Phoenix Look to Make Late-Season Adjustments

There is something to be said about a team that faces adversity, but makes use of its advantages and eventually overcomes it. For the Phoenix, Stuyvesant’s girls’ basketball team, their two games against Millennium High School, and the 2017-18 season as a whole, are prime examples. In junior Talia Kirshenbaum’s first game back after spending a semester at the Mountain School on January 8, the Phoenix went home with a disappointing 54-48 loss to Graphics Campus weighing on their minds. Though the game, in which Kirschenbaum and fellow junior Ally Archer combined for 31 rebounds, demonstrated tremendous promise for the Phoenix, the contest ultimately served as a microcosm of their struggles leading up to that point.

The Graphics Campus Lady 49ers, who currently hold a record of 12-3, are not a team to be scoffed at. That night, however, the 49ers did not beat the Phoenix; the Phoenix beat themselves. Scoring no three-point baskets and missing 15 free throws over the course of the game, the Phoenix sunk their own offense through poor shooting, something that likely sealed the game’s outcome. To make matters worse, that defeat dropped the Phoenix to 4-5, matching last year’s loss total just midway through the season.

Since then, however, the Phoenix have looked like an entirely different team. After that hiccup on January 8, the team won five of their next six games (albeit one coming via forfeit), and seemed poised for a deep playoff run at 9-6 so long as their fiery pace persisted. Unfortunately for them, however, one of their final two games posed a veritable obstacle in the form of an away game at Millennium High School. 14-2 at the time, Millennium were the cream of the Manhattan A South division crop, with one of their mere two losses coming against Lab Museum United, who have quashed all of their first 16 opponents thus far by double digits.

The Phoenix already faced Millennium once in early December, falling 43-27 in Stuyvesant’s worst offensive showing of the season, during which senior, co-captain, and top scorer Shannon Lau managed just two points.

According to Lau, the main factor of Millennium’s dominance was its defensive scheme. She said, “Against Millennium, it’s all about working against the box and one.” The box and one scheme is a defensive set that combines aspects from both man and zone defenses. Essentially, it involves four defenders assigned to zones inside of and around the three-point arc (the “box”), with the team’s fifth defender tasked with manning up against the opposition’s top offensive player (the titular “one”). This makes it exceedingly easy to nullify any one player on the opposing team by allowing the single man defender to nag her all game long without losing much help in the zones below. Hence, Millennium was readily able to take Lau, the Phoenix’s top backcourt scorer, almost entirely out of the game.

This time, however, Lau was adamant that the team’s new offensive strategy would yield a different result. She said, “We’ve already drawn out plays to counter the defense and used them against other teams. They’ve worked well.”

In the end, this maneuver generally proved to be successful. Although they lost, the Phoenix played a far tougher match against Millennium the second time around, with a final score of 47-37. However, while the first Millennium game suggested that the Phoenix may have needed a shift in game plan, this match may have affirmed a different issue: that the Phoenix will ultimately only go as far as their top scorer goes.

Though Lau’s points-per-game average of 16.75 is four points higher than the second-best (junior Ally Archer’s 12.75), in three of the Phoenix’s first six losses, she was not the team’s highest scorer. This suggests that for opposing teams, battling the Phoenix is much like battling a snake: once the “head” falls, the “body” follows.

In the second Millennium game (a loss on paper, but a quasi-win in that it indicated clear improvement from the start of the season), this top-heaviness shined through. Lau dropped 14 points, tying her for first with Archer, while the next-highest scorer, fellow senior and co-captain Delaney Demark, scored just four points.

Yet, the Phoenix’s top-heavy trend extends far beyond just Lau. While neutralizing Lau would cause the greatest impact on their offense, the Phoenix receive a significantly disproportionate contribution from the top of their lineup as opposed to the bottom. In Stuyvesant’s last three “close” games, games that ended with a scoring margin of under ten points (those being the aforementioned loss to Graphics Campus, a 46-42 loss to Beacon High School, and a 44-40 win against Seward Park Campus), the team has had just five players record a single point in each of those games, meaning that bench production in close games has been almost negligible. This could suggest a lack of depth, which would be costly, especially if the Phoenix were to lose even a single key contributor prior to a tough playoff matchup.

In Lau’s eyes, however, simply judging bench production off of scoring totals is irresponsible and unfair. When asked about any concerns about the Phoenix being especially top-heavy, Lau said, “This isn’t a problem as other players are still involved [in] […] setting up plays and moving the ball.” Furthermore, while some players may not register eye-popping numbers on a consistent basis, they still have the ability to make major contributions on the court from time to time. One such player is sophomore Eve Wening, whom Lau raved about. She said, “Eve has been really outstanding, taking almost any role in the game. Beyond that, she brings an irreplaceable spirit.”

Demark attested to this, saying, “I was really impressed with the way Eve stepped up this year, especially since she is only a sophomore.”

In the words of Demark, “Since the beginning of the season, the team has really improved as a whole.” Considering the way the Phoenix battled back from a disappointing, tumultuous start to their season, these words resonate with sincerity and describe a truly commendable full-scale effort to improve.

However, to get over the hump and become a legitimate contender come playoff time, the Phoenix cannot afford to hibernate on their laurels quite yet. Ultimately, as the Phoenix head into this season’s waning light, there are multiple improvements to be made that may determine their fate. First, the Phoenix must continue to ride the coattails of the dynamic junior duo, Archer and Kirshenbaum, and make the most of the extra possessions that they provide through their dominance on the boards.

The Phoenix must also be able to fend off defensive schemes like the box and one, which isolate their top scorers. Finally, and more than anything, the Phoenix must have a contingency beyond their stars. If they continue to receive substantial contributions from Wening and sophomore Selene Kaehny, the latter of whom has come on strong of late against teams like Seward Park Campus’s, they could potentially be in for a hefty playoff run. The Phoenix’s first-round matchup is against the Port Richmond Raiders. With a record of just 7-7, Port Richmond seems like a weaker opponent.

This would be a relief, as one thing the Phoenix certainly have not struggled with is fending off feebler teams, having recently dispatched School of the Future 74-17. However, there are cases in which records can be deceiving, and this is one of those cases. The Raiders are an excellent shooting team, having made 72 total three-pointers this season with just one player shooting under 50 percent from the free throw line. To make matters worse, the match is a woefully distant road game, way off in Staten Island. On paper, chances may seem bleak, but with the right adjustments, the Phoenix could emerge with a win.