Stanford went inside, went inside again, and, for good measure, went inside
some more. Brook Lopez finished with 23 points, Mitch Johnson added 16, the team
grabbed 21 offensive boards and Stanford muscled its way to an 82-77 victory
over undersized Cal.
Chit-chatted with an NBA scout before the tip. He agreed Brook Lopez and Ryan Anderson are obvious NBA material, but when I pressed him on Robin, he hemmed
and hawed, but eventually said, “If I were you, I’d tell him to stay in school.”
Of course, that was before he grabbed 10 offensive rebounds and displayed the
quickness to stay with Anderson (and no, I would never read his notes off
his Palm Pilot.) For what it’s worth, the four Stanford guys on his watch list
were the twins, Anthony Goods and Lawrence Hill.
The most notable developments in the game to my eyes, in no particular
order:
1. After two quick fouls limited him to five scoreless first-half minutes,
Brook Lopez played an exceptional second, and single-handedly carried his team
to the W. He finished with 23 points on 7-of-11 overall shooting and 9-of-15
free-throw shooting. Ben Braun said a key was that Lopez became more aggressive
positioning himself in the deep paint as the game wore on, and once he got the
ball sufficiently low, there was nothing Cal could do to stop him:
“I think the key was he did a great job of securing his post position; he had
some great reposts,” Ben Braun said. “In the second half, by the time he got the
ball deep in the paint, the double was ineffective -- it was too late. We didn’t
get down on him soon enough.”
Keep in mind, Brook had his 23-point half against DeVon Hardin, a
projected mid-first-rounder. And even sweeter, reposting aggressively is exactly
what Trent said Brook needed to improve last week. Check.
Brook needs to work hard on his two Achilles heels, conditioning and foul
trouble. Because when Brook’s not stopping himself, I haven’t found a player in
this conference who can. There’s no doubt in my mind Stanford loses this game
without him.
2. Mitch Johnson – shot-put form and sharpshooter results. 16 points on
4-of-6 overall shooting, 3-of-5 accuracy deep and 5-of-6 on the stripe. Six
boards and a 7-to-1 ballhandling ratio. He played out of his mind and Braun
knows it:
“Mitch shot the ball well and I think you have to live with some of those
shots,” Braun said. “You can’t live with second-chance points and putbacks.”
He’s right, you can live with giving Mitch those looks and I wouldn’t expect
him to have another game like this awhile, but it was sure nice while it lasted.
Postgame, I asked Mitch about his performance:
“I knew Randle was going to be real aggressive. I knew I wanted to play some
D, make him stay honest early. He was playing rover or doubling down on Brook,
so we got a turn we did a good job getting out the first or second play, and
swung it to Anthony and to me.”
Mitch is talking about his first three of the day, which put Stanford up 6-4.
All fans asked of him a year ago was to do enough offensively to keep opponents
honest. Ta-da, folks.
3. The other wings – eeek. Drew Shiller hit two huge threes, but Jerome Randle was much too fast for him defensively. Four fouls in nine minutes all too
plainly evidence that. Randle’s fast, but he’s not Tajuan Porter fast, and
Shiller’s lack of a higher gear means he will only be able to play in spurts
moving forward. In other words, tonight was as good as it can get for him.
In terms of importance though, Shiller’s problems pale in comparison to
Anthony Goods’, Lawrence Hill’s, and to a lesser extent, Landry Fields’. Goods
only played five second-half minutes and 19 total. Lawrence Hill played 26, but
only 12 in the second-half, and save for two huge offensive boards off
one-and-one misses, they were a quiet 26 minutes. Fields also regressed to the
Landry of late-2007. The three combined to shoot 7-of-26, 3-of-9 deep and
average just six points.
Fred Washington, props on the 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, but you took
just one shot and scored only four points in 30 minutes. That might be a good
strategy (and he did appear to pass up good looks) when Brook’s so dominant, but
Aron Baynes, Jon Brockman and their respective teammates are good enough to
largely neutralize our edge in the paint.
The wings need to match their level of play to Robin and Brook’s, which is
Final Four-caliber right now.
It’s especially frustrating because Goods and Hill have been in a slump the
whole season. Two months ago, Johnson was denying it, but he knows it now, and
besides, his minutes distribution doesn’t lie:
“I thought some guys were really pressing,” he said. “I tried to get them to
relax on the offensive end and let the ball go. … Anthony, Lawrence, Landry,
those shots will go down.”
Of course, his next sentence might have been the most important of the
night:
“But the thing I like is, we’re getting where we need to be.”
Just before the Arizona games, he said we still had a ways to go. Guess past
years don’t lie and Trent Johnson teams really do peak as the season progress.
Hopefully, Stanford can hang onto that momentum an additional two months this
time around.
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