Defense keys Vermont win
Toolbox
By Pete Hartt Times Argus Staff - Published: March 22, 2007
BURLINGTON – In the end it was the D for the W.
The Bellingham Slam entered Wednesday's American Basketball Association quarterfinal game against Vermont averaging 140 points over the previous six games.
That number led to this number: "We spent 99 percent of our preparation on defense," Heaves coach Will Voigt said. "We spent a lot of time going through their sets. We emphasized that we needed to have ball pressure everywhere, all the time."
And when the Slam made its run late in the game to cut a 20-point lead to three, it was a couple of defensive plays that turned the tide back in the Heaves' favor.
Case in point: with Vermont up by eight and 1:52 remaining, Kelvin Parker hounded Bellingham's Brandon Hartley on both sides of the court and into the lane to force a tough shot. Parker then turned and grabbed the rebound, got fouled and made both free throws.
On the Slam's next possession John Bryant, who was charged with cooling off red-hot Michael Jones, followed the speedy wing man out to the right corner and blocked his three-point attempt.
"We did a good job with the D," Parker said. "We knew they had good perimeter players. When a shooter gets hot you have to adjust. Our big guys are athletic and when they came out to challenge shots that made the difference."
The statistics show in black and white the black and blue effort of the Heaves, who limited the Slam to 38 percent shooting for the game and 29 percent from three-point range. In contrast, the Heaves were at 49 and 35 percent. The Heaves accepted 29 personal fouls as the price to be paid for the defense, and weren't astounding in the steals or blocked shots department with 14 steals and four blocks.
The coach prefers the other stats, like the low shooting percentage and, most of all, the W.
"If you make mental mistakes they always punish you," Voigt said. "We made one mistake and Jones got hot. But give the guys a lot of credit – it was a pretty remarkable effort. It was a team effort, very hard to pinpoint an individual effort."
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