re: Willie out tonight, Borrego coaching

I felt tonight was our best coached game by far this season. I am not saying that is because Willie wasn't there and JB was in first chair. I just really liked some of the things we did schematically.

First, the pin down screen with BI coming off more as a curl than to the arc. He knocked down two short mid range jumpshots on this action and hit Jonas for an easy two on another. AD did a great job of highlighting the lack of dribbling for BI on these plays.

Second, the lob pass to Zion. I am not talking about just alley oops for dunks as much as throwing it over the defense to Zion in a position to score. We hadn't seen that since game 1 against Memphis.

Third, our identification of what they were doing and countering it. This was at it's best in the third qtr when we exposed them doubling Jonas. We put BI on Jonas' side and he would make an entry pass. Jonas would let the double come and kick back out to BI who would quickly reverse it to Herb who instantly looked to Zion on the block. Because of the quick reversal, Herb's man had to be the one to double Zion and Zion got a quick bucket then hit Herb for a wide open three another time. It was the first time I can remember all season that we identified what a defense was doing and punished it repeatedly.

Of course the effort was much better last night, but I was hard on the coaching staff following Sunday. I wanted to make sure to give them credit for what I thought were fantastic schematic adjustments last night.