Salt City Seven: Favors Beasting, Mitchell Feasting, the Downhill Stretch & More

March 4th, 2019 | by Dan Clayton

Favors dominated on both ends against Milwaukee. (Nick Bolerjack via utahjazz.com)

The Salt City Seven drops every week throughout the regular season, with seven regular features meant to relive the week in Jazzland from various angles. Check in every Monday for the quotes, stats, plays and performances that tell the stories from the last 168 hours in the world of the Jazz.

An important quote from Jazz players or personnel during the week.

On Saturday night, Donovan Mitchell scored more regulation points than any Jazz player since April 1998 (Karl Malone). Moments after the game ended, he had this to say about teammate Derrick Favors.

“He’s the MVP of the game… You could tell he was in a different place emotionally, and that’s what really propelled us. Guys have certain layups and he’s blocking them, making them tough, and that’s allowing us to get out in transition. So it really started with him.”

-Mitchell, to the Salt Lake Tribune

That’s right, Mitchell dropped 46 (!!!) on the Milwaukee Bucks, and then declared Favors the most valuable player in the club’s 115-111 comeback win.

“Shout out to Derrick Favors, man, for real,” Mitchell said during his walk-off interview. “He was so locked in on so many different levels. That’s the Fav we all know. You guys got to see it.” 

While it seems wholly counter intuitive that anybody else could be the game MVP no a night when Mitchell dropped 46, Favors was spectacular against Milwaukee, and it was just the latest chapter in a recent resurgence for the big man. He has logged double-doubles in four of the last five contests, all while averaging 16 points, 12 boards, two blocks, 65 percent shooting from the floor, and 85 percent on his four free-throw attempts per night.

He’s also posting his most efficient season by far — 61.7 percent true shooting — and a career-best Defensive Box Plus-Minus. Simply put, he’s a beast on both ends of the court.

The Jazz certainly don’t win their last four without Favors. In Saturday’s game in particular, a rare off night by Rudy Gobert made it all the more necessary for Favors to go off. Milwaukee plays a unique style of paint-swarming defense that obviously disrupted Gobert’s rim finishing. And on the other end, the Jazz again decided to assign their bigs to guard MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo, but this time around, Gobert struggled. The referees were allowing the Greek Freak to attack with physical drives, and Gobert struggled to play through that contact. Antetokounmpo shot 64 percent against Gobert, and the Bucks’ offensive rating on the 23 plays that Gobert had him was 157.

Favors, by contrast, guarded Giannis on 33 possessions. The dynamic forward still managed to score 15 of his team-high 43 against Favors, but he shot just 44 percent on those possessions, and the team ORtg slipped to 91. 

Gobert doesn’t have that many off nights quite as bad as that. He was minus-36 in nearly 20 minutes, which means that the Jazz outscored Milwaukee by 40 in the 28 minutes he sat. That’s unusual. But when he does rare difficulties impacting the game, it’s a luxury to have someone as good as Favors there to steady the ship.

Multiple times, the Jazz found themselves in a giant hole and relied on Favors and Mitchell to dig them out. They trailed 20-6 the first time Gobert subbed out, then proceeded to retake the lead with a 30-11 run over the next 11 minutes with Favors as the center. Then they dug themselves another 15-point hole1 with a sloppy start to the fourth quarter, but went back to Favors and proceeded to score 42 points over the game’s final 10 minutes.

Mitchell rightly gets credit for fueling that offensive outburst. But Favors scored 13 of his own (on perfect 5-for-5 shooting, and 3-for-3 from the line) during that stretch. And the Bucks shot just 30 percent over that span, largely because of Favors’ solid defense on Giannis that held him to 3-for-5 without requiring too much help off of shooters. Milwaukee leads the league in wide open three-pointers taken, but couldn’t find those same shots when Favors was able to handle their star mostly on his own.

So as crazy as it sounds on a night when Mitchell dropped 46 — FORTY-DAMN-SIX! — the super soph might have been right: Favors might have been the real catalyst on Saturday.

