Jazz Kryptonite? An Empirical Look at Utah’s Supposed Smallball Struggles

Can the Jazz win against small teams, like Tyler Herro’s Heat (Trent Nelson, The Salt Lake Tribune)

For better or worse, much of the collective wisdom on a given team’s purported Achilles heel is informed by the last thing that happened to them. In the 2020 playoffs, the Jazz were sent home by the league’s best center and then watched the supersized Lakers capture a championship, and it seemed obvious that in order to contend for a title they would have to enhance their ability to compete with size. Utah spent multiple assets to bolster the frontcourt depth, preparing for the seeming inevitability that the road to a championship would be a gauntlet of real-life Goliaths.

Only that didn’t happen. The Lakers inexplicably dismantled their championship roster, health stalled Nikola Jokic’s Nuggets, and a completely different type of team sent the Jazz packing in the subsequent postseason. All that analysis from fans and pundits as to how the Jazz could match up to a team with multiple bigs (or certain kinds of bigs) proved to be too narrowly focused.

And yet here we are again, reacting in cyclical fashion to that more recent playoff ouster as though it’s the only one that spells out a potential critical vulnerability. In short: Jazz fans are now terrified of smallball.

The Clippers deployed multiple different versions of their rotation in last year’s conference semis before realizing that their best shot of neutralizing the Jazz’s elite pick-and-roll stopper, Rudy Gobert, was to put five littles on the court and cease running ball screens at all. On play after play, Clipper ball handlers cracked Utah’s point-of-attack defense wide open and forced Gobert and the Jazz to make tough choices: concede the layup, or leave a shooter open to offer help at the rim.

Of course, those particular four games were wrapped in some very unusual context. Donovan Mitchell couldn’t use his right foot to change directions defensively or achieve his usual zip on offense. Mike Conley Jr. played 26 total minutes in the series. Even the absence of Clipper forwards Kawhi Leonard and Serge Ibaka changed the complexion of the series in a way that might have forced the Clippers’ hand and complicated the X-and-O planning for Utah. The Jazz may never play a single playoff game under that set of conditions again.

That context hasn’t stopped some people from spending the entire season afraid of the smallball bogeyman. Every time a small group punks Utah for a few minutes at a time, it’s treated as proof positive of the Jazz’s fatal flaw, even though — and we’ll get to this — there’s also plenty of evidence of them succeeding against those units.

And hey, this much is fair: with or without a healthy backcourt, Utah is going to have its versatility tested in one way or another this spring. The playoffs are all about teams trying to deny star players the ability to do the thing they’re best at and forcing them to do the stuff they do second best, third best, fourth best. Gobert is a solid perimeter defender, but the Jazz would still prefer to leverage his paint impact. Which is precisely why teams will try to extract him from the restricted area and see if the rest of the Jazz defense holds up without the safety net of Gobert behind them. While smallball isn’t the only way to accomplish that, it remains a tactic teams try as a means of pulling Utah from its preferred defensive architecture.

Rather than let our short memories and anecdotal evidence drive this existential fear, let’s instead step back and take a more empirical approach to answering three important questions: how good are the Jazz when they play small, how good are they when opponents go small, and how much will smallball even be a factor against their most likely playoff adversaries? 

When the Jazz go small

At least part of the motivation behind the Jazz’s acquisitions of Rudy Gay and Eric Paschall last summer was to provide more options to match an opponent’s smaller lineup. So far, to put this in the kindest terms possible, playing either of those two at center has not worked.

Source: Cleaning The Glass

The defense with either of Paschall or Gay as the lone big man has been untenably bad, and the offense has also been sub-average. Part of the allure of 5-out lineups is that they theoretically open up the court offensively, but people forget just how much of Utah’s system is predicated on four shooters orbiting a roll man with gravity. Remove that component and the Jazz have had a hard time figuring out how to score.

One solution supported by the lineup data so far: play Paschall and Gay *together* whenever there is no true center on the court. When those two both play in the non-center minutes, the Jazz can at least score enough to offset their still-terrible defense. That -3.6 net rating, while not fully inspiring, is probably fine in short spurts if the Jazz need a way to tread water during a four or five minute rest period for Gobert.

But this graph suggests that Utah’s best option might just be to stay big, regardless of what the opponent is doing. Both the offense and defense are elite in Gobert’s minutes — no surprise — and they’ve been able to produce winning basketball¹ with Hassan Whiteside and even Udoka Azubuike in the ball game.

Note: the “all other lineups” catch-all includes 34 non-garbage time possessions where hardship signees Norvel Pelle or Zylan Cheatham were at center, plus 26 possessions where the Jazz were truly tiny with someone like Bojan Bogdanovic or Joe Ingles as the nominal 5. It’s not an exaggeration to say those 60 possessions have been disastrous, although weirdly not on defense. Those groups haven’t been able to score.

