Film Study: How U of L defended UK's Malik Monk

Kentucky wing Malik Monk is one of the best scorers in college basketball, and all the different reasons why were on full display in his 47-point outburst against North Carolina over this past weekend.

Which is exactly why Louisville basketball's defensive strategy coming into Wednesday night's rivalry game centered around Monk, who averaged 21.9 points per game through UK's first 11 contests and had made 42.2 percent of his 3-pointers.

The Cards, coach Rick Pitino said, "shadowed him." The goal, he said, was denying Monk the ball and making things difficult for him. In reviewing a replay of Louisville's 73-70 win, in which Monk made 6-of-17 from the field for 16 hard-earned points and turned the ball over three times, it's clear to see how U of L's efforts paid off in at least slowing down UK's leading scorer.

Here's how the Cards did it:

► Challenging shots: The most obvious way for Louisville, or any defense, to bother a scorer as talented as Monk is to aggressively pursue challenged shots. In Wednesday's game, 15 of the 17 shots Monk took were jumpers, which makes sense: In addition to his impressive 3-point shooting clip, Monk has made 50.9 percent of his 2-point jump shots this season, an even more impressive number. But against Louisville, Monk was 2-for-2 on layups and 4-of-15 on jumpers.

By my count, 11 of Monk's 15 jump shots were contested. Of those, he still made a few, including a big one: The jaw-dropping 25-foot 3-pointer with 12 seconds left that knocked the wind out of the KFC Yum! Center crowd and made it a 71-70 game. It was Monk's first made 3-pointer of the game; he missed the initial seven he attempted and his last one, with three seconds left, fell short.

Monk's first shot of the game indicated how Louisville served as a harbinger of things to come. The Cards started in man-to-man and Deng Adel, the 6-foot-7 U of L sophomore whose primary assignment was guarding Monk, followed him through the opening 10 seconds of the possession. Monk ran through a screen set at the right elbow by Wenyen Gabriel and got Louisville's Jaylen Johnson in a defensive switch off the pick. But Monk came back across the floor to get a hand-off from Bam Adebayo as he ran around him, and Adel switched back on him, coming over the screen to cut off Monk's driving angle. Monk squared up to Adel, dribbled a handful of times and tried a contested 22-footer, which missed.

A win for Louisville's defense.

► Terror in transition: The next few possessions for Kentucky, though, showed why the Wildcats have one of the top offenses in the nation - and why Monk is in line to benefit from the transition speed that John Calipari's team has. Louisville scored at the 18:03 mark. Three passes and six seconds later, Monk was trying a dunk at the other hand. He drew a foul from U of L's Mangok Mathiang and went to the line, where he made two free throws.

About 30 seconds later, U of L scored again, this time at the 17:33 mark. An inbounds pass and an advance pass later, Monk's layup went through the basket at 17:28. 

Think about that: That's two buckets that took a total of 11 seconds and five passes to transpire. That is the kind of firepower and precision that Kentucky has when it is playing at its best, and it's why the Wildcats are such a feared offensive team. But Monk would be hard-pressed to find easy points like that the rest of the game.

► Mixing and matching: To combat Kentucky's length in the backcourt, Louisville used a different look with the 2-3 matchup zone that has become a hallmark of Pitino's teams over the years. Instead of two guards up top and three forwards across the bottom, U of L used Adel and 6-3 guard Donovan Mitchell, whose long arms and quickness make him one of the best defenders in the country. Quentin Snider, who is typically out front in Louisville's zone, played down on one wing. Tony Hicks, Snider's backup, did the same thing when he was in for a short period.

What Louisville also did, as we mentioned earlier, was switch off screens in its man defense. Kentucky ran Monk off screens throughout the game. They staggered screens for him. They used hand-offs as pseudo screens. But Louisville's quick switches allowed the Cards to recover as Monk caught the ball, and the length and athleticism of Louisville's big men allowed them to feel (relatively) comfortable with a power forward on Monk.

Johnson contested Monk's first 3-point try of the second half at the 19:34 mark, a shot he missed. Anas Mahmoud contested a long 2-point jump shot at the 11:40 mark.

► Sticking with him: The last part of Louisville's strategy vs. Monk was something both Adel and Mitchell executed to perfection in the second half, and it wasn't exactly rocket science. They simply stuck with him.

Adel's best play against Monk came at the 10-minute mark of the second half, when the game was tied at 53. Adebayo caught the ball at the high post, just off the left elbow, and Monk ran around him to try to get some separation from Adel. That didn't work, but Monk kept going, running off a screen set by Derek Willis on the right elbow and then crossing through the lane to post up at the left block.

When Adebayo's entry pass got to Monk, Adel had recovered, and he was right in Monk's pocket when he tried to spin to the basket. Monk was whistled for an offensive foul for hooking Adel with his off-arm.

About eight minutes later, with U of L up six, Monk jab-stepped as if he was about to pop out to the left wing before running the baseline to come off a screen set by Adebayo on the right block. He was trying to shake Mitchell, who was trailing him the whole way. Mitchell used his quickness to come over the top of Adebayo's screen and arrived in front of Monk just as he received the ball. Monk caught it, faced up and fired, with Mitchell's outstretched arm right there to contest it. The shot missed.

► Parting thought: Monk, right now, is the fifth pick in DraftExpress.com's latest mock 2017 NBA draft. He has good length and athleticism, and he is a dynamic scorer who can put the ball on the floor and create off the dribble or get hot as a shooter. Even in games when he struggles, like Wednesday's contest, Monk still can put up solid numbers. His 16 points were the second-most for Kentucky.

But Louisville's team effort, led by Adel and Mitchell, to at least bother Monk as much as possible led to 11 contested shots, 11 missed jumpers and his second-worst offensive rating in a game this season, according to Ken Pomeroy's analytics site. And that defensive effort was key to Louisville snapping its four-game losing streak against Kentucky.