Looking Forward After Utah’s Game 7 Heartbreak

September 2nd, 2020 | by Dan Clayton

These two first-time All-Stars give Utah a solid foundation to build from. (Melissa Majchrzak via espn.com)

Even after 341 minutes of their epic, entertaining playoff series, the Jazz and Nuggets needed every last second of Game 7 to decide a winner. The game was tied with a half minute to play, after Rudy Gobert had punched home an alley-oop dunk. His Denver counterpart, Nikola Jokic, answered with a weird, spinning hook shot to break the tie. After a Donovan Mitchell turnover on Utah’s end and a Torrey Craig miss on Denver’s, Gobert secured the ball with 4.8 seconds to go, down two but without a timeout and standing roughly 92 feet from the other basket.

If the Jazz hadn’t burned back-to-back timeouts seconds earlier when Royce O’Neale got trapped on the inbound, they could have advanced the ball and organized a final attempt at tying or clinching the series with a three. Instead, they’d have to cover those 92 feet in 4.8 seconds.

Gobert got the ball ahead to Mike Conley, who caught the ball near midcourt with just 2.3 seconds to go. He slid past Nuggets guard Gary Harris and leaned into a 3-pointer. Time expired as the shot neared its apex. The ball hit the inside edge of the rim, then the back. Then bounced out.

“I felt really good about it,” Conley said of his last-second shot. “I thought it was going in.”

Instead, Utah’s season was over.

The Jazz became just the 12th team in NBA history to lose a series after leading 3-1. They can take some solace in the fact that Denver needed every second of a Game 7 to eke their way past them, or in the 22-point swing they engineered behind stifling defense, turning a 19-point deficit into a fourth-quarter lead of three, 68-65. They can look back on a hundred little moments: Mitchell’s turnover; misses by Conley, O’Neale and Joe Ingles; O’Neale getting harassed into burning the final timeout; more disastrous minutes from the bench bigs. They can point out (rightly) that their second-leading scorer from the regular season missed every second of this roller-coaster postseason. They can ponder mistakes and no-calls and momentary lapses and wonder what might have been. 

But at the end of the day, their season is over. After splashy summer moves and an in-season rotation retooling, this roster made it no further than last year’s Jazz. They nabbed two more postseason wins, but were still kept out of the Western Conference Semifinals.

So it’s worth considering where this group is as team brass looks to the future. 

Mitchell

What we just saw from Mitchell was incredible. So incredible that he has already secured a max extension from the Jazz, per reports.

More importantly, his explosion follows a pattern of other modern greats who took a big leap in their third postseasons. Mitchell entered the playoffs with a career 22.7 scoring average, and 23.4 in the playoffs. To say he took his stardom to another level would be a gross understatement: after games of 57 (a franchise playoff high and the third most ever in an NBA playoff game), 51, 44 and a pair of 30s, Mitchell closed his third postseason with a ridiculous 36.3 average, joining some elite of superstars who used their third playoffs to vault upward in the league’s power structure. More importantly, he found a level of efficiency that had evaded him in his two previous playoff runs, with crazy efficient shooting splits of 53-52-95. Simply put, his combination of scoring and efficiency was historic.

Count this writer among those who have long believed that Gobert has been the Jazz’s most valuable player, and he remains special in his ability to impact games on the defensive end. But in this series the mantle shifted. Mitchell meteoric run was historic and, more importantly, unstoppable. Denver tried so many things to slow him down, and none of those tactics yielded any sustained success. That makes Mitchell pretty close to an unschemable scorer with the ball in his hands, and that is the hardest type of commodity to obtain in the modern NBA. Yes, he’ll still need help, and teaming with a top-15 impact guy will only make his job easier. But Mitchell has moved into a different stratosphere.

He still has things he need to clean up. His handle is lose on some of his pet dribble moves — such as when he pushes the ball through a trap or on that pirhouette move that was poked away in Game 7. But as several tweeps pointed out on Tuesday night, there is no reason to believe he won’t use these next few months to hone his craft. He came back after his first offseason with improved defense. After his second offseason, he was a much-improved pull-up shooter. And he returned from this spring’s lengthy stoppage with better passing and pick-and-roll decision making.

He’s 24. He’s still getting better. And he just put himself in the conversation with the game’s most elite scorers.

Mitchell’s arrival as a bona fide megastar is enough on its own to justify optimism about Utah eventually finding a way to break through the crowded Western Conference into true contention. 

