Jazz’s Defensive Decisioning Sets Them Up For Game 2 Success, 124-105

Once again, the battle of the bigs is the defining feature as the Jazz contain Denver in a Game 2 win. (Ashley Landis-Pool via espn.com)

NBA offenses are simply too good to deny them everything. Even for the very best defensive teams, planning for a playoff opponent is an exercise in picking your poison: What can we live with?

Now that the Utah Jazz have had a couple of games to settle into their game plan for dealing with Denver’s top-five offense in a playoff series, it’s clear what they’ve decided to live with. They want to dare the Nuggets to beat them behind Nikola Jokic the scorer, and not Nikola Jokic the elite facilitator.

Jokic is perhaps the most skilled offensive center the game has seen in quite some time, with a feathery touch in close, a big body for banging, a soft jumper and extraordinary court vision. He can pick teams apart in a number of ways, but where he is most unique is his ability to run the offense from the center position. He possess elite passing skills and proverbial eyes in the back in the back of his head. While teams scurry to account for him and his pick-and-roll partner Jamal Murray, Jokic can read an opponent’s helping scheme in a heartbeat and zip the pass exactly where it needs to go to create the best scoring opportunity for the Nuggets.

That is, unless there is no helping scheme.

The Jazz are trying something that few teams have the personnel to even attempt: on the Murray-Jokic pick-and-roll, Utah is relying on Rudy Gobert to contain the ball and then get back to Jokic, without sending extra bodies toward the pick-and-roll. Their logic is simple: if they can guard that play 2-on-2 with just Murray’s defender and Gobert, then the other three Jazzmen can stay home, and the remaining Nuggets will be relegated largely to spectator roles. 

They know that this approach will occasionally end in plays like this, because Jokic is superbly skilled and capable of vanquishing Gobert on a single play:

They’ll live with some amount of that, because they know that some plays will end this way:

That’s a perfect two-man contain defense, even before the block. Royce O’Neale follows Murray over the screen, while Gobert steps up to cut off his path into the lane. As O’Neale works his way back in front, Gobert can shift back to his man. Nobody had to come off their man to help those two corral the Nuggets’ stars, and yet no advantage was gained on the play. Jokic has to force a flat-flooted flip, and Gobert devours it.

In guarding the pick-and-roll this way, Utah will get some from column A and some from column B, but they’re OK with that if it means the other Nuggets can’t get going. They’ll play those odds. Jokic finished Game 2 at 10-for-21 shooting for 28 points. If you get 10-for-21 from Jokic and the other Nuggets are getting open shots, you could be in trouble defensively. But if you hold Jokic to 10-for-21 without pulling defenders off of Denver’s spot-up shooters and slashers, you can survive that. The Jazz did more than survive: their lead ballooned to 31 before they settled for a 124-105 decision.

Jokic will get his, and there will be plays and stretches where it looks like he’s eating Gobert’s lunch. That’s OK. As one Tweep pointed out, you’d be forgiven for looking at stat lines alone and thinking Jokic roundly outplayed Gobert. But put those stats in context. Every time Gobert rolls, he is met not by a single defender, but by a whole defensive system of helpers, taggers and swarmers. The Jazz have chosen not to do that, so it looks very different when Jokic rolls into the lane.

While Gobert usually rolls into a crowd of bodies, the Jazz are trying to guard Jokic’s rolls with minimal help.

Utah could just as easily swarm Jokic the same way Denver packs the paint against Gobert here; they’re choosing not to, even as they recognize the cost. The Jazz know they’re conceding points to Jokic by guarding him 1-on-1. They’re interested in the war, not the battle, and they appear to have calculated that their best chance at winning the war is by neutering the supporting crew.

Jokic’s assists created 17.3 nightly points for the Nuggets during the regular season. During last year’s playoffs, that number was 20.9. So far in this series, Denver players are only scoring 10.5 per game off Jokic dimes. If it weren’t for Murray going crazy at the close of Game 1, Utah’s gambit might have them up 2-0. The Jazz took a modest lead into the final stretch on Monday, partially the product of their defensive strategy successfully limiting Jokic’s options as a facilitator, but also because of a historic performance by Donovan Mitchell. Ultimately, though, Murray took over down the stretch and in overtime.

