Jazz Blitz Houston Without Gobert Thanks to Derrick, Defense and Dishing

Favors was all smiles after putting up a season-high 24 in a win. (Game still, TNT)

A lot about TNT’s Thursday nightcap was unexpected, to say the least.

The Jazz hosted the Houston Rockets on national television, and the rematch between the second-round playoff foes from last spring hardly followed the script. The night was full of surprises, from the earliest foul call in NBA history, to a quick ejection, to the home team improbably taking a 37-point lead, and everything in between. Unexpected or not, Utah cashed in on the Rockets’ off night amid all the craziness, winning 118-91.

That Utah beat the Rockets isn’t by itself breaking news. That they so thoroughly dominated for 48 minutes, though, is, especially given the circumstances. Neither Rudy Gobert nor Donovan Mitchell played anything those to their usual roles, for very different reasons. The Jazz had a relative off-shooting night, making just eight of 32 from 3-point land (25%) a game after burning the nets against San Antonio. The newly acquired Kyle Korver was scoreless, and Jae Crowder had an off shooting night.

Those factors don’t usually add up to a win. On Thursday, they added up to a beatdown. Why? Derrick Favors. Defense. Passing and pace.

A nanosecond before the game even technically began¹, Gobert was called for his first foul as he and Clint Capela jostled for position on the tip. That undoubtedly frustrated the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, who has recently voiced his displeasure with the way he and the Jazz are officiated. So when he got a second call against him just 2:47 later, the center was bound to opine somehow. His medium of choice for expressing his frustration was a karate chop on a bottle of talc powder, and that earned him an early ejection from veteran ref Courtney Kirkland.

That was enough of a hurdle to begin with for the Jazz, but then Utah also had to weather an off night by their leading scorer. Mitchell tallied just six points on 3-for-9 shooting.

Utah’s best defensive player was there to defend. Utah’s best offensive player wasn’t scoring. So how did they lead by 37 and win by 27? 

So. Much. Favors.

Favors didn’t even start on Thursday; head coach Quin Snyder opted to put Crowder in the opening unit instead based on matchups with a Houston team that doesn’t really have a true starting four at the moment. But Gobert’s early exit obviously meant that Favors was bound to be an important factor for Utah. And he was.

From stats.nba.com

The first thing that will stand out on the box score is Favors’ scoring. With Rudy in the back angry pedaling on the stationary bike, Favors got a lot of those pick-and-roll finishes usually designated for #27. That meant he got to operate more comfortably as the lone diving big and not worry — for this game, at least — about being the pressure release valve with pick-and-pop free throw line jumpers or the corner catch-and-shoot. He scored 24 on 10-for-13 shooting, and spent essentially the entire night in paint. (See his shot chart to the right.)

But Favors’ massive contribution in Gobert’s absence wasn’t just about buckets. He was splendid defensively, and in a weird way, having Favors out there for 26 minutes was better for Utah than if he had only gotten spot duty along the way. Some of Favors specific defensive strengths are tailor made to combat the ways Houston can pick apart a defense.

We’ll talk more in a minute about how stout Utah’s defense was overall. They anticipated passes, guards fought through screens, bigs contained well. It was a really solid defensive performance. But James Harden and Chris Paul are both really smart, and they know how to read the coverage and force uncomfortable switches when big men are simply trying to hedge. Because Favors is an above-average big in terms of guarding ball handlers out in space, Houston didn’t get to leverage those emergency switches to their advantage. Here, both Harden and CP3 miss over really solid 1-on-1 perimeter defense from Fav.

Favors really saved Utah’s bacon on Thursday. He scored in spades, and his defensive abilities allowed him to defuse some of what makes Houston’s main guys dangerous².

Impressive Defense

But it wasn’t just Favors. Zooming out to the team as a whole, this might have been their most complete defensive effort of the season. Excluding garbage minutes, Houston scored at a rate of just 78.6 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass — literally in the worst 1% offensive outputs by any team in any game this season. They also had an NBA season-worst performance in converting at the rim: 36.8 percent there, and again, that’s without the Stifle Tower for 45-plus minutes.

