Afflalo, teammates struggle to produce

PALO ALTO “”mdash; As the first half progressed, it seemed as though Arron Afflalo would easily eclipse his point totals from his past two games.

Nearly every time he put up a shot, it seemed as though the ball would find its way through the net. In fact, with 4:30 left to go before halftime, Afflalo had 17 points while

Stanford was stuck on 19.

Though Afflalo had gotten the feel for his shot, he couldn’t seem to find it for the remainder of the game.

“I just missed a few easy shots that I usually make,” Afflalo said of his second-half performance.

“Every shot you make helps you get into a rhythm. I missed a few free throws and I just couldn’t get back into that rhythm.”

After having shot 6-for-7 from the field in the first half including 2-for-3 from beyond the 3-point arc, the Bruin junior went on to shoot 2-for-11 in the second half and hit just one of his six 3-point attempts.

“I missed some shots that I normally make,” Afflalo said. “We didn’t capitalize on some easy opportunities we had today.”

It wasn’t just the Bruins’ starting shooting guard that struggled to put up points in the second half, but his teammates as well.

UCLA shot just 35.3 percent from the field after 51.7 percent in the first half.

Adding to the Bruins’ offensive woes were second-half turnovers.

In the first half, UCLA turned the ball over just once, but that number tripled and the Bruins couldn’t capitalize on several of their possessions.

“Some of it might just be us not executing well,” coach Ben Howland said. “We’re going to have to go back and work on that so we don’t have more impatient possessions.”

After holding Cal’s Ayinde Ubaka to a scoreless night on Thursday, Afflalo seemed to have a slightly tougher time against Stanford’s Anthony Goods.

Goods scored 20 points and was able to penetrate the key and draw enough fouls to get him to the charity stripe 10 times.

However, Afflalo did not let what Goods did affect him in other aspects of the game, as he led the Bruins not only in points, but rebounds and assists as well. With 22 total

points by the end of the game, Afflalo completed his third straight 20-point performance and his 19th consecutive game with double-digit point totals this season ““ the

longest current streak in the Pac-10.

ANOTHER LESSON TO LEARN: After proving that they can come out and play well in the first half, the Bruins will be looking to make a different type of adjustment in games such as Sunday’s.

UCLA led by as many as 17 points in the second half, but were on the wrong end of a 15-0 Cardinal run that brought Maples Pavilion back to life.

“We just have to be more mature about the way we close teams out,” Afflalo said. “We have to have a killer instinct.”

BALL THIEVES: Josh Shipp was able to get in the way of Stanford’s guards enough to force several turnovers and record a career-high six steals. It wasn’t just Shipp who was

able to get under the Cardinal guards’ skin, but sophomore Darren Collison as well, who contributed with five steals.

TIMEOUT SITUATION: Howland used his last timeout with 6:44 remaining in the game, leaving the Bruins with no way to stop any further Cardinal runs. The UCLA coach said he felt as though the timeouts he called were used well and he doesn’t regret hidecision to attempt to stop Stanford runs.