When opponents go small

The reality is that Utah will do everything possible in a playoff series to keep Gobert on the court. While it might help to have the versatility to play differently in short stretches while Gobert rests, the Jazz won’t likely win on the biggest stage by reducing the role of their All-NBA stalwart. (Contrary to the “Gobert gets playoff off the court” narrative, his minutes climbed from 32 in the regular season to 34 in the playoffs last year, and from 31 to 39 the year before. The Jazz want Gobert on the court A LOT in the postseason, regardless of the opponent’s size makeup.)

So the more telling question here isn’t how the Jazz’s own small lineups look, but how they perform when the opponent goes small.

The answer there is: not as bad as you might think. At least not across the board.

Of the 58 opponent lineups the Jazz have faced for at least 10 minutes this season, 18 could be classified confidently as “smallball” units. These groups are either made up entirely of wings and guards, or in some cases they feature a center, but it’s someone who is 6’9″ or smaller and operates in space — like a Bam Adebayo or Alperen Sengun type. (Giannis Antetokounmpo is tall, but definitely more of a wing in terms of style of play.)

Every smallball unit the Jazz have faced for 10 minutes or more this season (Source: NBA.com)

Contrary to the popular assumption, the Jazz have not universally struggled against those 18 lineups. They’ve actually dominated against specific small versions of the Bucks, Nuggets, Raptors, Rockets, Wolves and Blazers, and even did really well against a typically unstoppable Heat smallball group. But yes, different smallball groups from the Nuggets, Heat and Raptors gave the Jazz problems, as did small units from Detroit, Los Angeles, Memphis and even the lowly Thunder.

Overall, the verdict was far more mixed than the narrative would suggest.

The same is true if we look at lineups involving a shooting big man with traditional center size. These 14 groups aren’t technically “smallball” lineups with the likes of Nikola Jokic, Karl-Anthony  Towns and Joel Embiid in the middle, but the shooting skill of those big men pose some of the same 5-out challenges to Utah’s defense.

And yet…

All opposing lineups centered around a shooting 5, minimum 10 minutes. (Source: NBA.com)

…once again, the results aren’t very definitive. Sure, they fell apart in a 14-minute stretch against Kristaps Porzingis’ Mavs on Christmas, but they still won that game², and on the whole they have played winning basketball against exactly half of those 14 groups. They’ve both won and lost the minutes against lineup versions built around Jokic, Towns, and Domantas Sabonis, and they did well against lineups that included the stretchy and skilled Embiid, Christian Wood and Jonas Valanciunas.

The reality is, you’ll see that same mix of red and green if you analyze the 26 lineups the Jazz have faced (again, for a minimum of 10 minutes) featuring a more traditional big.

Traditional lineups the Jazz have faced for at least 10 minutes (source: NBA.com)

(Kevon Looney and Bismack Biyombo are both 6’9″ or shorter, but I included them here since they play like traditional big men and don’t really operate in space. Even if you reclassified those lineups with the smallball groups above, it wouldn’t change the overall finding here.)

Simply put, regardless of opponent lineup type, the Jazz have had stretches where they have struggled AND stretches where they have dominated. In other words, the degree to which small lineups are Jazz kryptonite has probably been overstated.

Once a particular narrative is in the proverbial drinking water, examples that support the thesis get magnified. The Jazz’s six-minute collapse against a Laker group with LeBron James at center sparked a whole new round of smallball hysteria just last week. But what the hot take generators failed to remember in that moment is that the Jazz have also flat-out dominated small groups with the likes of Antetokounmpo, Adebayo, Pascal Siakam and others at the center position. To say nothing of the fact that the specific defensive mistakes the Jazz made in that 6-minute collapse honestly had very little to do with their specific smallball schemes.

Not every bad stretch is indicative of a deep character flaw. Sometimes you just play poorly for a few minutes. When the Jazz play poorly, they tend to lose those minutes, regardless of the opponent’s makeup. When they play well — which, fortunately for them, happens way more often on the whole — they are capable of beating any type of team.

Smallball in the 2022 playoffs

Remember when Jazz fans and pundits spent the 2020 offseason convinced that the key to unseating the Lakers was going to come down to Utah’s ability to counter size, only to be completely wrong about what would spell playoff doom in 2021? What if the playoff demons the Jazz and their fans have been obsessed with exorcizing since last June are completely different from the things that will determine their fate THIS offseason?

Put another way, we don’t really have any clue yet which opponents, schemes and tests will be Utah’s biggest hurdles this spring. Frankly, given their most likely bracket pairings, the Jazz may not face a real smallball test at all until the later rounds, if they get there. 

First round:

Most predictive models are pretty confident the Jazz will finish in the 4-5 bracket, given Memphis’ lead in the standings, soft remaining schedule, and clinched tiebreaker. If that’s the case, the Jazz’s playoff path will likely start against one of Dallas/Denver, then wind through Phoenix if they advance to round two.

The Mavs’ became a more traditional outfit when they sent Porzingis away before the trade deadline. While Dwight Powell, their most common center in the non-Porzingis minutes this season, is five inches smaller than the departed Latvian, he takes over 83% of his shots from inside 10 feet and is generally a less stretchy option. The Mavs’ two main Powell-centered groups have been crazy good: +13.2 when he plays with their top four minute-getters, +29.4 with Reggie Bullock instead of the injured Tim Hardway Jr. So they’ll be a challenge. But it likely won’t be a series centered on the Jazz’s ability to play smallball.

