Experimental Jazz Unleash Gobert, Seek Versatility (Film Study)

Gobert’s ability to guard in space has opened up more options for Utah to experiment (Darren Abate/AP via sltrib.com)

One interesting bit of context around the Utah Jazz’s performance so far is the noticeable effort to operate with a bit more defensive versatility.

They are 15-7, with the league’s top offense by a mile and the second best overall net rating. Their garbage time-adjusted differential of +11.6 per 100 possessions is even better than last year’s figure. But their defense appears to have taken a step backward in an overall sense: to eight place outside of garbage time, 10th best overall.

Here’s why Jazz fans shouldn’t worry: the Jazz are clearly experimenting outside of their core defensive schemes. They’re trying to expand their defensive comfort zone to be less scheme-dependent in the playoffs. That search for versatility has a short-term cost, but could make them that much more formidable and matchup-proof when it counts.

Unleashing the Stifle Tower

Ever since Rudy Gobert ascended to the starting role in the 2014-15 season, Utah has had a core defensive identity, primarily an inside-out, drop-big system built around their dominant anchor big.

The question now is whether their comfort level in that core defensive philosophy has kept them from perfecting other styles they may need in their quest for a title. Recent playoff shortcomings have raised a series of valid questions about their versatility at that end of the court: can the Jazz succeed in other schemes so that they’re better prepared to stifle opponents with diverse strengths?

It largely comes down to a question of how they are able to deploy Gobert, a defensive force whose game has grown beyond the point of simply being the game’s premier paint denier. As the 3-time Defensve Player of the Year has developed his game and expanded his impact, the Jazz are more comfortable trusting him to guard switches, isos, and just generally excel as a defender in space.

A lot of his D on switches looks like that: he’s able to stay relatively close outside, because even if you beat him he’s one long stride away from getting back in your driving path. And again, Joe is able to sit on the passing lane because he knows that’s the effing 3xDPOY. 2/x pic.twitter.com/XCSCXB9S9H

— dan c. (@danclayt0n) October 27, 2021

Numbers and film keep proving the point: Gobert is more than capable as a 1-on-1 defender all over the court now. He’s Utah’s best defender on isolations this season, and that’s just based on imperfect play type tracking that only looks at outcomes and therefore doesn’t capture the myriad U-turns or pass-outs that Gobert’s enveloping defense tends to inspire. 

But for him to be unleashed in those ways, four other guys have to develop a different set of muscle memories. The Jazz have defended one way for so long that they have struggled at times when the game plan has called for them to toggle to something else. For example, Gobert can certainly hold his own in space, but different things are required of his teammates if he’s not playing the role of safety net in the lane. That was an issue for the Jazz in the postseason, and it continues to be an issue anytime a matchup pulls the French center away from the lane — including Friday night against Boston.

For the Jazz to be successful while Gobert is guarding away from the paint, other players simply have to be able to offer more resistence than that. But those are lessons they’d rather learn now than in May or June.

Film Study: Gobert “at the level” in Jazz-Blazers

Every now and then, the Jazz try something outside of their core scheme and it works great. Hive brain kicks in, helpers appear where they need to, and the Jazz look ready for every counter. This week’s Jazz-Blazers matchup was that kind of game.

It was actually pretty fun to watch the chess match as Portland tried to adjust and the Jazz just obliterated every counter.

Portland has two dynamic star guards and a rangy, skilled big in Jusuf Nurkic. All that makes it hard to guard Blazer pick-and-rolls with your heels in the paint, so the Jazz brought a different game plan that night: they had Gobert “hedge at the level of the pick,” meaning he made his presence felt much higher than he normally does. And again, if the big fella is going to step out that far to thwart Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, the helpers behind him are going to have to do very different things than they do on a typical night with Gobert in drop-big defense.

They were ready. Donovan Mitchell is able to slide in front of Nurkic to buy Gobert time to recover after stepping all the way out past the arc to slow Lillard. Bojan Bogdanovic cuts off the passing angle to Mitchell’s man in the corner, and then zone covers the weakside until Mitchell gets back. This is a lot closer to how most teams guard the P&R, but perhaps Portland didn’t expect this defense from the Jazz.

Same thing here. This time Portland tries a little “ram” action first: McCollum pre-screens Gobert as Nurkic goes up to set the main P&R action, with the hopes of making it a little harder for Gobert to be in position to defend the play in scheme. But Gobert is hardly bothered by the ram screen at all, and Joe Ingles slides in as the help man while Rudy is hedging out toward Lillard.

(Notice how the Jazz aren’t exclusively bringing the help guy from the strong or weak side — instead, the helper was coming from whichever side had the extra man. So when the Blazers drew up a play to try to make it a more awkward help for the weak corner defender, it didn’t always work.)

Portland’s next counter — we’re going chronologically here — was to fake some off-ball stuff with Lillard, but then have McCollum attack off a screen in the other direction, hoping this would get Gobert off balance. And it sort of worked — Gobert isn’t in position to hedge high on this screen, so he does wind up switching onto McCollum. But oh yeah, the Blazers forgot that the big dude is also excellent at bottling up guards on switches. And when Bogdanovic’s guy gets free on a cut, Gobert recognizes it.

