Post Game Discussion - St. John's vs. Duke

Also I don't think it was a bad move bringing in Horne and Evans at the 8 min mark however I do question who they subbed in for

Horne should have come in for Omari and not Kennedy.

I'm really happy for both Boothe and Coker.  I honestly don't think any PG not named John Wall could have done too much better than Boothe today.  He pushed the ball, drove well, and was super aggressive on defense.  Tough kid.

Coker was excellent.  Man!  If he can play half as well as he did tonight the rest of the season, we will be so much better off.  We have such an undersized frontline, we really need his size and his shotblocking can be game-changing if he keeps the fouls to a minimum.  Very impressive.  Great game, Dele!

I could go on for hours about DJ.  The heart and sole of this team.  We FINALLY have somebody to hand the ball to do in crunch time.  If we get a team in the bonus, it could be over because nobody can contain him and he is so solid from the line.

When we run, we are so hard to defend.  We have to keep pushing on teams.  Anytime we slowed it down to a half court situation we did Duke a favor.  This team really missed Mason.

DJ definitely has his balls screwed on tight. reminds me a bit of evan turner (too bad evan he got injured today)

Correct me if I'm wrong but we made a lot of our big 2nd half run without either Malik in the lineup?  Coker didn't happen to be in either, meaning we had 5 guys who could score in there. 

Omari Lawrence was legit and he should NOT have been subbed out for Malik Boothe.  That happened and all of a sudden Duke was up double digits again.  Coach has gotta see what's working and roll with it.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Paris played horrible D - he couldn't seem to stay ahead of scheyer - Omari did a great job on Scheyer.

The team played GREAT overall - very happy w the performance.  Annoying that Burrell couldn't be part of it, but as long as he's ok then I'm fine.  This team has a shot to do some special things, but the PG position is gonna kill us (though Boothe did flash stretches of decent play).  I'm all for a point forward or PG by committee approach with Kennedy or even Mase when he comes back.  Let Paris/Hardy/Omari/DJ/Mase bring the ball up for half the game at least...

Correct me if I'm wrong but we made a lot of our big 2nd half run without either Malik in the lineup?  Coker didn't happen to be in either, meaning we had 5 guys who could score in there. 

Omari Lawrence was legit and he should NOT have been subbed out for Malik Boothe.  That happened and all of a sudden Duke was up double digits again.  Coach has gotta see what's working and roll with it.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Paris played horrible D - he couldn't seem to stay ahead of scheyer - Omari did a great job on Scheyer.

The team played GREAT overall - very happy w the performance.  Annoying that Burrell couldn't be part of it, but as long as he's ok then I'm fine.  This team has a shot to do some special things, but the PG position is gonna kill us (though Boothe did flash stretches of decent play).  I'm all for a point forward or PG by committee approach with Kennedy or even Mase when he comes back.  Let Paris/Hardy/Omari/DJ/Mase bring the ball up for half the game at least...

WE seem to go on runs with Boothe on the bench, that wsnt the first game that happpenned

Tha Kid, I thought Boothe played very well tonight.  He scored his baskets at key moments and really pushed the pace of the game.  He was tough on defense as well.  He gets a lot of slack here, so I just wanted to give him credit for a good game.

I think the run we made with him on the bench was more of a direct result of letting DJ be DJ on offense.  For the record, Malik was on the court for key periods of that stretch, but DJ was getting to run the show off of the weave. 

I do agree with you about having five scorers on the court at once. DJ has proven time and time again that he is more than capable of handling the point in the half court.  I think Hardy is solid enough--especially in transition--to share in those duties as well. 

I don't think Horne (except in transition where he excels) has a very solid handle, but Mason sure does.   Our most effective lineup might be one with Hardy-Mason-Kennedy-Brownlee/Burrell-Evans on the court.  Perhaps even Horne in there and Mase or Kennedy moved to the four?  That would be a track meet.

I was very impressed with the coast to coast play by Hardy off his rebound.  He also had a really nice drive in the half court, displaying a great first step.

Some interesting stats is we had 9 turnovers in the first half but only 4 in the 2nd.

We also shot 51% on the game while holding Duke to 43%.

The big disparities in the game were Duke 14 offensive rebounds and also had +10 in the overall rebounding margin. They also shot 11 more FT and had 11 more points off of it. Pretty much the difference in the game was these two numbers.

Some interesting stats is we had 9 turnovers in the first half but only 4 in the 2nd.

We also shot 51% on the game while holding Duke to 43%.

The big disparities in the game were Duke 14 offensive rebounds and also had +10 in the overall rebounding margin. They also shot 11 more FT and had 11 more points off of it. Pretty much the difference in the game was these two numbers.

They were allowed to push us in the back and going over our backs without ref interference.

Quotes from Coach K and Norm

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