Dallas also has traditional bigs Marquese Chriss and Boban Marjanovic as reserves, but there are small/stretchy configurations they will deploy, too. Maxi Kleber has played nearly a third of his possessions this season as a smallball five, and those lineups perform well (+10.0). Dorian Finney-Smith has played at center for a grand total of 37 possessions. Davis Bertans has played some stretch five in other spots, but so far all of his Dallas minutes have come alongside one of Powell or Kleber.

Broadly speaking, they will be a more traditional opponent after that Porzingis trade, although the Kleber lineups will be something to watch. (Utah also still has three more chances to sniff them out in the regular season.)

If the Jazz get Denver instead, the Nuggets will assuredly not play small. They’ll aim to have Jokic on the court for every minute possible, and they just signed DeMarcus Cousins for the rest of the season to give them a better backup option over the raw Zeke Nnaji. Jokic-centered lineups still test the Jazz because of the Serbian big man’s ability to shoot and make plays in space, but most lineups feature a shooter or two the Jazz could consider leaving to help.

Nnaji and the Greens (Jeff and JaMychal) do log minutes as smallball centers, but none of them have been great options: the Nuggets are -15.4 when Jokic and Boogie are both off the court. That figure includes Aaron Gordon’s limited run as a smallball five (19 possessions).

Whichever team joins Utah in the 4-5 bracket will be a tough test for a host of reasons. But it won’t likely be a series decided on the basis of smallball.

Conference semis:

Barring something really wacky, the Jazz’s opponent in a hypothetical second-round series would almost definitely be Phoenix. That’s a huge, difficult test — but not a smallball one. Phoenix plays virtually every minute with one of DeAndre Ayton, Javale McGee or Bismack Biyombo³ in the middle.

Stretchy big Frank Kaminsky hasn’t played since before Thanksgiving, but Phoenix has smallball options in 6-foot-6 forwards Jae Crowder and Ish Wainwright. Lineups with Crowder at center have been uninspiring (-3.0 per 100). They’ve been surprisingly productive with Wainwright as a smallball center, but he’ll be ineligible for the playoffs unless Phoenix cuts a player to create a regular roster spot for him. They’ve had a few dozen possessions with someone like Torrey Craig (21) or Cam Johnson (11) as the nominal five, mostly in weird situations like for a specific end-of-quarter play.

If the Jazz face the Suns, it will be a battle of bigs.

Chris Paul’s injury does open the door to some non-zero chance Phoenix could be upset in round one, but I wouldn’t waste too many brain cells worrying about potential series against the likes of the Lakers, Clippers or Wolves. All of those teams have smallball and/or stretch-5 options, but overall those opponents would present less of a challenge to the healthy Jazz.

Conference Finals:

This is where the significant smallball tests will await the Jazz, if they’re still standing after round two. The Jazz would likely encounter the Warriors or Grizzlies here, both of whom have multiple lineups to pull Gobert out of the paint. 

The Grizzlies start paint-bound Steven Adams, but Jaren Jackson Jr. closes a lot of games at the five. They’re only +4.8 with Jackson in the middle, but it’s a way they can pull at the scab of Utah’s supposed smallball weakness. When both Aquaman and JJJ are off, they most often rely on smallball centers Brandon Clarke and Xavier Tillman, both 6’8″, but those have mostly been losing minutes for them so far.

The Warriors quite obviously are the best equipped to go small, due largely to the playmaking in space, the defensive versatility and the overall smarts of Draymond Green. They’re +15.7 per 100 with Dray at the five, per Cleaning the Glass.

Looney is 6’9″ but operates more like a traditional big man. He starts and plays in some of Golden State’s best lineups. But beyond him, GSW has multiple small and/or stretchy options. Stretch center Nemanja Bjelica can space the floor, and 6-foot-8 Jonathan Kuminga has started to get more run as a small center. They have also played 336 possessions with five true guards/wings on the court. But honestly, the Jazz would rather deal with those versions of the Dubs: they’re +3.9 with Bjelica at the 5, +3.6 with Kumingo, and +3.6 with only littles on the floor.

In other words, the Warriors are the most potent smallball challenge the Jazz will realistically face this postseason — but almost entirely because of Green-at-center lineups. He’s really damn good.

Finals:

If the Jazz make it to June, they’re going to face someone who is damn good. Philly (Embiid), Cleveland (Jarrett Allen) and Boston (Robert Williams) are more likely to rely on a true big man throughout games, while Brooklyn, Miami, Chicago and Milwaukee all have small variations they’ll lean on heavily. 

The Jazz might face a significant smallball test this spring. Or they might not. Either way, they’ve shown over the course of this season that they are capable of playing well — or poorly — against lineups of all shapes and sizes.

Their own small groups are still a work in progress, but when they’ve been healthy and connected, they’ve been able to produce winning minutes against any type of lineup.