By Christina Teller
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
TEMPE, Ariz. “”mdash; Two is defendable, but three’s a
crowd.
That was the lesson the Arizona State Sun Devils learned going
up against the Bruins’ potent perimeter game on Thursday
night. With Matt Barnes, Jason Kapono and Billy Knight notching 19,
20 and 21 points respectively, the UCLA men’s basketball team
proved to be a handful for the opposing defense.
“What’s great about our team is when the other team
keys in on someone, someone else breaks loose,” Bruin head
coach Steve Lavin said.
Kapono emerged from his scoring slump, partly due to the fact
that Cedric Bozeman was running the show. Also, since the defense
had to honor both Barnes and Knight, Kapono got some open looks
that he may not have seen otherwise.
“I was just coming off screens, looking to score
more,” Kapono said. “My shot felt good tonight. Even
though I missed a few tonight, I felt like I was in a pretty good
rhythm.”
The Bruins have been able to win without Kapono being as big an
offensive contributor, thanks to the recently relentless offense of
Barnes.
“Matt Barnes is a tough match-up,” Arizona State
center Chad Prewitt said. “We knew that the perimeter is
where they would kill us. We knew we had to get to shooters, and we
didn’t do that.”
Time and time again, the Bruins prove that balance is key. Not
only does the one-two-three punch of Barnes, Kapono and Knight
present a challenge for the defenders on the perimeter, once the
defense commits to the outside shooters, players like Dan Gadzuric
can put up 14 points on the board from inside the paint.
“Being the point guard on this team this time of the year,
you don’t to worry about scoring. You just have to distribute
the ball,” Bozeman said. “The more one of them scores,
the more the defense will sag on him. That leaves gaps for
me.”
Barnes continues to prove that his career-high 34 points against
USC was no fluke. Putting up the first seven points for the Bruins,
Barnes continued to sink three-pointers as well as closer-range
shots, bringing his scoring tally for the last three games to
80.
“Matt is playing with the swagger you see in a baseball
player when he’s hitting .400 over a stretch,” Lavin
said. “He’s had as impressive a stretch as I’ve
seen.”
And the Bruins are playing well-rounded games. To complement his
19 points, Barnes finished with a team-high nine rebounds. Knight
too has broadened his game. He’s still making the threes, but
on several occasions against ASU, it was Knight who was in perfect
position under the basket to snag the rebound. In fact, Knight led
the Bruins in rebounding at the end of the first half, with
five.
It’s this kind of balance that allows the Burins to play
an overall sloppy game against ASU and still come out with the win.
And it’s this kind of balance that will continue to be key
throughout the season.