Mark that down as one more game the Jazz don’t win without Favors. He also saved the Jazz against Houston when Gobert got tossed three minutes in, and was a huge part of last week’s road win in Denver. Some of Utah’s most impressive wins this season have Favors’ stamp all over them.

This last week in particular, Favors was indispensable. Utah lost by 18.5 points per 100 possessions in the minutes Favors was off the floor. They just literally couldn’t afford to be without him in these last three.

Which makes his $16.9 million non-guaranteed contract for next season really interesting. Most assume that because of the redundancy with Gobert, the Jazz will eventually move on from Favors. But if he keeps being a key ingredient in some of their biggest wins, at some point it becomes valid to revisit that assumption.

Stats that tell the story of the week or highlight a timely topic.

5.7

The Jazz have won four straight overall, and all three of their games this past week. The average margin in those three: 5.7 points. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, either. One kind of win the Jazz are light on this year is close games against quality teams. Surviving the Clippers and especially the Nuggets and Bucks is actually good for their playoff résumé. They’ve still played fewer clutch minutes (86) than anybody in the league other than the Cavaliers. Before this last week, their clutch Net Rating was a pretty ho-hum +3.7, 11th in the league. The 10 combined clutch minutes they played against the Clips, Nugs and Bucks bumped them all the way up to +15.3 for the season, or third in the league2.

2

That’s how many of Utah’s final 20 games will be against teams that currently have a better record than them, and those two are home games (OKC 3/11 and Denver 4/9).  

68.8%

Thabo Sefolosha might officially be back. In the 29 minutes he played this last week, Utah’s true shooting was a remarkable 68.8%. It’s a small sample to be sure, but the Jazz have been elite on both ends with Thabo on the court. On the flip side, though: the offense produced just 45.8% true shooting in Ricky Rubio’s 44 minutes. For the Jazz to feel great about their postseason chances, they need to get Rubio back on track or Dante Exum healthy — or ideally both.

 

Breaking down the Xs and Os behind a Jazz score from the week.

Drag Screens (continued) and Trailing Bigs

A couple of weeks ago we talked about some tools the Jazz are using to speed up their offense and create early opportunities. We highlighted the drag screen, a pick set by a big man in semi-transition to let the guard get to the middle of the floor while the defense is still scrambling.

The Jazz used this a lot to generate some pace against the Clippers on Wednesday. Here, Gobert gets loose off the drag screen, and on the second one, he sets it, then flips the pick in the other direction on his way to positively ending poor Ivica Zubac.

As with any screening action, the key is to see how the defense is guarding it and then counter. So when Joe Ingles sees the defense sagging away from Favors’ drag screen on this next play, he denies the screen and drives baseline to set up a Favors dunk.

But that’s not the only way to get the bigs easy looks early in the possession. Watch here as guards put pressure on the defense only to shovel it back to a trailing Favors for a pair of scoring plays.

Notice that on both of these plays, Favors is actually the last guy across midcourt. But it doesn’t matter. Because Ingles and Rubio are able to occupy the opponents with early drives that flatten the defense, Favors is able to roll in unencumbered as the trail man on plays like this.

After each Jazz win, Twitter helps us decide who was that game’s MVP or most memorable performer.

Jazz 111, Clippers 105: Donovan Mitchell

As many game ball decisions do, this one came down to Mitchell and Gobert. The latter had 20 points on nine shots while also grabbing 13 boards, blocking four shots and controlling the game defensively. But Mitchell put the game away with big plays on both ends. He actually struggled early in the decisive quarter, going 1-for-5 with a turnover and getting pulled. But then he came back and immediately assisted the go-ahead bucket, went coast-to-coast after a rebound to score, and then blocked Danilo Gallinari’s shot back to Italy. In all, Mitchell finished with an efficient 32, plus four assists, four rebounds and the layup that basically sealed the game with just under two and a half left.

Jazz 111, Nuggets 104: Kyle Korver

Korver’s six threes positively changed this game, especially because most of them came in stretches when points were hard to come by. He had a season-high 22, this after a 9-game stretch where he was shooting just 28 percent from three. Gobert and Favors combined for 31-and-19 while taking times dealing with likely first-team All-NBA center Nikola Jokic, but Korver’s impact on this game was just too hard to look past. Ingles was superb with 10 assists, Mitchell scored 24, and Sefolosha hit three timely triples.

