of trouble keeping Richmond out of the paint that we didn’t see early in the game.
Here, Richmond sends a weakside double team at Jalen for the first time all game. It’s hard to tell if this was an intentional wrinkle or if this is just circumstance, but either way Jalen isn’t ready for it. You see Kier jumping up and calling for a pass since it’s his man that left to double, but Jalen doesn’t see him and it’s too late:
Here’s a mental flub from the team. Richmond shot goes up, and all five Mason players are packed below the blue line I drew. Richmond gets the offensive rebound, kicks out to the player at the top of the key, and he drills a three. The comeback was on at this point.
Mason tends to have trouble with speedy scoring guards, and Richmond’s ShawnDre’ Jones took advantage. Here he gets a ballscreen from Cline. Jalen stays home on Cline because Cline has hit three threes so far. The screen is effective and Jones gets a step on Marquise:
Kier’s help is late, Marquise is behind the play, and Jones rockets into the lane for a layup:
Let’s end on a happy note. Here’s the matchup zone that Dave pulled out of his back pocket to flummox Richmond. You can see Richmond attacks it by putting Cline on the baseline, a player in the high post, and shooters on the wings. For Mason, Jalen is anchoring the paint. Looks standard so far:
The ball swings to Cline (circled), which draws Jalen out of the paint. The guard in the high post moves to the rim, flashing open, guarded only by Kier. Jaire looks ready to come help Kier from the weak side if necessary. He’d have to leave number 3 open on the wing to do so. From this screenshot you can see how a pass or two can put a ton of pressure on this defense:
The problem for Richmond is that Cline elects to shoot this contested corner 3. He misses, and the comeback is halted.
A couple final thoughts:
Otis’s slump is weird. He had three absolutely filthy finishes at the rim in traffic and missed several wide-open jumpers. It’s scary and exciting that we pulled out a win on the road against a quality opponent where he didn’t even have his A game. His mid-range game has abandoned him. If he finds it, Mason becomes a very dangerous team. However, at this point, you have to wonder if the wear and tear of the long season is taking a toll on him.
Jaire didn’t have a great scoring game (9 points on 12 shots) but he finished with a career-high twelve rebounds. These weren’t run of the mill rebounds either – he grabbed some strong ones in traffic. He’s not mentioned much in here because rebounds don’t make for cool pictures, but maybe someday I’ll learn how to make gifs and he’ll get his proper due. The same is true for Marquise – there’s not a ton to break down because a lot of his points come off of really simple ballscreen/pick and roll action. It’s just that teams can’t stop him from getting to the rim.
Until next week, Mason fans. Go Mason!