Salt City Seven: Best in the NBA, Play-In Preferences, Season Wrap & More

Utah’s reward for all of the accomplishments above is most likely going to be a 7-game series with the best shooter in NBA history — or possibly even against the reigning champs with their all-time top three superstud.

The NBA’s experimental play-in tournament means that we still don’t know exactly whom the Jazz will host in Salt Lake City next Sunday. But we can guess which opponents they’d prefer. 

Here’s a reverse rank order of teams the Jazz would probably prefer as their first-round foe, with a little bit of detail on each. Spoiler alert: the order is unsurprisingly the inverse of standings order.

4. Lakers

• Jazz record vs. LAL this year: 2-1 (although that’s a bit deceiving: zero games where both teams were healthy)
• Will be the Jazz’s first round opponent if: They lose at home to GSW on Wednesday and then beat the winner of Mem/SAS on Friday.
• Record: 42-30
• Offense/Defense²: 23rd/2nd
• Context: As a result of injuries and roster changes, LAL’s preferred starting lineup has played just three games together

The Jazz were a single Clipper crunchtime bucket away from a perfect bracket, with all of the Suns, Clippers and Lakers on the other side of the West playoffs. But after the Clippers appeared to tank their way back to fourth, the Jazz are one Laker loss away from potentially having their path through the West take them through each of those three juggernauts. 

That said, if LAL can’t win a home game against the Warriors on Wednesday, it could be one more sign that they’re not quite right yet. That’s no slight to the Warriors, whom we’ll discuss next, but if the Lakers are anywhere near their peak they are clearly a tier above Golden State. LeBron James looked plenty springy in this weekend’s games, but he’s still a 36-year-old coming off a long-term injury. He has already stated he doesn’t expect to be back at 100% this postseason, but if he an Anthony Davis (dealing with his own calf/Achilles issues) are anywhere in the vicinity of 80-90% of their usual levels, the Lakers are the underseed nobody wants to face.

3. Warriors

• Jazz record vs. GSW this year: 1-2 
• Will be the Jazz’s first round opponent if: They lose at LAL on Wednesday and then beat the winner of Mem/SAS on Friday.
• Record: 39-33
• Offense/Defense: 21st/5th
• Context: Injuries have (at least temporarily) removed a couple of net-negative performers from their rotation.

Here’s a stat that should be slightly scary to whomever faces Golden State in round 1: Steph Curry’s net rating in all lineup combos that included James Wiseman was -8.3, and with Steph and Kelly Oubre Jr. they were -1.8. But all Warrior lineups with Curry and no Wiseman or Oubre are an absurd +15.8. That’s noteworthy because Wiseman is done for the year with a knee injury, and Oubre is currently shelved due to a small wrist fracture. Injuries have helped Steve Kerr clean up his rotation and unleash the best of his former MVP.

But back to what we said in the Lakers section, GSW is quite simply a tier below. Curry and Draymond Green have been amazing over the last month as Golden State closed on a 15-5 tear from April 10 forward. But trusting the larger sample, this is still a slighty-above-.500 team with two great players and not a whole hell of a lot else. Curry is great enough to pose some real game planning challenges to Utah, but unless he goes supernova four times, the Jazz would be favorites in a 7-game series.

2. Grizzlies

• Jazz record vs. Mem this year: 3-0 
• Will be the Jazz’s first round opponent if: They beat SAS at home on Wednesday and then upset the loser of LAL/GSW on the road.
• Record: 38-34
• Offense/Defense: 16th/7th
• Context: Young star Jaren Jackson Jr. missed most of the season, and the Grizz have been bringing him off the bench since his late return to the lineup.

All three of the Jazz wins came before the Grizzlies reincorporated Jackson into their lineup, and he certainly adds some stuff that makes them harder to deal with. For starters, he’s a stretchy big on a team that is starved for 3-point shooting: Memphis ranked fourth worst in frequency of 3-point shots, and bottom-10 in accuracy from deep.

Memphis is fun and does some things well: they contest well at the rim while also limiting opponent corner threes. Ja Morant is an electric talent who can give the Jazz problems with his speed and acrobatic finishing. But Morant’s lack of shooting is one of a few offensive warts that make the Grizzlies more schemable in a series. The Jazz would likely be pretty grateful if Memphis knocked the loser of the GSW-LAL game out of their path.

1. Spurs

• Jazz record vs. SAS this year: 3-0 
• Will be the Jazz’s first round opponent if: They come up with consecutive road upsets, first at Memphis on Wednesday and then against the loser of LAL/GSW on Friday.
• Record: 33-39
• Offense/Defense: 18th/13th
• Context: The Spurs made a midseason decision to move on from LaMarcus Aldridge and reorganize their core around DeMar DeRozan and their young talents.