Gobert

Gobert’s first four games of the series — in which he averaged 19 points, 10 rebounds and 75% shooting — were enough to prompt ESPN analyst Zach Lowe to declare, “Very quietly, Gobert is having an incredible series.”

He admittedly didn’t have the same impact in games 5 and 6. He barely saw the ball, and struggled to finish when he did. His partners in the pick-and-roll defense made enough simple execution mistakes that it’s hard to blame Gobert for Utah’s inability to detonate Denver’s attack, but regardless of what exact percentage of the blame you can reasonably put on Rudy, it’s clear that he didn’t have his usual impact on the defensive end.

Then came Game 7.

Especially in the second half of the series finale, Gobert reminded everybody what it looks like when just imposes his will on the game from the defensive paint. Denver managed just a 71.4 ORtg after intermission, as Utah finally found the defensive mojo that has defined them during Gobert’s tenure.

Add it all together — Gobert’s good games, bad games and that ridiculously dominant half — and it’s hard to find Rudy too culpable of this first-round loss. His scoring was up — 16.9 points per game, on similar usage to his career norms — and Utah outscored Denver by 5.2 points per 100 possessions while Gobert was on the floor. Denver’s top-five offense and super-skilled star center post some unique challenges for Gobert, but he was still able to key a defense that held the Nuggets to the third fewest rim attempts and third worst rim accuracy among playoff teams, per Cleaning the Glass. For the regular season, he finished seventh in RAPTOR Wins Above Replacement (a 538 metric), basically trailing the league’s tpo six megastars. Fifth in Win Shares, 12th in VORP, 10th in Real Plus-Minus — by just about any measure, Gobert is a top-12 impact player, and probably should be talked about with other borderline MVP candidates.

Utah will have a tough decision coming up in terms of the price point for Gobert’s next contract. He’s supermax eligible, but laying 35% of the salary cap in front of one player is a gutsy move, especially in an uncertain financial environment. They’ll sort through that. But the reported tension between star players isn’t likely to be a huge consideration there, at least if you take Mitchell’s and Gobert’s recent comments at face value. Both sounded on Tuesday night like they expect to pick up where they left off, with a healthy Bojan Bogdanovic and perhaps a rotational upgrade or two. Mitchell even went so far as to reference stories from three months ago about the allegedly “unsalvageable” relationship between the star duo.

“I’d go to war with anyone of these guys in the locker room,” the guard said in Andy Larsen’s latest piece. “With Bojan coming back… it’s another weapon. This won’t happen again.”

Doesn’t sound like someone who’s lobbying for a roster overhaul.

It’s fair to wonder if Gobert can be the best player on a title team, but if Mitchell’s surge into superstardom is real, he might not have to be. No matter which one you consider Utah’s 1A superstar and which one you consider 1B, it’s clear that the Jazz are moving forward with a pair of top-15 stars, one of whom is capable of taking over games with the ball in his hands and the other capable of taking control of games from the defensive paint. That’s not a bad starting point.

Conley

A 2-for-13 clunker spoiled an otherwise brilliant series for Conley. He came into Game 7 averaging 22.8 points per contest, and shooting over 60% from deep. He was a steadying influence and a dangerous spot-up threat. He lost his touch a little in G7, but he got mostly really good looks, and he still helped the Jazz in other ways, especially in doling out seven assists and in helping to guard Jamal Murray, who shot just 3-for-14 in the second half.

And, as Larsen wrote, a single inch on Conley’s final attempt of the night made the difference between him leaving the court a conquering hero and being an easy scapegoat for disappointed Jazz fans.

Overall, Mike’s struggles this year were greatly overstated. He had a rough 4-game start as he got used to just his second NBA team in a dozen years as a pro, but after that he played really well when healthy. He averaged 19-4-4 on 43% 3-point shooting for the next month before his leg injury started to bother him, and once he was healthy enough to return to his starting role, he averaged 17-4-5 and 42% from deep the rest of the way. Fan who are convinced he struggled are probably focusing mostly on the four games he was adjusting early on, or the 13 games he was playing hurt and/or on a minutes limit once he got back.

Even factoring in those rough stretches, his effective field goal percentage for the year (.494) was right in line with his career norms (.498). His usage and minutes were just lower than they’ve been in a while.

All told, there’s still a decent amount of evidence that Conley can be what the Jazz wanted him to be when they acquired him last summer: a stabilizing force, a dangerous spot shooter, and a great secondary ball handler and pick-and-roll facilitator. There are certainly concerns about how he’ll age — especially given his recent injury history — but Bogdanovic’s presence as a second-leading scorer has definitely changed Utah’s level of dependence on Conley being the “Memphis Mike” version of himself for 82 games. 

