Salt City Seven: What If Moments, Spotting Up to Attack & More

February 27th, 2019 | by Dan Clayton

Paul George steals one back from the Jazz in Oklahoma City. (Zach Beeker via okcthunder.com)

The Salt City Seven drops every week throughout the regular season — usually on Monday, but this week we’re dropping close to Jazz-Clips tipoff. This recurring column has seven regular features meant to relive the week in Jazzland from various angles. Check in every week for the quotes, stats, plays and performances that tell the stories from the last 168 hours in the world of the Jazz.

An important quote from Jazz players or personnel during the week.

“We had the game… Tonight we’re going to think about all the little plays we could have done… Those kind of things, those (are the) kind of details that hurt. .”

-Utah’s Rudy Gobert to the Salt Lake Tribune’s Eric Walden after his team lost a double-OT thrilller in Oklahoma City

Without a doubt, the biggest moment the Utah Jazz have experienced since the All-Star break was Friday’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. And as Gobert indicated above, that contest included a dozen examples of how a game can turn in a nano-second.

Gobert is right, Utah had the victory within their grasp. At various points in the closing minutes of regulation and in both overtimes, the Jazz’s had better than a three-in-four chance at taking home a victory, per Inpredictable.com. In fact, after Joe Ingles hit a three with 2:25 left in the fourth quarter to put the Jazz up seven, Utah had a 94 percent chance at winning. Ninety. Four.

So how did they squander a victory they had a 94 percent chance of securing? Mistakes. By just about everybody involved.

In any 1-point, double-overtime loss, there are bound to be numerous “if only” moments. Gobert chose to focus on two plays at the end of regulation where he fouled in the penalty with the Jazz leading: “If I’m just a little smarter, I think we win the game,” he told Walden. Others zeroed in on crucially ill-timed turnovers by Ricky Rubio that opened the door after that Ingles three. A few complained about Donovan Mitchell’s 3-for-16 finish from the field, or his painful unforced turnover where he simply dribbled it out of bounds while sizing up a switch.

Here are the unfortuitous twists and turns just from the final 2:25 of regulation, after Utah took a 7-point lead.

  • Rubio committed the fifth of his season-worst eight turnovers after losing his footing on a penetration. Russell Westbrook recovered it and passed it ahead for an immediate transition dunk.
  • Derrick Favors brought the ball up himself, then tried to pitch back to Rubio to start the offense, but threw it way behind him and out of bounds.
  • After Mitchell and Gobert collided and prevented each other from securing a defensive rebound, it’s Thunder ball down three. Then Mitchell’s bad closeout leaves Paul George open on the perimeter and he ties it.
  • The first of the fouls Gobert mentioned, challenging a Westbrook drive and sending him to the line to tie again1, matching a Mitchell layup from the play before.
  • Westbrook gets by Mitchell, dishes to Jerami Grant. Gobert fouls him to set up a 3-point play. This again ties the game after Rubio had restored the win probability to 87 percent with his go-ahead three.
  • The Jazz don’t immediately call for a timeout, which is fine in principle. That’s a philosophical choice by coach Quin Snyder, one that’s based on data that tells him it’s actually harder to scorer out of a timeout in that situation. So OK. But there was a point when Mitchell was blanketed by George at midcourt and it felt like the possession was in peril. He could have called time there. Instead, Mitchell drove straight into a helping block by Grant.

Flip any one of those outcomes — literally, pick any one! — and the Jazz likely win in regulation. Instead, that perfect storm of ill-timed missteps sent Utah to two extra periods.

But here’s the things about all of those moments: they were all errors of commission. For the most part, the mistakes that led to Utah’s unraveling were the kind that are hard for a coach to criticize: a player trying hard to do the things that usually help the team win.

For example, Utah can’t be really good unless Gobert is being borderline pathological about protecting the rim and challenging every shot. It ended badly on those two plays, but that doesn’t mean Gobert was doing the wrong thing. Likewise, the best version of Rubio is one who is facilitating good ball movement (just being more careful about it), and the Jazz certainly need Mitchell to keep being aggressive. 

Utah again had the inside lane in both overtimes and then gave it away with errors. Two Gobert dunks and two defensive stops brought Utah’s win probability back to 76%, but then a combination of more turnovers, missed box-outs and difficult misses allowed OKC to stay close. Tied with seven seconds left, Utah again opts against taking the timeout, and Mitchell’s pull-up 22-footer rimmed off.