Jazz 115, Bucks 111: Derrick Favors

Brutally tough call, and every time I think I’ve talked myself into one of Favors or Mitchell, I see another argument that sways me back the other way. Initially, I thought it HAD to be Mitchell. How can you score 46 and not get it? But after changing my mind approximately 37 times, I decided to defer to Mitchell himself when he said that Favors was this game’s MVP (see above). It’s no accident that every Jazz run happened with #15 on the court; his scoring, rebounding and defense were absolutely key, and he finished with 23, 18 and three blocks. Another factor that swayed me, with a hat tip to Ken Clayton: though Mitchell’s close was electric, he was actually a minus-9 overall until that final run, and by his own admission struggled early. By contrast, Favors was splendid throughout, limited Antetokounmpo and posted a ridiculous plus-36. He also had 13 points in the Jazz’s final push, nearly matching Mitchell’s 19.

(Plus, as I understand it, Mitchell walked away with the actual game ball, so we’ll let Favors have the imaginary one.)

Tracking the wild Western Conference postseason race and the Jazz’s place in it.

Despite Utah’s 4-game win streak, not much has changed in the West standings. The teams around them are winning, too. However, the strength of schedule graph alone on this weeks’ playoff check-in indicates that may change soon. Take a look.

Heading into 3/4

Utah’s 4-0 spurt and easy remaining slate make the likelihood of a homecourt spot look a little stronger.  The only watchout: Houston, Portland and even the Clippers keep winning, too. 

 

A quick look at the Jazz’s next seven nights of action.

The Jazz have reached the true downhill portion of their schedule. Starting with two games against a team that’s in disarray. 

Monday: New Orleans at Utah, 7:00 p.m. MT 

  • State of the Pelicans: First, Anthony Davis wasn’t playing after his trade request. Then he was playing but with limited minutes. Now he’s taking select nights off again. Regardless, they’re a team in transition, with an 8-11 record since he made his desire known to leave the franchise.
  • Jazz-Pels: The Jazz trounced the Pels in their only other meeting, powered by what was likely Rubio’s best game of the season: 28 points, 12 assists and four boards on the road as Utah dealt them their first loss of the season.
  • Key for the Jazz: If Utah can protect the rim, the Pels might not have the firepower from outside to get it done. They’re currently a bottom-quartile team in three-point makes, attempts and percentage.

Wednesday: Utah at New Orleans, 6:00 p.m. MT

  • State of the Pelicans: Lost in all the Davis mess: Jrue Holiday has been awesome this season, and Julius Randle is having a breakout year. It has really helped his game to get to 35% from three, and he’s now averaging above 20ppg on the season.
  • Jazz-Pels: This home-and-home set will complete the season series, which means a win in either one wraps up the series win for Utah. It would make the third straight year the Jazz edged them in the regular season, 
  • Key for the Jazz: Especially is Davis sits in either game, the true head of the snake now is Holiday. He generates a huge chunk of NOP’s offense, with 21 points and 8 assists per contest.

Friday: Utah at Memphis, 6:00 p.m. MT

  • State of the Grizzlies: The Grizzlies are a completely different team than they were earlier this season. They traded starters Marc Gasol and JaMychal Green, and have since lost Jaren Jackson Jr. indefinitely to injury. They’re 3-7 since the trade deadline, 10-31 since early December. 
  • Jazz-Grizz: Gasol made life a little tough on Utah as the perfect foil to their offensive execution and defensive schemes. Memphis took two of three from Utah early in the season, but now the Jazz will face a different version of the Grizz in the series finale. 
  • Key for the Jazz: Stopping the Grizz at this point is about stopping Mike Conley. Memphis has just one win against a .500-or-better team in its last 11 tries, and that was a night when Conley went off for 22 and 11.

Because after all, we’re here to have fun.

More hardware for Mitchell.

That will do it this week. Seven more juicy bits of Jazz next Monday.

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