Bogdanovic

The Jazz missed Bogey in the playoffs. Full stop.

Sure, he mostly adds scoring, and Utah was already scoring in buckets during this series. And sure, he’s not exactly a defensive stopper, something the Jazz could have used more of. But when certain play types dead ended in the Jazz offense, they settled for a lot of pretty meh offense. Bogdanovic would have given them another option to create offense in a pinch. 

And just as importantly, he would have given them another playoff-ready performer to fill 240 minutes while limiting the participation of guys whose liabilities were exposed a bit. Over the course of Utah’s three straight losses, Georges Niang and Juwan Morgan had Net Ratings of -34 and -39, respectively. With Bogdanovic available, those two would have seen far fewer minutes. In a playoff environment where opponents can find weak spots in your rotation and exploit them, having an extra starter-caliber guy would have undoubtedly changed the complexion of the series.

The Croatian forward authored some of Utah’s most exciting moments in the regular season, and he provided a consistent second scorer while Conley was in and out of the lineup. As Conley ages — he’ll be 33 next month — Bogdanovic may be more important to Utah’s long term. As for right now, Utah is fortunately to have two borderline stars flanking their two superstars. That is a 4-man core that would make a lot of teams extremely jealous, especially if Don sustains his recent leap, Conley comes back more healthy and consistent, and the two Europeans keep doing what they’ve been doing.

Ingles

Perhaps nobody’s role shifted as much or as often as Joe Ingles’ this past season.

When the season started, Ingles was supposed to be the pick-and-roll facilitator in the second unit. But he struggled, in large part because Utah would quickly discover they didn’t really have a logical P&R partner for him. Then Conley got hurt and his role changed again. Then they acquired Jordan Clarkson and his role changed again. Then they reorganized the reserve unit and once again they needed different things from Joe. Then Conley came back and his role changed, and finally Bogdanovic’s absence from the bubble dictated yet another adjustment for Joe. Wow.

The reality is that through all those changes, Ingles never really got it going. His usual January slump stretched into February, and he just never looked fully comfortable outside of a 17-4-5 stretch in late December and early January when Utah went 14-2 against a soft schedule.

With Bogdanovic back, the Jazz should be able to return Ingles to a 5th/6th man type of role, which is probably what he’s best suited for, especially as he also approaches his 33rd birthday. It will also help if there’s more continuity in his job description. Ingles’ value partially comes from the fact that he does a lot of different things at an NBA level, and can be a bit of a chameleon depending on what the Jazz need. But if there’s more certainly next season than he dealt with in 2019-20, you can potentially expect more consistency in his performance. One easy way to solve that is for Utah to find him a legit P&R partner for the bench unit. We’ll speculate in an upcoming article on who that might be.

O’Neale

O’Neale is a bit more of a specialist than Ingles, but otherwise the two have a similar macro identity: both are consummate glue guys, the type of contributor I’ve always referred to as “role player plus.” They’re better than a generic bench player, and indeed both guys would play starter minutes on the average NBA team. They’re not quite stars, but you still need them to play well to have a chance to beat really good teams.

Royce in particular is a bit underrated in that sense. He is not likely to explode offensively or steal headlines from Mitchell and Gobert, but he’s really important. Utah frequently asks him to guard every position on the floor, one through five. He’s also an important cog in the offense, not just because his 40% spot-up shooting serves as an important pressure release for the offense, but also because he’s gotten better at punishing sloppy closeouts by putting the ball on the floor. (See the “playbook” section in this article.)

But let’s be honest here: O’Neale did not have a very good series against Denver. He didn’t score a single basket off of his “drives” (defined by the NBA’s tracking site as a move from the outside toward the basket in a halfcourt setting), and his usage overall was a comically low 9%. 

But mostly, he just did some weird stuff on defense (video thread). When he’s on, he is an elite on-ball perimeter defender. In the regular season, he held opponents to .85 points per possession as the primary defender on isloation possessions, and .83 when guarding the P&R ball handler, per NBA tracking. But he has had too many moments in Orlando when he jumped to the side of the ball handler, or backed into the screener and took himself out of the play, or otherwise did weird stuff that compromised the structure of the defense.

Still, that’s a pretty impressive front six for Utah: two guys with top-15 level impact, two borderline stars who have been at the top of the scouting report before and still averaged 20-plus, and two Swiss-Army knife glue guys who can help the team win in different ways. 

The Bench

In games 5 through 7 of their series combined, Utah was +11 when their five starters were on the court. They were -37 in any minutes when even a single starter was on the court.

