Cal Men's Basketball Film Room: The Anatomy of 7 Points

Jalen Celestine's 3 straight scoring possessions, and the agony of Maxime Raynaud

Photo Courtesy Cal Athletics via youtube

The story of Cal’s win over Stanford last Friday was Jalen Celestine’s and Grant Newell’s superlative play in the second half. In the moment, I did not realize just how dominant Celestine’s scoring streak was, and how much Grant Newell contributed at key moments. Being in person at Haas was exhilarating. My analytic synapses were being overridden by the emotions and excitement of the moment. I’ve watched the game again, and want to briefly highlight the key stretch of the second half.

At 16:46 left in the game, Stanford had pushed their lead to ten after a Spencer Jones 3-pointer, 48-38. There is a sense of anxiety, and the half has not gotten off to a good start for the Bears. Cal goes on an 8-2 run, highlighted by the first of Keonte Kennedy’s breakaway steal and slam dunk. 50-46 lead for the Cardinal.

Coach Haase calls a timeout to calm his team down. It doesn’t help. Cal scores 4 straight points to tie the game up at 50-50** at 12:43 left in the game. The crowd is alive. It’s anyone’s game.

Stanford answers. Andrej Stojakovic makes 2 layups, and Jared Bynum hits a Curry-esque 3-pointer. Cal is held scoreless. Stanford is back up by 7. Keonte Kennedy makes 1 of 2 free throws, and it’s Stanford 57-51 at the 10-minute mark.

The crowd is once again nervous. In this game of streaks, will Cal respond? Jaylon Tyson collects the ball in the backcourt, and hobbles as he brings the ball down court. An official’s timeout is called for the injured Tyson. An already nervous crowd gets a little bit quieter.

Here is the charting for the next 2:25 of playing time. It speaks for itself.

The crowd is raucous. The team is pumped. Coach Madsen almost takes off the sport coat.

From that point, it was a back-and-forth affair with teams exchanging 2-4 point leads. Jalen Celestine made three free throws in the last minute, and Cal won 73-71.

Let’s look at the three scoring plays and highlight a few interesting aspects of this 2-minute stretch.

The Designed Play

Here’s the first basket in Celestine’s streak.

This is a called play after the injury timeout. It’s not a true ATO where the coaching staff diagrams a play on the whiteboard during an extended timeout. But Madsen was definitely yelling instructions to the team after seeing the defenders on the floor. The double screen for Celestine is designed to free him up. Ideally, he’d have more room after the Larson screen and could just turn the corner and drive the lane. But Raynaud plays it soft off of Larson. Michael Jones, Celestine’s defender, does a good job of working through the screens. Celestine does turn the corner, but realizes he is cut off.

My favorite part is Celestine backing out beyond the three-point line, then immediately going downhill towards the basket. He quickly sizes up that the nearest defenders are not in a position to help. He has at least 2 inches of height on Jones. He attacks. It’s a good decision, which led to a good outcome.

….If it Ain’t Broken…..

On Cal’s next possession, Celestine is in pure attack mode.

Brandon Angel is now his defender, a more even height matchup. Celestine does not hesitate. The spacing is good - Raynaud has a chance at help defense but kind of matadors it. Jalen drives towards the rim, initiates contact at end, makes the layup and draws a foul to complete the 3-point play.

Here is the play from the baseline.

Celestine initiates contact, and displaces the defender. It occurs right on the line of the protected zone, so Celestine has charge protection in that spot. The whistle is blown.

Foul on Maxime Raynaud, #42 on the right of the play.

I was convinced this was a blocking call on Angel. The telecast never mentioned who the foul was on. I had to go to the official gamebook to see who it was charged to. The official definitely points to Raynaud, though there was never contact by the Frenchman.

On Stanford’s next trip down the floor, Raynaud gets the ball at the top.

