My problem with Mooney is simple. We are 100% a reflection of the coach. He is a good creative offensive coach and we are a good offensive team and have been for awhile - - even when we aren’t a great shooting team. But we are a system team and require experienced guys with skills that fit the system. that’s a narrow window to operate in. And it creates a culture and personality. We are skilled but not tough (mentally or physically) as a group. And to be clear I put this on the coach!
We achieve this stellar offense at the expense of most everything else. He seemingly cares about little else. And while I am sure he does, it’s never at the expense of his offensive system. Here is a prime example: Golden. A few years ago, he was struggling with getting into foul trouble regularly. What he needed to be taught was how to play better defense without fouling and held accountable to do that. Instead he was taught simply to not foul because of his importance to us (where he is important only to our offense). Now, he provides almost no inside presence at all defensively and not much rebounding for someone of his size. But, he hasn’t been in foul trouble much at all! To me, he was taught to be soft although we no doubt don’t think of it that way. But he plays like he was taught.
We have struggled defensively for many years and rebounding is flat horrible and there is little accountability for these things. Players earn their minutes (and even their recruitment) almost 100% based on their offensive fit and skills. It’s fine to say we aren’t going to send a lot of people to the offensive glass, but how can we not understand that we have clearly created a culture that simply doesn’t value rebounding as much as it’s needed and watch it cost us games year after year. And to be clear, it costs us big games against good teams. Exactly the games we need to win more of. This group is very skilled and experienced offensively and we run a very good offense and that’s going to win us a good number of games (even struggling from 3), but we sure seem to be the same team as most of the last 8 years, but just happen to have caught a single class where that offensive skill is going to be enough most night to make us for that lack of defense and rebounding that’s become every bit as cultural as our excellent offense.
What I can’t figure out right now is last year. We were defensively much better and we had found the happy place of rebounding where we didn’t get any offensive rebounds, but managed to be about average on the defensive glass. i can see with the eye test that we look much more like prior teams than last year and the stats/analytics clearly bear that out too. Last year certainly looks like the anomaly right now because our defense and rebounding right now look very much like they did the previous 6 years.
theathletic.com
