The offense was good but the defense was something else...
Last night I sat down in my command center, aka the recliner, and watched the Alabama at Auburn game again. This team is amazing in that they can play so well, and then not. For some reason it seems that the team actually played together for the first since the Kentucky game. Chemistry in basketball is everything. At least for one game the Tide looked like they all worked for DuPont.
On defense, the workhorse of this team, the Tide was excellent. Here are few things I noticed. Alabama gets a lot of steals by merely being in perfect position. They get some by taking chances but not many. On any type of double team the other three player's rotation was almost always perfect. When an Auburn player tried to beat the double team with the dribble he was just dead. Tide players are so well coached that on more than a few occasions they would leave their man to attempt to steal when they saw the Auburn player had turned his back to the defender, and any type of spin move or cross over dribble resulted in a Tide hand on the ball. I guess what I'm saying is that Grant must break down individual moves in the open floor and tell his players "this is when you double team." I have read a couple of books on defensive statistics beyond rebounds, steals, and the like. They were extremely difficult to understand and demanded me to watch replays over and over. Breaking down defensive stats to get them to make sense to a casual fan is almost impossible. It is not just looking at what happens to the offensive player who has the ball and the defender. It is where the other four players are were the poetry of defensive basketball is written. Alabama is not writing limericks. The write sonnets.
Unlike football, where swarming can be effective, it rarely works in basketball because offensive players can dictate direction. Alabama dictates direction. After watching the game it became very clear that Bama was herding Auburn players into certain positions that were very contrary to the individual skills. An example was that Frankie Sullivan was almost always pushed to his right. Sullivan is right handed. It seems that is exactly the wrong way to play him. Why, I wondered? After watching several plays over and over it became clear. Sullivan starts to the right, but almost without except he crosses over or spins to got to the left. Most of the time when Sullivan did that there was always a Crimson Tide player there for the double team. Sullivan got his points but it was when they didn't matter. Same the with Kenny Gabriel. He was quoted as saying that a Bama player was always there when he made a move. He's right. There was a Tide defender there. In fact, there were usually two.
In order to do such things you have to give something up. Chubb getting those early points is a great example. Bama played him soft and he scored. At the first time out Grant put an end to that nonsense. He didn't score again. He barely touched the ball again as a matter of fact. When you play your arch rival on their home floor and they score only 50 points you've done something pretty special. Let's up it another way. Auburn scored only 1.25 points per minute. That points per minutes includes free throws. Take away the free throws and they scored only 1.15 points per minute. Those are extraordinary numbers.
The closet analogy for the football fans would be holding someone to one touchdown in a game. Really, a shutout might be a better comparison. I recently wrote the difference it would make if Bama would score 72 ppg. By holding Auburn to such a low number that's really what the Tide did. They spread the differential on defense. That is much harder to do on defense than it is on offense. About the only thing that Alabama did "wrong" was turnovers. Far to many for a purist to be sure, but the game was played at a lightning fast and hard pace. I wonder how it felt for an offensive minded basketball team to play that hard and look up and see you have scored only 50 point? Auburn is not a great team. But they are not a really bad team either. They were poised for one of the greatest wins in school history over the Tide. Instead, they walked into a nightmare
The 3 point shots started falling and the inside opened up. Green dominated the insider game, and played under control, kept his composure, and was a leader. The photo we posted of Trevor Releford looking up at the scoreboard clock with that big grin on his face pretty much says it all. That might be my favorite photo of any Tide player. So in just the span of a few days the Tide sent from a soap opera with Mitchell to a prime time show with Green and Releford starring. Someone asked me how I felt as I left the arena. "Just right", was all I had to say. Roll Tide.
On defense, the workhorse of this team, the Tide was excellent. Here are few things I noticed. Alabama gets a lot of steals by merely being in perfect position. They get some by taking chances but not many. On any type of double team the other three player's rotation was almost always perfect. When an Auburn player tried to beat the double team with the dribble he was just dead. Tide players are so well coached that on more than a few occasions they would leave their man to attempt to steal when they saw the Auburn player had turned his back to the defender, and any type of spin move or cross over dribble resulted in a Tide hand on the ball. I guess what I'm saying is that Grant must break down individual moves in the open floor and tell his players "this is when you double team." I have read a couple of books on defensive statistics beyond rebounds, steals, and the like. They were extremely difficult to understand and demanded me to watch replays over and over. Breaking down defensive stats to get them to make sense to a casual fan is almost impossible. It is not just looking at what happens to the offensive player who has the ball and the defender. It is where the other four players are were the poetry of defensive basketball is written. Alabama is not writing limericks. The write sonnets.
Unlike football, where swarming can be effective, it rarely works in basketball because offensive players can dictate direction. Alabama dictates direction. After watching the game it became very clear that Bama was herding Auburn players into certain positions that were very contrary to the individual skills. An example was that Frankie Sullivan was almost always pushed to his right. Sullivan is right handed. It seems that is exactly the wrong way to play him. Why, I wondered? After watching several plays over and over it became clear. Sullivan starts to the right, but almost without except he crosses over or spins to got to the left. Most of the time when Sullivan did that there was always a Crimson Tide player there for the double team. Sullivan got his points but it was when they didn't matter. Same the with Kenny Gabriel. He was quoted as saying that a Bama player was always there when he made a move. He's right. There was a Tide defender there. In fact, there were usually two.
In order to do such things you have to give something up. Chubb getting those early points is a great example. Bama played him soft and he scored. At the first time out Grant put an end to that nonsense. He didn't score again. He barely touched the ball again as a matter of fact. When you play your arch rival on their home floor and they score only 50 points you've done something pretty special. Let's up it another way. Auburn scored only 1.25 points per minute. That points per minutes includes free throws. Take away the free throws and they scored only 1.15 points per minute. Those are extraordinary numbers.
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