Game One Overreactions and Observations

What did we learn about the Jazz after the first 48 minutes of action? (Francisco Kjolseth, The Salt Lake Tribune)

The Jazz kicked off the 2023-24 NBA season in the L column, losing in front of their home crowd to the Sacramento Kings, 114-130. Shooting guard Jordan Clarkson led the squad in scoring, netting 24 points and dishing out six assists in 31 minutes of action. To help digest the official action, here are three overreactions and observations. 

Pretty Bad Team Defense

The Kings are a good basketball team, coming off their first NBA playoff appearance since 2006. They can also score a lot, as the squad won the second-highest scoring game in league history a year ago, a 176-175 double-overtime victory over the Los Angeles Clippers. That said, last night the Jazz made them look good, good. 

The Kings shot 46% from the field, putting up 102 shots to the Jazz’s 91. That disparity was even more prevalent in the first half when the game truly got out of hand. They were throwing up threes left and right, going 19-of-51. While the 37% isn’t anything too spectacular, the volume was incredible. What was killer was that many were catch-and-shoots, or relatively open looks, that the Jazz couldn’t close on, run off the line, or put a hand up to make the shooter more uncomfortable. After the game, coach Will Hardy said, “That’s a moment where the math is against you. I think in general we really struggled in transition to get matched and to contain the ball.”

Clarkson put it more simply: “Defensively, we didn’t make it tough on them tonight.” 

Harrison Barnes played an amazing first half of basketball, going 10-for-11 for 27 points in the first 24 minutes alone. He finished with 33 and it didn’t matter who was on him. According to stats on NBA.com, he scored eight when matched with Clarkson, five against Kelly Olynk, and five against Walker Kessler. Perhaps a bright spot to think about: John Collins eventually spent the most time on Barnes, around 44% of his minutes, where he held him to only a triple in the limited minutes paired together. 

Speaking of Defense: Walker Kessler

Kessler didn’t make too much of an impact in game one, held to eight points and eight rebounds in 22 minutes with a -14 overall and a net rating of -26. With Domantas Sabonis doing what he does best — banging in the paint, getting offensive rebounds, kicking out to shooters — the Kings scored 17 points in just over two minutes of game time when Kess was his key defender.

Speaking to this, the Kings said it was a focus in film and that they executed the mismatch. “We saw it a lot last year,” said Kings forward Keegan Murray, who made four 3s and finished with 15 points. “We were able to go through that film and find different things that worked, and we just put those to work today, and we were able to see a lot of shots go in.”

Sabonis is a tough matchup across the entire NBA, but you’d hope that Kessler could’ve done better when faced with a small-ball threat. Looking closer, the stats show that the Kings went 3-for-4 from deep with Kessler as the primary defender on an outside shooter. The Kings also went 10-for-17 (58%) everywhere else on the court when Kessler was the closest defender. 

Guards and Minutes Distribution

As has been thoroughly dissected, the Jazz have plenty of good guards and not enough minutes. I was interested to see the distribution once the game was over. Clarkson played 31 minutes, while Talen Horton-Tucker started, but played only 22. Collin Sexton came off the bench and played 20 minutes and Keyonte George and Ochai Agbaji each played 19 minutes. Kris Dunn was in for 16 minutes. 

To me, Clarkson was the night’s best player for the home team. From the guard perspective regarding the term impact,  I thought Agbaji played well, or at least looked engaged and energized. I was surprised George got as long of a run as he did, but he did well in his minutes, even with rookie mistakes. Sexton’s burst right when he checked in for the first time was exciting, as I felt he was demonstrating exactly what he’ll do in his role, yet he faded quickly. Dunn was almost non-existent.

I wonder, in this small sample size and game one overreaction, if certain players would level up and perform better the more minutes they get. I think you’ve got to have nights where a guy gets in for 10 minutes, or none, while a combo of others are in the 36 range. Agbaji might be that guy who gets better as the game goes on or someone who will make whatever lineups around him better. I think a reason THT had success to end the season last year was because he got big minutes. It just seemed like we had too many mouths to feed at the opening table. 

The Jazz also tried out the 3-guard, and even the 4-guard, lineups. Basketball Reference pointed out that Agbaji primarily played small forward for most of his minutes (around 79% and then 21% at power forward) and George played some small forward as well (22%), even JC had a turn (3%). 

One lineup that has the projections to be successful is pairing all-star Lauri Markkanen with THT as the power forward and then Agbaji, Clarkson, and George as the small guards across the top. Basketball Reference calculated that combo to be a +80 in net rating based on the three-minute sample size Wednesday night provided.  The idea sounds fun: both THT and Agbaji are strong and versatile to, on paper, be able to body around with the bigs and switch as needed. This lineup is also dependent on Markkanen playing out of his favorite position and being the center. As far as weird goes, the lineup is weird, and funky enough to be fun when and if the Jazz need to go small.