During your UCLA Bruins’ 59-47 victory over the Arizona State Sun Devils to wrap up their final Pac-12 regular season, the club enjoyed a remarkable second half turnaround, keyed by the one element of their game that has remained (relatively) consistenr for them all year: their stalwart defense.
To wit, the club limited ASU to scoring just five points in the final nine minutes of regulation play.
UCLA swingman Lazar Stefanovic, who’s emerged as one of the few two-way bright spots among Mick Cronin’s crop of eight fresh faces this season, reflected on the big defensive effort postgame, per UCLA Communications.
“It’s the reason why we won the game because they couldn’t score,” junior transfer wing Lazar Stefanovic noted “Dylan [Andrews] mentioned it before, but our main focus was on defense. When they shoot, make sure you box out and get a rebound, and don’t let them have multiple chances to score. That was the key, it was what carried us throughout the year, and the last five games, the defense wasn’t played as well, and that was a big focus in practice yesterday; how we were going to defend them, what we need to do better. We came out, and when it was the most important, we did the job.”
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