Death of the Mid-Range and Jazz Win Again

True mid-range specialists like DeRozan are getting harder to find. (Melissa Majchrzak via nba.com/spurs)

The Utah Jazz enjoyed a historic shooting night on Tuesday night, converting 20 threes in their home game against the San Antonio Spurs. They join an elite club, as only 17 NBA teams have hit 20 or more threes in a game, and it has only been done 44 times total.

20 3PM by a team has only been done 44 times in NBA history. 41 of those games come after 2010. GS has done it 7 times. Houston has done it more than any other team at 12. Surprisingly, Utah has only been on the receiving end of a 20 3PM game once. Nov '17 vs Houston

— tyler (@tjcranman) December 5, 2018

This is the storyline people will remember in what was otherwise a noncompetitive game due to San Antonio’s lackluster effort. But there are a few other things important to #takenote of from Utah’s third home win of the year. 

Kyle Korver in space

On the season, the Utah Jazz now have the second highest frequency of wide open 3 point attempts, trailing only the Milwaukee Bucks. This makes sense, as Quin Snyder comes from the coaching tree of current Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer, then running the show in Atlanta. They have their similarities. In the three games since Kyle Korver has joined the team, the Jazz have made 54.5 percent of their wide open threes, compared to 37 percent on the season. That 54.5 percent figure is second in the league over the last three games, compared to Utah’s ranking at 17th on the season. If you remove the last 4 games, the Jazz were at 34 percent on wide open threes, good for bottom 10. 

Of course, Kyle didn’t change this all on his own. But having him on the squad has seemingly given Jazz players a renewed confidence in their distance shooting with unlikely players like Jae Crowder and Royce O’Neale lighting it up from downtown since Korver joined the team. Not to mention Korver’s 53 percent shooting from 3-point land since donning a Jazz uniform. Eight Jazz men are shooting over 40 percent from three over the past three games. And in stats you didn’t expect, Joe Ingles isn’t one of them: he’s ninth on the team over that span, at 37%.

Three is greater than two

It’s sort of fitting and ironic that the Jazz put up a franchise record 20 3-point makes against  Gregg Popovich and the Spurs. If you haven’t seen Pop’s tirade about the 3-point shot from earlier this week (you probably did), the veteran coach said, “I hate it, but I always have. Even as he’s adjusted to the rapid expansion of the shot’s importance, he still says, “I’ve hated the three for 20 years.”

Pop has  done his best not to adjust to the way the game has gone, and to his credit he still mostly wins. The Spurs have two of the most touted “mid-range players” in the game today in LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan and a glaring lack of three point shooting. In fact, against the Jazz, the Spurs took over 50 mid-range shots!

Jazz 139 Spurs 105 – Final Score
Jazz offensive rating 135
Jazz defensive rating 102
7 players in double figures
20 three pointers is a new franchise record did on 33 attempts
The Spurs took 52 mid-range shots.

— David Locke (@Lockedonsports) December 5, 2018

Pop is too smart to ignore the impact of the three, and he does understand that it’s how the game is changing, but at this point we may see him retire before embracing it fully.  

The craziest part about the mid-range shooting is that this has typically been the Jazz kryptonite. Prior to the game, there was valid concern LMA lighting up Rudy from the mid-range, and DeRozan has typically been a Jazz killer due to his ability to strike in the Jazz no-man’s land betwixt the paint and the three line, shots Utah’s defense often concedes. The concern is fair since the last contest between the two resulted in a win for San Antonio and Aldridge putting up his best stat line in the Spurs era. 

As the league continues to focus on the three, it’s becoming more and more a game of math and stats. And as Snyder is a man of process, not outcomes, the Jazz math has been good all season, despite poor shooting to start the year. The system is working in terms of producing open, high-quality looks from “smart” shooting areas. With Korver on the team, the process will also ostensibly yield better outcomes. 

Still, it’s too early to say, “The Jazz are back, baby!” But they have won three of their last four and have  seemingly turned a corner. Houston should provide a real test on Thursday night. The Rockets haven’t exactly been hot this season, but like the Jazz, they’ve been better in recent games. It could be an interesting battle between two teams looking to reinvigorate their shooting.