The exact reasons why the Jazz would prefer the Spurs out of anybody else in the play-in field are the same reasons why it’s unlikely the Spurs emerge from the morass to grab eighth.

The LMA departure did make them better: for example, they were -9.0 with DeRozan and LMA on the floor together, but all DeRozan lineups without the veteran big man are pretty close to even (-1.0) on the season. They just don’t have a lot of weaponry, beyond DeRozan;s borderline All-Star year (22, 4 and 7, rounded). They’re dead last in threes made, and one of their only passable 3-point options (Derrick White) is done for the year. They’d have to catch some incredible luck to go 2-0 in the play-in and claim the #8 spot.

Stats that tell the story of the Jazz’s week.

Instead of focusing on just the last seven nights, let’s use this space to look at some numbers that summarize this memorable Jazz season.

+11.2

The Jazz finished the year with the league’s best net rating: +9.0, or +11.2 if you filter out garbage time and heaves. They finished 4th and 3rd in raw offensive and defensive ratings, respectively, making them the only team to finish in the top five in both. In CTG’s adjusted ratings, they were 3rd and 1st, again the only team in the top five at both ends of the court.

+10

There are a dozen 5-man lineups in the entire NBA that have played at least 200 minutes together with a Net Rating of +10 or greater… and four of them belong to the Jazz. Two of the 12 are lineups no longer available due to injury (a Denver lineup with Jamal Murray) or trade (a Portland quintet with Gary Trent Jr.). Another is a Laker lineup with Marc Gasol, whom they have replaced in their rotation with Andre Drummond. So four of the nine currently operational lineups meeting those criteria are Jazz groups. (The others: Dallas’ preferred starting five is +12.6, the Blazers main 5-man group is +13.4, Philly’s favorite lineup is +14.0, and the Clippers have two groups built around Paul George and Kawhi Leonard that are +16.7 and +18.8.)

+728

We’ve never seen Gobert this dominant before, as evidenced by his league-leading +728 while on the court this season. On average, that’s +10.3, meaning the Jazz effectively started Gobert’s 71 games having been spotted a double-digit lead just because they have Gobert on their team. A lot of that comes down to his historic defensive season, detailed in Ben Dowsett’s great piece from this week. But this plus-minus stat points to a broader evoluation. Gobert is legitimately a game-defining threat on both ends of the court now. His impact on the offense is a big part of the reason Utah just had a record-shattering year from downtown, because you can’t stop him on the roll without bringing in more bodies.

29p/5r/6a per 36

Even optimistic estimates of Mitchell’s fourth-year growth had him making modest gains as a scorer and all-around contributor. Instead, he posted career highs in scoring, rebounding and assists, both on a raw and per-minute basis. He also improved his efficiency to .569 true shooting, comfortably the best in his career. As our Zarin Ficklin has written before, Mitchell is definitely right on pace — or even ahead of schedule — when compared to the elite guards of the NBA.

10

More than anything else, what defines the offensive style of this historic Jazz team is their commitment to creating great looks from downtown. They leverage the roll gravity of an elite diving big and a roster full of perimeter players who can shoot, pass and handle to toy with defenses until a good shot appears, usually somewhere on the outside. So it’s no surprise that they’ve established themselves as historically unique with a variety of 3-point records. They just finished with the highest 3pt/gm average in league history, as well as becoming the first team to finish an entire season with 10+ threes in every game.

42-4

The Jazz were an unstoppable 42-4 (.913) in games where they led or were tied at the half.

In their own words

“I talked to him earlier in the year about being a utility infielder — but first I had to explain to him what baseball was.”

-Quin Snyder on Joe Ingles, via the Tribune’s Andy Larsen

Clarkson’s great season-defining quote after the Jazz locked up the top seed is probably a more a propos way to wrap up a year of Salt City Sevens and take us into the playoffs. But Quin’s line about his versatile and important playmaking wing was both laugh-out-loud funny and also touches on a theme that has been really important to Utah’s survival amid a rash of late-season injuries.

The Jazz were mostly healthy for 50-odd games before a few late injuries completely changed their rotation, especially at guard. Before it was all said and done, Mitchell and Conley would miss a combined 40 player-games, and BOTH were out for nine. But somehow the Jazz still held onto the best record in the league without two All-Star level offensive creators. Take the two best facilitators off just about any team in the association for an eighth of a season and see if they can still win 72% of their games.

Joe Ingles isn’t the only reason for that — Gobert had his most dominant season ever, Bojan Bogdanovic got hot at the right time, and Clarkson and Georges Niang helped manufacture points. But without Ingles, there’s just no way the Jazz survive 21 straight games with at least one ball handling guard injured.

Recognizing the best (or most memorable) performances from each Jazz win.

