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Also, I'll note. Fury Updated Pham, on 10/27/18 to the USA.

Prior to that, the last update was literally the end of the s41 worlds.

Managers, did try and get in contact with him.

I'll leave any theories on that out of this, and just leave the facts.

Pham was NOT updated, a single time, to the USA, for over 2 whole seasons.

Zone works moderately well if one of the two conditions are right (either no passer with significant passing strengths). Thats why it gets more play almost always, because there is a 50/50 chance at getting one or the other right.

http://www.buzzerbeater.com/match/46991/boxscore.aspx

Team with less than 100 players picking it and getting the inverted patient against a team that had just at 975 users at the time. they mitigated some risk by double guessing LI and running 3-2, meaning they could've won by more than they did. That's the danger of running inverted patient, if someone predicts it you are dead to rights. So it becomes a cat and mouse game in the u21 a lot of times: will someone pick LI like normal, will they pick patient, or will they pick up tempo neutral or outside offense and ruin your attempt to utilize 3-2 to mitigate passing.

That's probably the extent of what i would call more public knowledge of the u21 strategic scene from a defensive perspective. More than that, while i know you hate secrets, is probably best not to be divulged if you don't want them to backtrack and figure out how to guesstimate what is being planned.

Once again, I still think that 3-2 works better when there is a strong point guard passer. Yet, to each their own. I believe that the country deciding on the better manager is more important than being scared about speaking publically about tactics.

On the subject of 2-3 zones, I wouldn't be so radical, it helps when the team is not the best rebound wise (and it works even better with U21 as they tend to have lower %fg so more offensive rebounds to catch). Against big teams there's no match anyway, but against similar teams with strong discrepancies between guards and bigs, it can help. I experimented with it in the past seasons and it wasn't as bad as you made it to be.
Then again I'm not talking about winning against the USA or France or China here. But the "I will never use it" seems premature

Edit : the game against Malaysia comes to mind. They had way better bigs than us (Katem was already at 50k salary), it was the first week so equal GS, yet we out-rebounded them. Don't know if that made us win the game but it sure helped

Last edited by Fwinns at 10/29/2018 11:15:38 PM

I agree with you on that. Every offense and defense has some kind of use. Just some will probably never come around to being the most useful in a given situation. Yet, we shouldn't rule them out.

If you put all your information out there to win an election, you don't have any cards left for scratching out wins :) , but lets talk a bit about 2-3 actually.

http://www.buzzerbeater.com/match/47100/boxscore.aspx
http://www.buzzerbeater.com/match/43108/boxscore.aspx

I've pulled two 2-3 games. The second one is my US vs China matchup, and the moment in which i vowed never again a 2-3. The first is a recent canada u21 matchup where i feel fwinns felt compelled to try some things to get a win.

In the canada game:
-10 total rebounds as the deficit
+5 offensive rebounds
+24 Assists versus turnovers for the opponent on a similar rating
Inside defense could not cope with the big, presumably because the SF took a handful of the defensive attempts versus the PF

In the US game:
0 total rebounds as the deficit
+9 offensive rebounds
+7 Assists versus turnovers for the opponent on a similar rating
Inside defense could not cope with the big, as our SF's Id was inferior to the rest of our bigs in ID.

So randomly the rebounding advantage you gain is fairly minimal from a defensive rebounding standpoint (which would be what a 2-3 should improve a bit logically). It weakens the perimeter defense a good bit, allowing for a bit better production from the perimeter if you don't have even OD Guards. You also need to get the ID matched up on the SF, so it's almost baiting a triple big setup for the 2-3 to work well. And your reward, even beyond these two matchups specifically, is that you actually see a boost in Offensive boards. I think this has some to do with your preference at SF to be more inside skills orriented at times mostly, but my analysis of having played quite a few games is that in most cases the team that you have setup is not capable of running it correctly. In a side that can only have 18 players at most and can't rotate players in and out of the lineup without severe consequences, this further solidified my personal stance on it.

The statistical analysis of the 3-2 looks a good deal brighter than the 2-3.

No disagreeing on the concept that the 3-2 is better than the 2-3. I just think that vowing to never play a specific defense ever again seems like you're leaving out possibilities in which the defense can be properly used.

Well except in that game Mourikis and Mounsamy (the 2 SF) were outside SF, we lacked bigs last season ;)
I'm really not sure m2m would have helped us more there. And 3-2 would have been a blood bath against low post because their guards were also very good so could pass the ball inside even with 3 guards cuttjng passing lines

The malaysia game you won because the game took your RnG decision, and exploited the weak link of their defense (the 20 year old SF). Their SG was quite feast or famine with the ball, meaning he probably had good driving and very good handling but very mediocre passing (thinking 7-9). He took most of the LI shots while assisting often enough and rarely turning the ball over, thus my general opinion. If you had clamped down on OD in a man situation with a 13 OD or better guard, i anticipate he struggles even more to get balls into the man down low, and furthermore i would also suspect the SF's lack of TSP would lead to him shooting more. So the end result is probably more lower quality shots that net you some rebound opportunities, and equal out some of the loss you incur from the offensive rebounds droping in a 2-3. Just my take on whether or not it was responsible for that win (i'd lean not really, i think you with either way most of the time).

My implication is more or less that the 2-3 does not produce the anticipated results, and therefore it's usefulness is severely diminished.

I would probably go with:

Man to Man
3-2
Outside+1
FCP
2-3
Inside+1
1-3-1

in terms of my order of usefulness. So it's not 1-3-1 bad, it's just not very good

Yeah, i'm not saying your tactical decision had any real impact on whether or not the game was particularly winnable, I just kinda scout what happened in losses first before wins, and saw the 2-3 in that one before the malaysia game. Additionally, that was also one of the more tough matchups, where you can learn a lot about what works against better teams and what struggles.

I would say that i think the injury to their starter would've made this a bit closer in man given i doubt that they had the depth at PG (their backup's Assists per minute elsewhere were more mediocre than what it was in this game).