Thunder Good-Oil
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This group is certainly elite defensively and rebounding-wise, and will always be able to play with anyone in the country. My only wish is for Barnes & Co. to come up with ways to avoid the shooting droughts that have killed us in big tournament games, and even hurt us in the 1st half tonight.
Living and dying with the 3-ball based motion offense is great when shots are falling, but there has to be an alternative when they aren't. Tonight it was pounding the ball to Aidoo and Awaka, which opened things up big time in the 2nd half. I'd love to see more P&R and DHO type actions to free up Knecht and give him some open looks. We used the P&R effectively with Aidoo as the roll man in the 2nd half, and it blew the game open along with our offensive rebounding.
This group is as good as anyone in the country, but I don't believe that Barnes has had an offensive weapon like Knecht since he's been here. They need to find ways to get him going when those droughts hit. Just my opinion.
The offense was creating really good looks at the start of the game. I think UT was 1 of the first 9 and none of the misses was a forced shot. There’s always going to be a degree of randomness since shooting 35% from 3 is pretty successful. If only 2 of those 8 missed shots had gone in it wouldn’t have seemed like a problem. If 3 of 8 would have been good it would have been a nearly great percentage. You have to keep taking the shots. It pays off later by creating better scoring opportunities near the basket.