Again, change just about anything from the last three minutes of OT in Utah’s favor and they win. In the second extra frame, Rubio’s consecutive TOs early in the period didn’t lead to Thunder points, but they cost Utah opportunities to score. Then there was a missed Gobert free throw, and another questionable decision to forego the timeout. Utah got the ball back up one with :36 to play, and didn’t take it. Again, there are different schools of thought here, and Snyder’s comes from an analytical viewpoint. Once again, they generated a favorable switch for Mitchell, and he simply missed the layup. But when he secured his own rebound with 2.9 seconds left on the shot clock, why did nobody think to call a timeout there? Instead, a rushed Ingles three rimmed off and set up George’s go-ahead floater.

That attack by George — also without a timeout — was masterful. In a way, it shows why Utah is willing to live with the outcomes of putting the ball in Mitchell’s hands to close, even knowing that there will be nights when he misses 13 of his last 16. Because on the other side of those developmental moments is a player who knows exactly how and where to attack — like George. Mitchell is still reading and reacting to defenses, because that’s where he should be. On that final play, George know exactly what to expect from the defense and he countered it before it happened. He preacted, if you will. He know Ingles and Rubio would trap. So he juked Ingles off his spot, and then shot the gap before the two could seal the trap, getting by them and earning the right to go one on one against Gobert’s help defense. It was a phenomenal individual play by a guy who has been in that situation enough to calmly see what was going to happen (even without the benefit of the timeout) and counteract it.

So Mitchell should keep attacking. Gobert should also keep pressuring drivers and Rubio should keep trying to creatively spur the offense with his passing. While any of those behaviors may occasionally lead to mistakes, those players can’t be what the Jazz need them to be (or to become) unless they keep that mindset and just work on getting a little bit smarter about how they deliver those skills.

 

Stats that tell the story of the week or highlight a timely topic.

147

Despite everything mentioned above, Utah still managed to score the most points in a game since 1982. And yet it wasn’t a particularly good offensive performance for Utah. The extra 10 minutes and the inflated pace made this look like a better offensive production than it was. Utah scored 91.5 points per 100 halfcourt possessions (per Cleaning the Glass), a below average output.

17%

Also per CTG, that’s the percentage of Dallas’ possessions on Saturday night where the Mavs attempted a shot at the rim, literally in the lowest 1 percent of all games by all teams this season. The also made just 40 percent of those rim attempts, which is in the bottom 2 percent of all team performances. That is a really impressive defensive performance by the Jazz, especially on a back-to-back following Friday’s double-OT marathon. Although if we’re honest, it also reflects a talent issue on Dallas’ end. They traded away several starters and high-level rotation players, and then star rookie Luka Doncic missed this game. There just weren’t enough guys left who could put pressure on Utah’s stellar D. 

18

The Jazz just finished a stretch where they played three games in 18 days. Starting Wednesday, they’ll play 17 games in the next 31 nights — a bit of a change in schedule pace. Fortunately for them, the opponent quality is about to drop sharply… after this week, that is.

 

Breaking down the Xs and Os behind a Jazz score from the week.

Spot-Up-and-Go

For the Jazz offense to work the way Snyder wants, they rely a lot on floor-spacing shooters to keep defenses honest. The problem is, some of those shooters haven’t been shooting well. So let’s look at a particular way the Jazz are ensuring that those spot-up threats can still be threats.

Favors is still hovering around 22 percent from three this season, and that includes just 16 percent of his corner attempts. Oftentimes teams send the corner defender to help on pick-and-rolls, which means it would be ideal if Favors could punish that scheme by dropping some shots. So here’s what he has been doing instead.

Favors was excellent last week, particularly with his 10-for-11 shooting against the Thunder. And these types of plays where he caught and then attacked the empty space down the baseline are a big part of why.

Jae Crowder has been doing something similar, except not in the corner. Often when a defender shifts across the top, you’ll see Crowder reposition himself so that when he catches the pass, he can rip right down a seam in the defense and get to the paint for a layup of a dish.

Tangential note: a couple of these are examples of bad defense from George, who is frequently touted as a DPOY contender. George is really great on that end, but there were some weird moments on Friday where he sort of stopped defending. Like, where was he on Ingles’ big late three? He doesn’t even defend this screening action at all, leaving Abdel Nader to lunge toward the Aussie sniper.