It’s not uncommon for Utah to need a game to calibrate on a bold defensive approach. Last postseason, they opened the playoffs with a radical plan for guarding James Harden, but made enough mistakes in the series opener for their plan to look really foolish; the Rockets had an ORtg of 123 in that game, with a team True Shooting figure north of .600. The Jazz were roundly mocked for their defensive game plan after that Game 1 dud. But here’s the truth: once they settled in, they held the league’s second-best offense to a 106 ORtg for the rest of the series, while harassing Harden into a subpar 45.5% effective field goal percentage. So their scheme worked — once they all aligned on how to execute it properly.

In Game 1 of this series, Jazz defenders flinched enough to open the door for some of Denver’s supporting cast. They still didn’t allow Jokic to orchestrate the offense directly — he had just three assists — but there were mistakes off the ball and in transition that helped Jerami Grant (19), Monte Morris (14) and others have nice games.

By Game 2, Utah was more sound in its execution of the scheme. Paul Millsap was held to five points, his fourth-lowest playoff output since 2008, when he was a low-minute reserve for the Jazz. Torrey Craig was held scoreless. Grant scored eight points and shot 29% from deep, while Morris’ night (10 points) was quieter. Michael Porter Jr. got hot for 28 points, but only two of his 10 baskets came directly from playing off the Jokic P&R¹. 

And perhaps most importantly, Murray cooled considerably. He saw more of O’Neale this time around (Joe Ingles was the primary Murray-chaser in Game 1), and he shot 6-for-13 for 14 points, a far cry from his playoff career high of 36 on Monday.

The Jazz know what they’re doing. It worked in Game 2, and could have worked in Game 1 with some sharper execution. It could also go the other way. Right now they’re daring Jokic-the-scorer to beat them so that Jokic-the-creator can’t, but Jokic-the-scorer is plenty capable of shouldering the load. The Serbian center has had five 40-point games in his career, including one in the postseason. Ultimately, he has the chops to test Utah’s game plan, and to test Gobert, the two-time reigning Defensive Player of the Year.

Which is precisely why this series is so fun. We knew this series would revolve around the big men, and that these two prize-fighters would likely exchange rounds. That’s exactly what makes this one of the best first-round series in these playoffs, so both fan bases should avoid the temptation to act like the other guy is a slouch. These are two awesome all-league talents, with strengths that makes each one the perfect foil to test and try the other. Each one will have turns making life hard for the other one, in this series and for years to come.

Other Game 2 Notes:

Mitchell keeps rolling. Utah’s All-Star guard built on his historic 57-point outburst by adding 30 points on 10-for-14 shooting on Wednesday. That means he’s averaging 1.85 points per shot attempt so far in these playoffs, a ridiculous number. He also has a cumulative total now of 87 points and 15 assists, making him the first player to reach at least those numbers through two playoff games since 1965 (Jerry West). Mitchell is doing special things this postseason. The craziest thing he did today was probably this pass. He’s just on another level right now… as, ahem, somebody predicted.

Clarkson cooks. Jordan Clarkson had a really nice game, maybe his best all-around performance in a Jazz jersey. He finished with 26 points, four rebounds and three assists. He was appropriately aggressive when playing with the second unit, but in his minutes with the starters did a nice job playing more patiently and not taking over possessions. He also cleaned up some of the defensive stuff from Game 1, even though Utah has him guarding some bigger bodies as they cross-match to get players lined up the way they want. Unfortunately, the rest of the bench unit still looked a little shaky. Georges Niang did can a three and bail out the Jazz twice with awkward floaters.

Reinforcements? According to several reports, Mike Conley has been back in the bubble long enough that, with some more negative coronavirus tests between now and Friday, he could debut in Game 3. As exciting as Mitchell’s playoff run has been, the Jazz would welcome another ball handling guard to take some of the pressure off of their young star, whose playoff usage is 37% so far. Mitchell made it clear that he too wants his backcourt mate back: “We miss you, Mike!” he proclaimed during his walkoff interview on Wednesday.

Briefly: In addition to good defensive work on Murray and nine points of his own, O’Neale dished out eight assists, the most he’s ever had in a regular season or playoff game… Ingles might be the Jazz’s most consistent playoff performer so far, following up his 19 point, six assist, 42% from three performance in Game 1 with 18 points, six assists and 44% from three in Game 2.