Portland hung tight with UK through much of the first half and some of the second half, and a lot of that was propelled by its 3-point shooting. Portland made 11 of 23 threes on the night. Head coach John Calipari didn’t like it much after the game, calling it “pitiful.” And he didn’t like what it would mean in the future, leading to one of my favorite Calipari exaggerations: “Florida will take 35 3s against us. That means they’ll win by 108 points right now if we don’t learn to guard a 3‑point shooter.”

108 points may be a bit much, but his concerns are legitimate. UK got lost on a lot of screens, allowing Portland lots of open threes. And after seeing North Carolina get toppled by a 3-point shooting UNLV team hours after the UK-Portland game, it’s evident that hot shooting can be the key to an upset.

Here’s one play the exemplifies Portland’s screening. UK is up 13-9 with under 11 minutes to play in the first half:

Portland ran a lot of screens to get shooters open. This is one of those plays. Watch the Portland at the top of the screen. That’s Nemanja Mitrovic, who made 6 of 12 three-pointers on the night.

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Portland first runs a screen with No. 11, Tim Douglas, at the top of the key. UK defends it well, going over the screen and staying with him.

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Portland’s guard with the ball drives left, trying to get into the lane. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist stays with him, and Kyle Wiltjer even slides over to provide help defense. But the action is at the baseline, where Mitrovic is running from one side of the court to another, shadowed by Darius Miller.

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Mitrovic gets a nice screen from Portland’s Riley Barker (No. 14) under the basket. Miller hesitates on whether to go left or right to get around it, and he doesn’t call for a switch with Anthony Davis. “You cannot get hung up on screens,” Calipari said. “You have to chase. If your man is setting the screens you’ve got to help a little bit, just a stunt and get back.”

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Miller doesn’t fight through the screen fast enough, allowing Mitrovic plenty of time to reach the arc, catch the pass and set his feet with plenty of space to launch a shot.

“We didn’t play too well on the defensive end, especially on shooters,” Miller said. “We didn’t stay connected on a lot of shooters coming off screens. So we’re going to have to work on that a lot.”

Said Calipari of guarding the threes, “It was pitiful. But we hadn’t worked on it that much.”

UK probably work on it a little bit more in the coming days.

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