Jazz 109, Thunder 93: Rudy Gobert. Bogdanovic did most of the early scoring that turned this one into a wire-to-wire buttkicking, and Conley looked solid in his first half basketball game in nearly three weeks. But this was one of many that just came down to Gobert being dominant: 16 points, 18 rebounds, 5-for-13 (38.5%) Thunder shooting with Gobert contesting. Blowouts make this exercise hard because numbers get skewed, but if you look at how the tone was set early, it has a lot to do with Gobert — and frankly Royce O’Neale, who continues to get far too little credit for his impact on the Jazz beyond the box score.

Jazz 121, Kings 99: Mike Conley. Tell me I’m overthinking this if you want, because usually on a night when a guy has 33 (on 20 shots, no less), there’s not a whole lot else to say. But Conley probably had more to do with impacting the game’s outcome than Clarkson, and also his seamless reintegration is a much bigger story in the broader sense. Look, Clarkson was great. Also, 19 of his 33 came after the Jazz had gone up by 25. He and Conley were both integral in turning a bad start around: after Sacramento took an early lead of a dozen, the Jazz went on a 34-9 run. Clarkson scored 11 of those 34 points and assisted another two. Conley scored six and assisted 14. Both were huge. After that, Clarkson poured more fuel on an already raging fire, but Conley’s 11 points, 6 boards, 9 assists and 3 steals in just 22 minutes were probably more decisive, as was his +28 (second only to Gobert’s +36).

Strong in Defeat:

• Jazz 116, Warriors 119: Jordan Clarkson. This is complicated, because Clarkson was both the primary reason Utah was down big in the first place and the primary reason they were able to come back. He struggled mightily on both ends through three quarters, then was sensational for most of the fourth quarter. He scored 24 (!!) in the period and led the Jazz’s 29-9 run as they erased an 18-point lead in six minutes! Then, as one tweeter put it, he “pushed his luck” with three late misses and a couple of defensive mistakes. But I’m just not sure how we could give anybody else the “Strong in Defeat” award on a night when JC scored 24 freaking points in just over nine freaking minutes. Bogey (27 points) and Gobert (10 & 15) were both solid throughout the night, and Clarkson was a minus-17. But that game was absolutely the epitome of the wild, fun, unpredictable Jordan Clarkson experience.
• Jazz 98, Blazers 105: Rudy Gobert. The Jazz played even with the Blazers in Gobert’s 34 minutes and then came apart (-7) in the other 14. Gobert had 15 points on eight shots, 20 rebounds, and held Portland’s shooters to 5-for-17 when he was the closest defender. The only other serious candidate here was Clarkson, who was far more efficient in this one on his way to 29.

So where does that leave the final Game Ball standings??

52 (!!) game balls, all lined up.

Feels about right, no? Mitchell and Gobert as essentially co-MVPs, followed closely by Conley. Bogdanovic saved Utah’s bacon over the past month, and Clarkson and Ingles were both perfect sixth men in their own way. This probably underrepresents O’Neale’s (and maybe even Ingles’) contributions, but overall we chose well all 52 times, Jazz Nation.

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of Jazz action.

The next thing on the Jazz’s agenda is to watch some television. Their next opponent will be someone who appears in a pair of ESPN games on Wednesday and Friday. But they do have one order of business to attend to in these next seven days: a playoff game against the winner of Friday evening’s matchup.

Sunday 5/23, Jazz vs., well…. SOMEBODY: We’ll have more to say once we know the matchup. For now, the biggest issues for Utah will be getting Mitchell back healthy and preserving some rhythm for everybody else. Whoever they face on Sunday will be coming off two playoff-style basketball games while the Jazz had six consecutive days off, so I’m sure we’ll be parsing the rest-over-rhythm debate depending on how Game 1 unfolds.

Random stuff from the Jazz community.

The only thing that would make this celebratory pic on the team charter more perfect is if the injured Mitchell were on board:

Team vibes: immaculate 💚

Coming home, SLC.#TakeNote pic.twitter.com/evJgx1eROp

— utahjazz (@utahjazz) May 17, 2021

Let me get mushy to end the season: I legitimately love putting these together for SCH readers every week. They’re a lot of work, and every year as the season approaches, I think, “There’s no way I can possibly do that every week all season again, right?” And then I do it anyway. Partially because you all make it so fun to interact. I hope you enjoy these weekly check-ins/wrap-ups, our own little historical record of (most of ) what mattered in Jazzland for each 7-day period. Thanks for following along!

The SC7 is a regular-season convention, but obviously we’re not done covering this historic Jazz season. Whatever happens from here, be sure that we’ll be writing and talking about it at Salt City Hoops. Our team has a lot of cool stuff in the hopper, stay tuned!