Raynaud gets called for the offensive foul for the push-off on Gus Larson. Raynaud definitely initiated contact, but I’m not sure this rises to the level of a foul call. Larson’s thinner frame makes this look worse than it actually was. He is displaced but still has decent relative positioning. If you’re calling this, then you need to call Celestine on the play before. In both cases, I think a no-call was more in order.

….Don’t Fix It.

Here is Celestine’s third field goal in this stretch. Look familiar?

Celestine gets a screen and receives the ball at the exact same spot. Gus Larson’s screen was effective, so it's only Raynaud between Celestine and the basket. Raynaud plays decent defense. He is never wholly beaten by Celestine. Celestine just finds the correct angle at the basket to make the shot over/around Raynaud's extended arms.

Casey Jacobsen on the TV broadcast: ”Same play for Celestine.”

So, 3 plays - all drives from the top of the key by Celestine against a single defender. Spacing is good on all 3. Cal’s other players are positioned away from the lane. Gus is there to help on the boards, and everyone else is ready for a pass or to transition back on defense. Celestine is lightning quick on the first step. On the last one, Raynaud does everything right, but Celestine makes the superior play.

On the TV broadcast, Jacobsen continued by mentioning Madsen’s NBA history, and how NBA teams will run the same play over-and-over until the defense stops it. This is exactly what happened here. It kept Cal in the game.

The agony of the French

Here is Raynaud’s 4th foul of the game, at the 5:32 mark of the game.

Raynaud played this fine. This could have (should have) been a charge call on Aimaq. Aimaq missed the free throw, and Stanford regains possession.

I point out these three dubious foul calls on Raynaud not to say that Stanford deserved to win. I am pointing these out to say that maybe, just maybe, the luck factor is swinging back Cal’s way. Cal has moved up from the 350’s to #333 in kenpom’s luck rankings (tied with UCLA). Each team has 60 to 80 plays in a game. Individual plays or moments need to be weighed in the context of all other plays throughout the game. These three plays did not decide the outcome.

However, Raynaud’s last play of the game definitely could have changed the outcome.

With 10 seconds left, Michael Jones’ pass to Raynaud is slightly high but still in a good position. There is nothing ambiguous about this call. Raynaud drags his left foot and is called for the travel.

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On Grant Newell

I’m working on a longer piece on Grant. Basically, I think I had unfair expectations coming into this year. Last year, he averaged 8 points and 4 rebounds a game on his way to Honorable Mention All-Conference Freshman honors. At times, he was tasked with ‘making a play’ in Fox’s unimaginative offensive philosophy. This year, he is averaging 6 points and 4 rebounds, on slightly better shooting. He has transitioned from a starter to being first player off the bench. While his stats don’t jump out, he uses his size to influence the defensive end, and his shooting range forces defenses to follow him wherever he goes.

+/- is a player stat that shows how much your team outscores your opponent when the player is on the floor. While not a perfect measure, it shows relative value on how much the player contributes to the overall success. For the Stanford game, Grant was +14 (team high), and against WSU he was +10 (team high). Against Stanford, Newell scored 12 points and collected 10 rebounds, his first double-double of the year. He was involved in many of the defensive stops down the stretch. In Coach Madsen’s postgame comments, Madsen praised Newell, “…he did it with skill, he did it with energy, and he did it with heart. When we were struggling to get a spark, it was Grant Newell.”

For a good example of little things, rewatch Celestine’s first clip above. Newell cuts to the basket and is in a great position to either receive a simple pass to finish or to gather a rebound.

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In the postgame press conference, Celestine and Newell were asked about the Cal-Stanford rivalry. Jalen responded, “Yeah, man. We’re Golden Bears. They’re Stanford. We don’t like them. They don’t really like us so much. It’s a nice, friendly but respectful rivalry.”

It feels really good to beat your rivals.

** - During the game, Cone’s shot was scored as a three, briefly giving Cal the 51-50 lead. The play was reviewed during the 12-minute TV timeout, and changed to a 2-point basket. When play resumed, the scoreboard showed 50-50.