Takeaways from Wake Forest's 79-77 loss to NC State
Wake Forest dropped their third-straight game on Saturday afternoon, falling to NC State 79-77 at home. The Deacs held a 10-point lead in the second half, but struggled to execute on both ends of the floor down the stretch. Here’s what we learned from the loss:
DJ Burns exposed a key weakness
NC State’s DJ Burns was the man of the hour on Saturday, torching the Deacs to the tune of a career-high 31 points on 14-26 shooting. With star guard Terquavion Smith, the ACC’s leading scorer, limited to 21 minutes of action because of foul trouble, head coach Kevin Keatts opted to play through the 275 lb Burns down low.
Burns, who transferred to State after three years at Winthrop, is a powerful player with tremendous touch around the rim. His low level of stamina and defensive limitations explain why he doesn’t usually play big minutes, but with the early season injury to starting five man Dusan Mahorcic, Keatts has gone to Burns more and more.
Burns was only averaging 10.5 points per contest heading into the matchup with the Deacs, and hadn’t cracked the 20-point mark yet this season. In the first half, Burns was 4-11 from the field, but Wake simply had no answer for him in the second half, where he connected on 10-15 field goal attempts. The Wolfpack went to him in the post on seemingly every possession during their big run in the second half.
Matthew Marsh stands at least three inches taller than Burns, but failed to slow him down at all. Burns continually bullied Marsh on the blocks, scoring on him close to the basket five times in a six minutes span in the second half (from the 11:15 mark on).
Burns was successful with Davion Bradford on him as well, but at least he was definitely forcing him into more challenging looks further from the basket. Burns was able to back down Marsh much closer to the basket, but opted to face up more when Bradford was on him. Bradford has his limitations as a player, but it was still surprising to see Marsh remain in the game for so long when he seemed like the inferior option.
With the score knotted up at 64 with just over four minutes to go, Wake finally sent a double team at Burns. But the big man is quite skilled as a passer (he had seven assists in the OT win over Miami on Jan. 14), and he found a wide open LJ Thomas in the weakside corner, who drilled a three-pointer. After the double team adjustment failed, Forbes called for a switch to a 1-3-1 zone, which led to a wide open corner three too. It became clear fast why no adjustment was made for so long, because doubling or going zone seemed like an even worse option.
It’s worth noting that the one thing Wake didn’t seem try was to front the post and deny ball on Burns. Not that that necessarily was the answer, but with nothing else working, it probably would’ve been worth a try.
It’s certainly troubling that Wake Forest didn’t seem to have an answer for Burns, who’s never dominated a game to this extent in his entire collegiate career. A 31-point explosion was a big surprise, but Burns has always been a matchup problem, so it didn’t come completely out of the blue. He entered Saturday’s action averaging 13.7 points per game since mid-December.
With a trip to Cameron Indoor coming up on Tuesday, Wake will need to game plan for how they can slow down Kyle Filipowski and Ryan Young in the post, so they don’t light it up like Burns did. - Odjakjian.
Cameron Hildreth was a little too aggressive
Hildreth’s play has taken a massive step up this season, there’s no doubt about that. He’s more than tripled his scoring output from a year ago and he’s proved himself as the next most reliable ball handler after Tyree Appleby. His old-school offensive game is primarily based on scoring back to the basket and scoring inside, which means a lot of pounding the rock and backing opposing defenders down.
Hildreth has been efficient this season, converting on 46.7% of his field goals. But yesterday, he struggled from the field, going just 5-15 from the floor. As a result, Wake had a lot of possessions that ended in Hildreth dribbling out most of the shot clock and missing around the hoop.
When Hildreth makes the move to back down into the post, the rest of the offense tends to stagnate, with several other players standing still on the perimeter. This became a problem in the second half when NC State went on a 15-4 run and Wake’s lead disappeared in a flash after several empty possessions in a row. When Burns was on a roll and Wake was in dire need of good possessions late in the second half, the offensive flow seemed to go out the window.
Granted, Hildreth did have several bright spots offensively yesterday, converting on four of his first five field goals in the second half. However, there was a stretch from 6:07-3:56 remaining where he missed three times (blocked twice) and NC State was able to take a three-point lead. When it got to crunch time, Wake was unable to execute offensively and gave up the lead for good.
Hildreth has developed into one of the most important players on this team, but yesterday he could have done a better job of letting the game come to him rather than trying to force the issue Hildreth’s confidence and ability to score in isolation has contributed to plenty of Wake’s success this season, but the team looks at its best when the floor is spaced and the ball is zipping around. Wake’s offense thrives when the guards are penetrating into the lane and kicking to guys on the outside for open threes. That didn’t happen down the stretch yesterday, and Hildreth. - Conroy
Andrew Carr was too passive offensively
Andrew Carr didn’t have a bad game by any stretch — on the contrary, he finished with 14 points and nine rebounds on a perfect 4/4 from the field. The biggest problem with his stat line is that he played 33 minutes and only took four shots – and one of them was a meaningless three-pointer at the final buzzer.
Carr has been an efficient player this season, shooting 51.0% from the field and 36% from three. I would have liked to see him look for his shot more frequently yesterday, especially during the last seven or so minutes of the game when Wake was struggling on offense.
There were times yesterday — and there have been all season — when Carr catches the ball on the perimeter with a chance to go up for an in-rhythm three. Instead, he pump fakes and tries to get to the basket. Forbes’ system is predicated on the guards penetrating into the lane and then kicking it out to the shooters — those looks from Carr, even if slightly contested, are still quality looks that he’s shown the ability to make.
When he’s letting it fly with confidence from deep, it draws opposing interior defenders to the outside and opens things up in the lane. Carr’s ability to shoot the deep ball keeps defenses honest, but he has to be actively looking for his shot in order to reap the benefits.
Carr’s efficiency from the field shows that he takes smart shots and doesn’t force things. In his last four games attempting more than 10 shots, Carr is 36/47 from the field for 77 points. The Demon Deacons are 3-1 over that stretch. It’s clear that this team is at its best offensively when Carr is involved and taking a higher volume of shots. - Conroy
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