Teammates are so fun. From the Fayetteville Observer:
And so with the spotlight and the stakes at a maximum, Lawson knows what he must do.
“I’m tired of sitting out,” he said. “Right now, I’m going to play through everything.”
Whether he can live by those words remains to be seen. Lawson admits he’s been frustrated by the lingering discomfort in his left ankle, struggling to find the right balance between resilience and caution, wondering when to play through pain and when to shut things down.
“Every week I’d be like, ‘OK, I’m going to test it,’” Lawson said. “But it kept hurting.”
And so week after week, at every twinge of discomfort the sophomore point guard saw a yellow light that caused him to brake even when his teammates were hollering “Go!” from the backseat.
“We’ve all been in his ear,” said junior Danny Green, Lawson’s roommate. “It’s like, ‘Ty, you’ve been out for a month. When are you going to come back? Stop being a girl and get back on the court already.’”
As the article points out, Roy said some players think the injured part has to be perfect to come back and Lawson is one of those players. I just hope he has enough to burn Paulus a few times on Saturday night.
Tar Heel Fan 
He blew past Tyrese Rice a couple of times last Saturday in the second half. Paulus is several steps slower than that.
That almost makes me wonder if the kvetch n the DTH was from one of the team members as a joke on Lawson.
I sure hope he blows by them and dunks on paulus. That would be sweet.
Of course Paulus or whatever Dookie is nearby will simply grab Lawson and in Cameron we won’t get many favorable whistles. I will be interested to see how many times Hansbrough gets to the line – it’s been a huge part of his game since he is literally mugged every night and Duke will be no better (and arguably much worse).
“Green, Green, it’s Green they say
On the far side of the Hill*;
Green, Green, I’m going away to where the grass is Greener still.”
(one of us old boomers’ tunes)
Add some Ellington dressing and Dook is Tar Heel salad.
Hansburger being the main (of) course.
Heels by 20.
Russell
*Chapel, that is.
If we play man to man defense the whole game, we lose. Roy needs to note that Duke’s 2 losses came in games where the other team played a 2-3 zone. Watch a replay of the game in Chapel Hill and see how our man-to-man defense gives up open threes to Duke’s spread offense. In our man scheme, Tyler ends up out at the foul line on Lance Thomas, gets screened, Paulus drives and makes a layup or kicks it to either side for the 3. I’ll be greatly disappointed in Roy if doesn’t have an adjustment for this scenario. Our defense has not improved so much that we can handle Duke man-to-man.
Gee, Chris, maybe you should give Roy a call on his cell and let him know that. I wish you hadn’t waited until the night before though because you might not be able to reach him and then we would lose for no other reason than the fact that Roy hadn’t noticed when watching game footage how well Duke does against a 2-3 zone. If you had come out with this earlier, he might even have invited you to practice to help guide the team in implementing the 2-3 scheme, but it is probably too late now.
Don’t worry. I will address in my game preview and I am sure Roy hangs out here all the time. 😉
I was just kidding because Roy said that comments like Chris’s were one of his pet peeves. He said people call his radio show and say things like, “gee Roy, have you ever thought about using Danny Green at point–I think he is a great athlete,” or “have you ever heard of a box in one defense–that might work on Redick?”
Roy said one time to a caller, “I think I have considered every possible permutation regarding our team, 24 hours a day to make us better. Shhess, it’s not like I go give doctors at the hospital medical advice but people out of the street think they have seen things I haven’t already considered….
I just feel so much better knowing that you’re around William. The world is so much better having a know it all wise ass like you telling us what we should say and providing us with so much knowledge. By the way, I know you….you’re the little kid that got the crap beat out of him every day at recess, and now has to spend most of his time trying to restore his self esteem. Duke by 9 if Roy is foolish enough to play man to man defense the whole game.
On another subject, and I certainly don’t want to offend Butch Davis nor Billy-boy, as I know that both of them as has Roy Williams considered every possible permutation regarding the football team, but……..Everett Withers is our new defensive coordinator. This is the Everett Withers who coached the defense at Minnesota last year, and said defense gave up more yeards than any other D-1 school last season, more than 119 teams. And Ted Roof of all people replaced him. Anyway, I’m sure that Billy thinks I am naive for pointing this out, but I thought it was somewhat curious and worth mentioning. If I have offended the intellectual prowess of anyone on this thread, I truly apologize.
So, if Roy doesn’t coach the way that you argue for, he is “foolish.”
I think I will place my confidence in a Hall of Fame coach, with an over 80% winning percentage to determine the best strategy for his team, but I am sure that Coach Williams will be glad to know that you are one of his loyal fans.
Hey, we can all make mistakes and be foolish once in a while, even Roy, and possibly even you. Duke by 9 if Roy plays man to man the whole game.
Roy has excellent assistants, not to mention a whole bevy of Carolina alumni in the pro’s who look at this stuff much more intently that I ever could. To those of you who are up there on that level with Larry Brown et al., I congratulate you, but even assuming that, there are still a couple of big issues before we start critiquing Coach Williams(although God knows people were doing it five minutes after the Georgetown game last year).
1. We don’t even know what the flow of the game is like.
2. Dean Smith and Roy Williams have established systems. This doesn’t mean that they never deviate from them but it does mean that they generally don’t deviate much.
While fans may quibble from time to time, by playing man-to-man and up-tempo offense, Williams maintains his team’s allure with potential recruits, virtually all of whom want to play with a team that runs and plays fast paced basketball. Carolina virtually always is at the top or close to the top of the national scoring leaders among teams nationally and this is due to the style of play. Zone defense slows the game down. This doesn’t mean he never plays zone. He went to it against Illinois in 2005 for a while, but he generally, along with Bobby Knight and Dean Smith, is not a big fan of zone defense.
Perhaps my attempt at jest was too pointed but I was trying to make reference to Roy’s making the same point himself about people who have barely stepped inside a gym giving him advice about how to coach his team,, not that everyone, including myself, doesn’t question the coach at times.
Hahaha……..”flow of the game,” etc. Duke by 9 if Roy is foolish enough to play the whole game man to man.
I think we heard your prediction the first three times, Chris, but in case anyone missed it, Chris thinks that our defense needs improvement and cannot handle Duke man to man and further believes that Roy is a fool if he plays only man to man tonight and further predicts that Duke will win by 9 (nine) points should Roy be so foolish as to play man-to-man the whole way.
And Billy doesn’t like the fact that I made the comment and don’t defer to him on this increasingly irritating site as the Master and Commander. Lighten up Bill, and find another life beside sitting at home with your NCAA stat book and impressing us all.
Chris – from now on I’m going to just skip any posts with your name on them.
You can’t blame Chris for wanting to beat Duke! He just has the best premise on how to do it.
Not to be a hater, but I wonder if Chris noticed that we DID play man-to-man defense the entire game… and still managed to win by 8.
Oh, and somehow we managed to shut the dookies out for the last 5+ minutes of the game. While (beating a dead horse here) playing man-to-man defense.
Let go ahead and lay off Chris at this point if you don’t mind. No need to keep beating up a fellow Heels fan when there are much bigger issues to discuss and look forward too.