That’s not a new trend, either. We talked about bench woes all season long. Almost any combination of the six players above finished the year with a wildly positive Net Rating. The Jazz’s original starting five: +9.7. Ingles in Conley’s spot: +13.7.  IN for Mitchell: +7.6. In Bogey’s spot: +19.4. (The only configuration that didn’t work was Ingles in O’Neale’s spot — minus-8.1 — but that group logged most of its minutes during the toughest stretch of Utah’s schedule.) All season long, Utah was elite when they could stick to their main six guys… and struggled when bench guys stepped in.

Last year’s version of the Jazz was undoubtedly deeper, but had less firepower at the top of the roster. Utah’s brass knowingly made the tradeoff to acquire Conley and Bogey even at the expense of the back of their rotation, but they thought they could steady thing with the value signings of Jeff Green and Ed Davis. Those signings, to put it mildly, didn’t work out. Dante Exum didn’t grow like they expected either, and Emmanuel Mudiay is not really a point guard. So they had to reconstruct the back half of the rotation on the fly.

That mostly meant promoting guys up the bench. Niang and Tony Bradley, intended to be deep bench specialists, got regular roles. Around the same time, desperate for second-unit shot creation while Conley sat, they acquired Clarkson.

Clarkson is sort of in his own weird subcategory here; he was far more valuable than the rest of the bench guys and provided something the Jazz desperately needed at that point: just a bucket-getting robot with very little conscience. But because he mostly contributes as a scorer, things get a little tenuous for him when his shot isn’t dropping. He’s fairly average for his positional grouping in terms of points per shot attempt, but he is in just the ninth percentile for assists relative to his usage rate, and he gives up a lot on defense. When he is making shots, the Jazz feel very fortunate to have him. When he isn’t, he doesn’t add a ton else. 

In these playoffs specifically, the Jazz don’t win Game 4 without Clarkson. But they also bled points with him on the court in G5 through G7, because his shot abandoned him (.502 True Shooting) and Denver figured out they could attack him is mismatches (116 DRtg). 

Look, if Clarkson is your 8th best player, you’re probably in pretty good shape, and that’s what he’ll be if Utah makes one more solid addition and also gets Bogdanovic back. But if you need him to be your 6th best, which Utah needed during this playoff run, there are going to be nights he leaves you wanting more. Give him credit: he performed far better this time around than in his only other postseason experience, and he really cleaned up his shot profile after arriving in Utah. But he’s still a bit of a one-skill specialist, and the Jazz aren’t as desperate for that one skill as they were in December. If they can keep him for a price that is commensurate with the 7th/8th-man type of role that he’s best suited for, I think they will. But they have other priorities this offseason that rank far higher on the list, like big man depth and shoring up the perimeter defense.

After Clarkson, the Jazz could probably stand to upgrade just about every rotation spot. Niang had his moments in the regular season and playoffs, but still has a giant target painted on his chest on the defensive end. Bradley improved some, but is still far from being a playoff asset — and Quin Snyder evidently agrees since he phased Bradley out of the rotation as the series went along. Fans clamored for a bigger role for Morgan, but he was relentlessly targeted in his playoff appearances. Jarrell Brantley, Rayjon Tucker and Miye Oni showed flashes, but none cracked the playoff rotation. Mudiay struggled in his brief playoff action, while rookie guards Nigel Williams-Goss and Justin Wright-Foreman barely saw any playing time this season.

It seems pretty clear: Utah needs a couple of bench upgrades to complement their still-improving stars. Most real contenders have seven or eight guys who could start on most teams. The Jazz had six, and with Bogey on the shelf that was more like five this past offseason. They need another grown-up or two for their rotation, specifically in the frontcourt and on the wings.

But outside of that, these Jazz aren’t far away. Mitchell stands on the precipice of megastardom, and he and Gobert both have superstar-level impact at their respective ceilings. Conley and Bogdanovic give them scoring punch and veteran know-how, while Ingles and O’Neale will continue to do the little (and big) things that their roles call for — hopefully with more consistency once Utah has a more steady rotation. 

Utah doesn’t need another star to turn the corner. They’d take one if one fell into their laps, but a couple of smart upgrades in key rotation roles should be enough. We’ll be speculating in the coming weeks about who they might target for those acquisitions.

But the future is no less bright after that series than it was before. If anything, Mitchell’s spectacular coming-out party provides a tantalizing look at how the Jazz’s ceiling might be redefined as the dynamic guard reaches for new levels of superstardom.

 

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