Utah’s whole defensive approach was exactly on point, and individual defenders were alert and prepared. It was one of those games where it was easy to tell that they were defending the scouting report, because they were always anticipating the next pass.

This was true all over the court — Utah had 16 steals, their most in exactly five years — but was especially true on how intent they were on pressuring the pass to the roll man. Favors did a great job on this first play of containing Harden but still deflecting the lob pass, then you’ll see both Donovan Mitchell and Dante Exum get crushed on screens but get back in the play in time stop stop the roller.

This kind of effort and hustle by both Favors and the guards allowed Utah to largely guard the pick-and-roll with two guys, so no other Rockets really got to feast off of being the open man left by a helper. Ricky Rubio was also terrific in this situations. 

Joe Ingles was superb on both ends. His early shot-making was the first sign that Utah might be headed for a big win, but he played excellent defense, including on plays where he guarded the two future Hall-of-Famers.

Watch him here as he recognizes a tricky play by Houston. The Rockets tried to disguise a “stagger DHO” for Paul, but Ingles recognizes it and immediately changes his positioning. He locks CP3 away from the screen, and Houston is left with Capela having to create off the dribble — not their best offensive option.

And finally, just because we talk so much about Spain P&R³ in my Salt City Seven columns, watch Ingles and his teammates recognize and render it completely ineffective.

This is such incredibly smart defense. The Jazz recognize the Spain P&R, and instantly Favors switches onto PJ Tucker, Crowder picks up the ball, and Ingles takes responsibility for the trailing Capela. That completely removes the immediate threat, and then once Capela goes to the lane, Ingles hands him back off to Favors and gets back to PJ in the corner. So Houston got absolutely zero advantage from running this Spain P&R, other than they got Crowder switched onto Paul, but the latter misses a floater.

This is just brilliant defensive planning, and great in-the-moment recognition by all three guys.

Passing and Pace

I made the comment after Jazz-Spurs that I thought the 38 assists in that game were a better sign than the record 20 threes. Shots won’t always drop like that, but the passing was an indication that Utah was remembering how to get the most out of the offense by playing collectively.

That continued against Houston. Some of it flowed right out of the great defense — Houston’s 23 turnovers led to 33 Jazz points, because they were aggressively attacking.

Snyder likes to talk about how “pace” to him doesn’t just mean running with the ball, but also making quick decisions in the halfcourt offense. The Jazz did that on Thursday. Guys didn’t sit on the basketball — it zipped around, and in particular they were able to use passes to turn Houston’s jumpy perimeter pressure against them.

It’s fitting that both of these plays involved Rubio. His line might not jump off the box score, but he was really important in setting a tone for Utah to play with pace and aggressiveness on offense.

Other random notes

• Exum definitely needed a game like this. He had a team-best plus-24⁴, helping Utah extend its lead during the bench minutes, thanks largely to his 15 points, five assists and excellent defense. Guys directly guarded by Exum should 2-for-13, per NBA.com, and that doesn’t even account for heady help D. He was assertive on offense, again showing that he can get to the lane almost at will these days. Early on, he used those paint forays to set up teammates, and then started finishing himself. A very complete game for the Aussie.
• Kyle Korver’s off night went beyond his goose-egg on the offensive end. He made mistakes on back-to-back defensive plays that both led to threes. In transition defense, he was unsure whom to pick up and as a result didn’t box anybody out, which led to a second-chance triple. Then on the next play he got turned around as a help guy and his man nailed another. Snyder checked him out right after those two plays. I still insist he’s a really solid team defender, but obviously he needs to clean up moments like those to get the minutes the Jazz would like him to play.
• Royce O’Neale had primary responsibility for Harden on several stretches, and he too did great on the MVP. It looks O’Neale might be getting back to form as an elite perimeter defender.
• As much credit as Favors deserves for stepping into Gobert’s role, Ekpe Udoh then slid up into the backup center minutes and performed admirably. Nine points and seven boards in 19 minutes, and he allowed the defense to stick to what it was doing. 

With the win, Utah got back to .500 and took an early 2-0 in a season series that could be important come playoff seeding time.