Love shots
Here's something else UCLA's Kevin Love had to say about his turnaround jumpers in the closing minutes against Texas A&M.
"I'm just looking at the back of the rim, through the basket,'' Love said. "You kind of dream about shots like that. You know, advancing to the next round, hitting big shots for your team. I just wanted to hekp us put us over the top any way that I possibly could.
"It happened to be scoring. Other times it's passing, rebounding, taking charges. But what's going through my mind on those? I'm just praying that I make them and it goes through the basket."
I was reading an article (forgot where) that Howland discourages Love from hitting fadeaways/turnaround jumpers, even though he is quite capable of making most of them. In my opinion, I think Howland should let Love add this talent into his arsenal. A very versatile player makes it especially hard for defenders to predict what their opponent's next move is going to be.
What do you guys think??
It is an interesting question you pose but I am sure Ben has his reasons and I have learned to trust his judgment...what he says goes for me.
My guess (and it is just a guess) is that he knows that Love is such a big and strong guy and wants to take advantage of that in every way he can. Why neutralize a big strength when you don't have to? As that Bruin legend always says "throw down big man!"
Those fade-aways came at the perfect time when Love was being double teamed. But I can imagine Howland's reasons for discouraging Love from taking them would be that the shots are not a high percentage attempt and if you don't make them you are out of position for a put back.
In my basketball days, the big guys posted up down low, banged around for position, got the inbounds pass and scored or followed up a miss to score. Fade aways and turn arounds were for undersized 3s and 4s who have shot blockers lurking nearby. Kevin is a banger and good things happen when he plays in close, like a basket and foul, a put back, etc. I suspect that Coach H doesn't want him to get fancy with low percentage shots when he can get position and bang from the post. Kevin is of course multi-talented and can shoot from everywhere, which is why we're very lucky this year to have him.