In large part, yes, but in my opinion the root problem is our inability to stop anyone in the paint without selling out down there. With this team, it’s a pick your poison situation. That’s what Fluox was trying to say but has been widely misunderstood.
It’s not that perimeter D doesn’t matter and outside shooting is all luck. Rather, it’s that when you suck the way we do at defending the post, every interior basket is close to automatic. If we play straight up D with our personnel we have to be on fire on the other end for 40 minutes to even stay within striking distance. In contrast, 3 point shots are not automatic for anyone even wide open. Even the best shooters in the NBA would miss around half of uncontested 3s over a large data set, and in any given game there’s a reasonable chance the opponent will just be off from the outside. Of course, we also often stink at defensive rebounds so there have been times this happened where we couldn’t capitalize because the opponent ends up getting the miss in the paint anyway for an easy 2.
My point is, my opinion is if we were stronger down low the issues on the perimeter would mostly correct themselves (not this year I’m looking ahead). It looked bad against Purdue, but I’m not sure a different scheme that focused on preventing perimeter shots would help. If we did that, the would’ve schooled us inside like many other teams have. The bottom line is we suck at defense.