You can tell from Gobert’s little air punch there that he knows he just made a hell of a defensive play — first in space and then against a guy on the move.

Next we’ll see the Blazers try to disguise the Lillard-Nurkic P&R with some “fluff.” But ultimately Lillard gets it on a dribble handoff toward the outside. Rudy still shows at the level, which is a difficult hedge for many big men to make on sideline P&R. In this case, Ingles fights back in front of Lillard quickly, all while 6-foot-8 Rudy Gay fills the paint to discourage Nurkic’s roll. Gobert is able to recover to Nurkic quickly, and then Anfernee Simons panics when the play dead ends.

What’s left for Portland to try? They can have other guys screen for Lillard or McCollum, but unfortunately for them, Gobert is also great at “shadow defending” away from the ball. Watch here as he mirrors Lillard’s position the whole way in, but doesn’t commit until he absolutely has to — and gets a block for his trouble.

Now Portland tries a pindown-to-stagger design, in the hopes that someone will miss an assignment because of the layered actions and double screens. Nobody does. Gobert shows high, Bogey stays between Nurkic and the basket, and Ingles is able to get back in front of Lillard so that Gobert can safely retreat to that paint.

The end of that play also shows a nice little tactic the Jazz have been using lately when an opponent “Nash dribbles” down the baseline and out the other side. They have Gobert pick up the ball, but NOT follow the handler out to the other side. This buys the defender — in this case Ingles — a half second so he can take a shortcut across the lane and meet Lillard when he emerges on the right side. Now Ingles is glued to Dame and the shot clock is almost gone, so it becomes a tougher shot. (Mike Conley is also alert when McCollum tries to cut at a 45-degree angle. Like I said, some nights it just all clicks and everybody does their job.)

On this next one, Portland will flip the pick toward the outside, theoretically making it harder for Gobert to get to the hedge spot in time. But he does anyway, and then he’s almost instantly back in the paint so he can bail Ingles out on McCollum’s cut.

(Gay needs to box out better there, but hey, sometimes a guy bails you out by missing.)

This next one might be my favorite. By now Portland knows what’s going on and they’re trying different designs to make it harder for Gobert to hedge. So instead of having Nurkic roll at all, they just have him fake the screen and then flow right into a pick for Simons going the other direction.

Doesn’t faze Gobert. In the span of about 11 seconds, he hedges out on Lillard on the left side… then gets clear over to hedge high on Simons on the right side… then gets back to Nurk… then sinks into the paint to protect on the McCollum drive… then reads the pass and cuts off Larry Nance Jr… then get back to Nurk again for the boxout. He’s just all over.

And then the night effectively ends with this one, where the Blazers again successfully get Gobert switched onto McCollum. But he fails to shake the ace defender in isolation and instead misses over the impossibly long Gobert’s perfect rim contest.

After that miss, the Blazers made their garbage time sub and conceded the contest.

What a dominant defensive performance for Gobert, just constantly blowing up actions and rendering counters useless even as he operated far from his typical milieu. But it was also a great night for the rest of the Jazz defenders whose timely helps and good off-ball reads allowed Gobert to comfortably do what was needed to stop Lillard and McCollum from enjoying any kind of advantage out of the pick-and-roll. Those two finished the night 11-for-29 (38%) and the Jazz won going away.

Expanding the toolkit

As the Jazz continue to expand their repertoire, not every night will be this impressive. The top-5 offense of the Blazers just couldn’t get anything going because of how omnipresent Gobert was and how well his teammates attended to all aspects of the game plan to allow that aggressiveness.

It’s a start. For Utah to enter the postseason feeling especially matchup-proof, they’ll have to have nights like that in a lot of schemes. So far this season, we’ve seen them spends portions of games in a variety of schemes: more switching, some matchup zone type configurations, selective blitzing, pre-emptive traps and more. The more confidence they build guarding different ways now, they’ll have something they can dust off if they need to for a particular playoff series — or even a single game, quarter or possession.

Last year’s Milwaukee Bucks did something similar. After being defensively dominant in 2019-20 and coming up short in the postseason, they spent last year experimenting and giving themselves reps with different defensive styles, especially switching and zoning far more than they had previously. When the playoffs arrived, they knew they could operate comfortably in those stylesn as needed, and still had their proficiency in core schemes to fall back on.

Milwaukee swept the Heat in the first round precisely by going back to what made them impenetrable the year before. If the Jazz need to, they can always revert back to their core identity as a drop-big defense that pressures the 3-point line and sends drivers into the waiting 7-foot-9 wingspan of the French Rejection. That’s what they’re elite at and they always have that option.

But there’s value in learning together to do some different things. And if they can get some things right that make them a more complete team in the postseason, that’s worth the experimentation now, even if it costs them a few spots in the defensive rankings.