Quote:
Originally Posted by rserina
And what's interesting, Maddux, is that the national title teams never really fit what we wanted to do offensively. Noah couldn't space the floor with his shot or post up. Brewer couldn't hit his shots from the arc and turned the ball over too much on the ball screens. Humphrey couldn't run a pick and roll. Green struggled scoring once he got inside twenty feet.
Yet somehow, they found a way to be unbelievably efficient. Green and Noah were a dynamic pick and roll combo (Randolph Morris is still having nightmares about Noah dunking on him at Rupp). Noah developed that nifty little dribble drive game from the elbow. Both Horford and Noah created tons of threes for others off skip passes against doubles. Green hit the step back three off the high ball screen like no defender had ever seen us run the play before. Humphrey just camped on the wing for threes or would take a dribble handoff from five feet beyond the top of the circle and nail it. And Brewer yo-yo'd his way around the floor to hit circus jumpers and flew down the court for transition dunks. Those guys did not fit the system as well as other incarnations under Donovan, but they brought unique skills to the table, Donovan adapted things to suit them, and the kids bought into them.
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The fact that we had two NBA quality bigs in the paint and - especially - that both were terrific passers made the difference. You had to double team them, but they were amazing finding the open man, which might be the other big or might be one of the wing players.