I suck at gameplanning.  I have a question.  I am going into a big game with a great team that I am slightly favored over.  Here is the situation:

They run a motion offense, seemingly always in slowdown mode, and a fullcourt press (-3).

I run a triangle, usually uptempo, and a man defense. 

I am concerned with them running the slowdown.  I think my starters are better than theirs, and I am pretty confident in my bench as well.  What kind of tempo should I run here, if they are running a slowdown? 

 I have a question about my offensive strategy as well.  They run a FC press (-3).  I shoot 3's at a .416 clip attempting 19 per game.  if they are going to try to take away the inside, do I make any adjustments, or do I let me high perimeter guys shoot from outside a little more? 

What to do?
2/7/2011 3:02 AM
I'm not gonna give away too much here since we're both in the same tournament (or at least that's what I think you're referring to).  That said, based solely on what you said here I have the following thoughts (and keep in mind that I am no expert and have sometimes felt that my gameplanning lags behind my recruiting; seems like I've been a 2nd round team a lot, both when I thought I should lose in the first round and when I thought I should easily be S16, whatever that means):

If you think your starters and your bench both matchup favorably with them you should run whatever tempo you're most comfortable with.  The fact that they run slowdown seems to imply that they want to keep their starters in the game as much as possible while running that press.  In general I try to force my opponents to do the things they don't want to; in this case, that would be play the bench.  Of course, if you think they have the wrong strategy and actually have a strong  bench and your starters can beat theirs (they probably can), and you want to go slowdown as well, go for it.

As far as the offensive strategy goes, that for me would depend heavily on the FT shooting of my inside scorers.  One big weakness of the press is that so many fouls are committed.  Cramming guys inside increases fouls as well.  If you have good FT shooting bigs or slashing guards then you could actually consider pumping up their distro and trying to pile up fouls for the other team.  That could be particularly effective if you're running uptempo.  In this game against a decent Dallas team running a -3 press and both of us on uptempo my Rochester shot 45 free throws and over 50% from the field while pounding it inside.  On the other hand, if you think that you're going to do as poorly as we did in that game and only make 2/3 of your free throws you should get lots of good looks from outside if you want to go that route.  Against a man or zone that I know will be drawn in I'd be more inclined to up my distro to the perimeter guys.  Against a press I could go either way or leave it at your normal settings.  Again, it's largely a comfort thing.  You might consider going with a strategy that's as impervious as possible to the other coach changing up the gameplan on you.  Human coaches have an obnoxious ability to do that in the tournament.
2/7/2011 3:18 AM

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