Bruins Trapped by Zone

UCLA’s offense came to a grinding halt Saturday. Dijon Thompson disappeared and left behind an ethereal memory of the quick and confident player who was so dominant a week ago. Point guard Jordan Farmar was lost on the perimeter, unable to burst toward the basket or start an offensive set.

And finally, after California had scored its fourth consecutive layup and while the Golden Bears were high-fiving one another and having a party on the Pauley Pavilion court, some smart-aleck verbalized what others in the crowd of 11,451 must have been thinking: “This is worse than Lavin!”

The Bruins (10-6 overall, 4-4 in Pacific 10 Conference play) lost their third consecutive game, 64-51 to Cal. The Bears (9-8, 2-5), who had been in last place in the Pac-10, were without their leading scorer, Richard Midgley, and they have competed all season without their best player, sophomore Leon Powe, who had reconstructive knee surgery. Thursday night, USC ran Cal out of the Sports Arena, 86-63.

Yet, until the last 57 seconds, when Arron Afflalo made three meaningless three-point baskets and Lorenzo Mata was given an uncontested dunk, the Bruins had been stuck on 40 points for six minutes. In the first half, UCLA went without a field goal for 9 minutes 3 seconds. The 64 points UCLA scored in its loss to Stanford on Thursday and these 51 are the two lowest offensive outputs this season for the Bruins, who had been averaging more than 82 points in conference games.

“Maybe fatigue is part of it,” freshman forward Josh Shipp said.

But the cause of this offensive ineptness Saturday was the basic 2-3 zone defense Cal used. The players kept their hands up and moved their feet. That was it.

“We’ve never played a whole game of zone in my three years here,” said junior forward David Paris, who had a career-high 20 points on 10-for-11 shooting. “Coach [Ben Braun] told us yesterday we were going to play zone. I guess he knows what he’s doing.”

And the Bruins seemed to have little idea of how to respond.

“We were very inept in attacking the zone,” Coach Ben Howland said. “And we didn’t do a good job defensively either.”

UCLA’s offensive choreography consisted mostly of several passes around the perimeter and a jump shot. Thompson, who started the weekend as the Pac-10’s second-leading scorer and rebounder, had his second consecutive six-point game. Farmar, who averages better than 13 points, had seven against Cal and eight against Stanford.

While Howland said the Bruins practice a zone offense every day, Thompson said Cal’s zone “caught us by surprise. We haven’t practiced attacking it in a game situation for a while. They surprised us.”

Just as they had against Stanford, the Bruins found themselves in a double-digit first-half deficit, then made no significant challenge in the second half. After Shipp tied the score, 10-10, the Bears had a bundle of mini-spurts. They scored eight points in a row for an 18-10 lead, four in a row for a 24-12 lead and had a 7-0 burst to go ahead, 31-16. At halftime, UCLA trailed, 33-18, and there were boos after the last three possessions resulted in a turnover, another turnover and a desperation miss by Shipp.

And just as Stanford had made patience a virtue and pummeled the Bruins inside, Cal kept feeding Paris, a 6-foot-8, 260-pounder who had moved into the starting lineup four games ago. With nothing more than a shoulder or a ball fake, Paris would be free in an instant for a layup or dunk. And Rod Benson, a 6-10 backup, had a career-high 14 rebounds to go with 14 points.

“Our defense against the dribble was not very good,” Howland said.

“We have to stay together as a team,” a despondent Farmar said. Howland said it was all a matter of needing more practice.

But the Bruins, who are off until playing at USC on Saturday, will hear all week how this season is shaping up the same as last season, when they were 9-3 and 5-0 in the Pac-10, then lost 14 of their last 16 games.

“We have the potential and the talent not to lose another game all season,” Thompson said.