My Two Cents: What's the Difference Between 'Good' Shot and 'Open' Shot?
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Miami Heat president and NBA legend Pat Riley often tells a story from his playing days with the Los Angeles Lakers back in the 1970s, when he was a guard on a team loaded with Hall of Famers Elgin Baylor, Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain.
During a playoff game that was nip and tuck, Riley took a last-minute jump shot that missed, and the Lakers lost. West, one the NBA's all-time leading scorers who's known as Mr. Logo, asked Riley why took the deciding shot.
"Because I was open,'' Riley said.
"Did you ever think why they left you open?'' West said.
Riley had no answer.
I share that story because I was reminded of it Tuesday night during the final few minutes of Indiana's 74-69 loss to No. 15 Wisconsin, where the Hoosiers didn't score at all in the final 1 minute and 50 seconds and blew another late lead.
So many times this season, the Hoosiers have watched late leads slip away. That current 16-9 record could be so much better with a few extra made shots in the closing minutes.
But that hasn't happened with this fragile team that Mike Woodson inherited. It happened at Wisconsin in December, and happened again to the Badgers on Tuesday night at Assembly Hall. It's happened several times in between, too.
The Hoosiers had a game-high seven-point lead with 11:24 to go, were still up five with 3:52 remaining and went ahead 69-66 with 1:50 left on a Xavier Johnson rebound of a Trey Galloway airball three and layup.
And they would never score again.
Johnson missed a wide-open jumper with 1:14 to go, and Galloway missed an open three-pointer with 38 seconds left, but Indiana got the ball back after a Wisconsin traveling call in the backcourt. Indiana threw the ball in to Jackson-Davis, but when point guard Chucky Hepburn went down to double, he quickly kicked the ball back out to Johnson, who took a wide-open three-pointer with 22 seconds to go, but that missed, too.
After a foul and two Wisconsin free throws, the final Indiana inbounds play was botched, and Parker Stewart was forced to hoist a three after Wisconsin jumped the screens. The hurried three while double covered with 6.2 seconds to go missed badly. And even down five just ahead of the buzzer, Johnson missed the final three-point attempt.
Adding it all up, Indiana went 0-for-5 down the stretch, which is bad.
But what might be worse is that star Trayce Jackson-Davis, who had 30 points, eight rebounds and a season-high six assists, didn't take a single shot in the closing minutes. Wisconsin gave him extra attention down the stretch, of course, and he passed out of several double-teams.
He sees double-teams all the time, and he's usually pretty good about making the right decisions. He's also very trusting of his teammates, and when he finds a perimeter shooter that's wide open, he's going to pass the ball — and expect his teammates to make shots.
They didn't do that for him on Tuesday night.
"Yeah, so obviously I thought I was kicking the ball out pretty well the whole game, and so I saw (Chucky Hepburn) dig and Xavier was wide open for a shot, and sometimes you don't hit them,'' Jackson-Davis said "I'd have him shoot that shot 10 times out of 10. It was a great look by him, and I know he wished he could get it back, and I know he will in the next game.
"It's just mental. They've just got to have their confidence up and just have support. They're going to keep doing their thing, keep getting up shots in extra time, and they're going to start falling. You just have to have faith in your teammates, and I know they'll get out of these slumps.''
It was a shame, because Jackson-Davis was spectacular all night. He needed a big night like that too, because he had struggled to score in his last three games. He was 10-for-13 from the field, and 10-for-14 from the line. With the six assists, he was a part of 44 Indiana points.
But two more might have made a difference, and four would have for sure.
I'm not taking a shot at him in any way, and that's definitely not what that is. I said often in my pregame build-up to the game that I was expecting a big night from him, and we got it. He played extremely hard, and with great energy. Any time you can score 30 against a Wisconsin team that prides itself on defensive effort, that's a hell of a night. That was an unfair result for him. He deserved better.
Indiana coach Mike Woodson thought Jackson-Davis should have taken matters into his own hands on that late touch.
"I thought the play before that, that X took the three, I thought the big fella (Jackson-Davis) was in a good position to make the play, but he threw it out to X because he thought X was open on the three-point line,'' Woodson said.
"At that point, we've just got to put it on the officials to make the call and we didn't, so it's a tough game. I got to give them credit because they played they butts off. I thought we played great in stretches, but we just couldn't sustain it.''
I watched the replay over and over, and it would have been tough for Jackson-Davis to make a move. He got pushed off the block a few feet, and when Hepburn doubled down, it would have required Jackson-Davis to put the ball on the floor — with his right hand, no less — and split two defenders to get to the rim. (We know from experience that simply taking a 14-foot jumper isn't in the Jackson-Davis repertoire.)
