Our coach tried to create a mismatch at C that sees the C take most of the shots. And a possible mismatch at SF if the PF-type SF finds himself up against a guard, although that couldn't be relied upon.
It didn't quite work because of one or a combination of:
- our team-wide flow wasn't good enough to overcome the opposing teams OD, resulting in Sharpling taking late in the clock 3s. Entirely possible given who our SFs were.
- their C had high OD and there wasn't enough of a mismatch between Gascoigne and Anderson's JS and the opposing team C's OD rating, so Gascoigne didn't take enough shots. You do get Cs like that at NT level but not always.
- Sharpling actually had a clear JS/OD advantage over the opposing team's SG (entirely possible for Sharpling, even at NT level), and thus the GE decided he would shoot the ball when he had a reasonable shot open - instead of passing it to the intended mismatch (he went 8-18 from inside the arc and got to the FT line plenty, so that's ok).
Our D was good enough to keep their score down, but 83 points isn't good enough to win you NT games.
Basically, we shouldn't run that tactic with Sharpling in one of the guard positions unless we know their C doesn't have much OD to speak of, and even then it's risky given the handling/passing we're putting out at SF and PF.