Where's the help?
Bill Self probably didn't sleep last night after watching how his Kansas Jayhawks handled the last few seconds of a season.
They did everything right the last 10 minutes of the game.
Went from down double-digits to tied it with 13 second left. Had fouls to give, so they made the fouls and got the clock down to 3.9 seconds with the opponent inbounding the ball at mid-court.
Sweet 16 on the line.
The Jayhawks scored 26 points in the first half. They were down 13 with 7:22 remaining. Unbelievable comeback to even be in position to force overtime or win the game. I thought they had it.
And then this happened:
The St. John’s point guard crosses mid-court with 3.3 seconds left. The video above shows it. The still images below explain it.
Bill Self is one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time. I have no idea how or if they talked about help defense and game-ending situations like this one. Have no idea what he told his players in the locker room after the heartbreak.
As a longtime basketball player, coach, and trainer, I can tell you what I see. I see kids who don’t know how to play help defense. Basic fundamental. And these kids are not playing for free now. They are making a lot of money, and they should. But at the same time, my high school freshmen teams would not have turned their backs to the ball in this situation.
It’s mind-boggling. And as a Kansas native and proud member of the unofficial Heartland of Hoops Association, it’s super frustrating. The kids still want to win. They want to get paid and win. But if you can’t get the basics down, you don’t cut down the nets. Pretty simple, yet shockingly elusive.
1
KU didn’t have any timeouts left. But neither did St. John’s. So in this situation, the players know what they know, and you have to trust them to figure it out. You will see from the image above that the two St. John’s players without the ball and at the top of the screen are decoys.
And the two Kansas defenders took the bait, leaving the paint and the path to the bucket wide open. If you’re playing percentages, you just gave St. John’s the highest percentage shot in basketball. Don’t turn your back on the ball. Protect your house (the paint) at all costs. Make the PG kick it out because there should be no clear path.
2
Here’s another view of it from behind the play. Notice too how the on-ball defender has opened his hips, allowing a clear path to the rim. Tough situation. If he fouls him, it’s 1-and-1 free throws. But if he doesn’t get better defensive posture than this, you get beat, especially with your help defense falling for decoys. If one of them gets the ball, it’s one of the lowest percentage shots in basketball. Easy to explain now. Harder in real-time.
3
Rick Pitino is also one of the best basketball coaches ever. Pitino also did not have any timeouts left. His players knew what to do anyway. Because they probably practiced situations like this. The players probably talked about it before the possession even happened, on the court, in real-time.
I write a lot about asking for help. For a long time, whether in basketball or in life or whatever, I didn’t do that as much as I should have. Until I did.
But the point here isn’t about asking for help. The point is if your teammates have the basic fundamentals down, you don’t have to ask for it. Whether you have a timeout or not. Whether you are paid or not. It’s called practice.
Works in basketball. Works in life.
Wins championships.
Derek Simmons writes Standard Correspondence mostly from the perspective of saying the quiet parts out loud, like asking for help and expecting it from teams. He’s been lucky to have great teammates in sports, but mostly in life.