A wide-open Johnson was certainly a viable option. He's a 33.4 percent three-point shooter this year, and basically that for his career, but that number is much higher in catch-and-shoot situations when he's completely uncovered. He was, let's not forget, completely uncovered.
And he missed.
Many of you like to rip on Johnson for his unorthodox shooting style, and it is weird to look at. But he's also made it work. In his four years of college basketball, three years at Pittsburgh and this season at Indiana, he's scored 1,399 points and made multiple three-pointers in a game 31 times.
What you have to know about Johnson was that he was 100 percent sure he was going to make that shot when he took it. And since you booed him off the court in that December game against Notre Dame, he has been shooting 38.7 percent from three — the highest percentage on the team during the past month.
I'm guessing you didn't know that.
There's a clutch shooting gene, and it just seems like we haven't had it in anyone at Indiana, that pure shooter you can count on to nail big three-pointers late in a game. Steve Alford isn't walking through that door, and neither is A.J. Guyton or Jordan Hulls.
Indiana is shooting 33.6 percent from three through 25 games this season, and as bad as that sounds, here are a few other numbers to digest.
- Instant comparison: The Hoosiers' opponents this season are shooting just 30.7 percent.
- Miller/Woodson comparison: Indiana was 32.4 a year ago, 32.6 percent the year before that, and 31.2 percent in the 2018-19 season. In Archie Miller's first season, they were just 32.2 percent. So, yes, this year's team is better from deep than ALL FOUR of Archie Miller's teams.
You have to go all the way back to 2017 — Tom Crean's last team — to find some shooters. That team shot 38 percent from deep, and made double-digit three-pointers in 12 games that season. James Blackmon Jr. made 91 threes, Robert Johnson 70.
Indiana's perimeter shooting is better this year, but it's still not nearly good enough. The new faces — Stewart, Johnson and Miller Kopp — are the team's best shooters, but the volume isn't good enough. The Hoosiers have hit double-digit threes in only three games all season, and have done better than 32 percent in just one (Penn State) of the past 10 games.
They have made only 17 threes total in the past four games, and that 4.2 per game average would rank No. 348 out of 350 NCAA teams.
Yes, that bad. Worst in basketball bad.
Stewart and Johnson, both of them can lose it mentally in a game when things get chippy, and it affects their patience and shooting ability. Kopp can't create his own shot, and has scored only eight points total in the past four games.
Trey Galloway, for all of his many gifts on the court, is a career 21.4 percent three-point shooter. (My wish? Put more elevation on your shot, with a softer touch.) Tamar Bates is 29.2 percent this year, Khristian Lander is a 29.1 percent shooter for his career and Anthony Leal is only a tick better — like one extra made shot in two years — at 30 percent.
In other words, there is no one — literally NO ONE — that can simply take over a game by burying a bushel full of threes. Stewart could be that guy if they ran him through more screens to get open — watch highlights of Purdue's Sasha Stefanovic, for instance, or Alfonso Plummer at Illinois or, sorry to say, Brad Davison at Wisconsin.
They get open for threes — and they make them.
Indiana is good enough to win every game with their one-two punch inside with Jackson-Davis and Race Thompson, but they can't do that without the guys on the perimeter making some shots.
It takes faith, and it takes confidence. And it just can't waver.
And as the days tick away on this season, let's hope they knock down enough shots to have some nice memories down the stretch. We don't need this season ending too soon.
Related stories on Indiana basketball
- BADGERS SHOOT DOWN HOOSIERS: Despite a 30-point night from Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana struggles to make shots in the closing minutes and loses again to No. 15 Wisconsin, this time 74-69 for their fourth straight loss of the season, and fifth in a row in the series. CLICK HERE
- PHOTO GALLERY: View 20 action shots from Indiana's matchup versus Wisconsin. More than 17,000 fans filed into Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall to witness the Big Ten showdown. CLICK HERE
- WISCONSIN'S BRAD DAVISON: Wisconsin guard Brad Davison is beloved by Badgers fans and despised by the other fan bases around the league. He's dealt Indiana a lot of pain, going 5-1 since 2018, and he also stole our best girl, Tyra Buss, Indiana women's basketball's all-time leading scorer. They are getting married in July and the couple sat down for a lengthy video interview. Check it out. CLICK HERE
- TAMAR BATES IS LEARNING AS HE GOES: Freshman guard Tamar Bates scored 13 points on Saturday, his first big offensive performance in more than two months. He's trying to keep his mind right during the slump, and he's remained confident despite his struggles. Reading, meditating and long talks with his dad have all helped. CLICK HERE