At any rate, this is a smart wrinkle by some of Utah’s spot-up threats who haven’t been as, well, threatening lately. Favors, Crowder and Royce O’Neale — who is also struggling from the corners despite great overall 3-point shooting — have all been spotting up to attack with more regularity as an alternative to spotting up to shoot.

 

After each Jazz win, Twitter helps us decide who was that game’s MVP or most memorable performer.

Jazz 125, Mavs 109: Ricky Rubio

Ingles put the Mavs away with a memorable hot streak from three, with four straight triples in the early fourth. Crowder brought some energy off the bench during a stretch when the tired Jazz didn’t have any, and finished with 22. And given the rim protection stats shown above, Gobert merited some consideration after a 15-and-12 performance.

But this one really came down to Rubio and Mitchell, with their twin 8-for-14 nights and good facilitation and decision-making throughout. Mitchell’s line (25-8-6) was slightly meatier than Rubio’s (25-4-5), but Rubio was a game-best +16 in plus-minus, and I like the symbolic gesture of recognizing his floor leadership less than 24 hours after he was blasted by the fan base for late mistakes against OKC. He had zero turnovers in this one, after a season-worst eight the night before. But really, you could give this one to Mitchell, Ingles or Crowder and I couldn’t argue too vehemently.

 

Tracking the wild Western Conference postseason race and the Jazz’s place in it.

Here’s how the playoff race is shaping up. Technically Minnesota caught the Lakers for a 10th-place tie, but we’re keeping the graphic to these nine teams for now.

Heading into 2/27 action

Utah’s loss to OKC makes the ceiling feel a little surer at No. 4. They’re now four in the loss column behind the Thunder, and given that they lost the tiebreaker already, it’s really five. They’re also eight losses behind Denver. So the hoping of catching either of those teams is all but gone.

 

A quick look at the Jazz’s next seven nights of action.

After this week’s three games, the Jazz will have just two games left all season against opponents with a better record than theirs, and both of those will be home games. But first:

Wednesday: L.A. Clippers at Utah, 7:00 p.m. MT 

  • State of the Clippers: The Clippers traded away their leading scorer and best player in Tobias Harris, and they have split their last 12 games.
  • Jazz-Clips: Somehow, the erstwhile rivals have only faced each other once this season, a 20-point Jazz win in January. Utah has two tries to secure the series win: this one and the season finale in L.A.
  • Key for the Jazz: The Harris trade reshaped L.A.’s identity enough that looking at season ranks in various statistical measures is futile; they’re figuring out who they are. Danilo Gallinari is back after another injury-related absence, so he and Lou Williams will be the primary scoring threats Utah will need to account for. 

Thursday: Utah at Denver, 8:30 p.m. MT **TNT Game**

  • State of the Nuggets: Denver has won 12 of 16 and looks legit, but they have the second toughest closing schedule of any team in the Western playoff race.
  • Jazz-Nugs: Utah was on a back-to-back traveling from SLC — as they will be this time as well — when they lost by 15 back in November. Mitchell scored 35 on January 23 to bring the series even at 1-1.
  • Key for the Jazz: Denver is elite offensively, so Utah will have its hands full. However, if they execute well, they should get good lucks — the Nuggets are very average at defending both the rim and the 3-point line.

Saturday: Milwaukee at Utah, 7:00 p.m. MT 

  • State of the Bucks: The Bucks are for real. Giannis Antetokounmpo is locked in a two-way race fro MVP, and his team leads the league with a 46-14 record after winning 17 of their last 19 games.
  • Jazz-Bucks: The Jazz didn’t have Dante Exum or Thabo Sefolosha in their January 7 loss in Milwaukee, and they lost Rubio less than five minutes in.
  • Key for the Jazz: Utah’s shooters are going to have to be on. The Bucks play a unique form of defense built on swarming the paint anytime the ball gets near the rim. They’ll give up outside shots, and the Jazz will need to make them to have any chance. It should also be interesting to see if the Jazz put Gobert on Antetokounmpo like they did in January.

Because after all, we’re here to have fun.

Australian reporter Michael Randall graced the world with these photos this week.

He also gave Dante Exum the same treatment.

That does it for this week. We’ll catch you next week with seven more Jazz items.

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