Salt City Seven: Gobert’s Domination, Bench Struggles, Conley Homecoming & More

Gobert dominated both ends for the 8-4 Jazz. (Nick Bolerjack via utahjazz.com)

Every week here at SCH begins with the Salt City Seven: seven regular features that let us relive the biggest moments, key performances and hot issues in Jazzland from various angles. Check in every week 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 from the week

“Hopefully, at the end of my career, I’m known as the best, or one of the best defensive players of all time — and one of the best players, period, of all time. The goal is to keep getting better, keep winning, hopefully, win one or many championships.”

-Jazz center Rudy Gobert, via Ryan Miller’s nice feature at KSL

What a week for Gobert. If his goal is to be recognized as one of the best players in the league, the last seven days certainly helped his case.

Gobert got off to a slow start this season, as new teammates were still figuring out the Jazz offense and the best ways to get their elite pick-and-roll finisher the ball. Through three games, he was averaging just 7.0 points, and he made it known that he thought he could help the team by being more involved offensively. 

Since then, the Stifle Tower has been dominating on both ends. He has averaged 16 points and 15 boards since October 28, while shooting 72% from the field. That all culminated with last week’s performance: games of 25 and 14, 18 and 15, and 23 and 17, all while missing just five of his 33 shots (85%).

But it’s not just raw production that’s noteworthy here. It’s the way he’s doing it. Gobert’s offensive résumé used to be limited to catch-and-dunk plays, but not anymore. This past week he put an impressive repertoire on display, making dribble moves out in space and/or finishing plays with fancy footwork and finesse moves. (For a look at some of his splashy moves from the week, check out this thread.)

He’s been doing all of that while still locking down the defensive end, too. When players take over a game offensively down the stretch, they get SportsCenter treatment. Gobert frequently does the same thing on the defensive end, but it still somehow goes unnoticed by casual NBA fans. Watch how often he made game-saving plays on defense down the stretch against Brooklyn (thread), including completely neutralizing one of the game’s most dynamic scoring guards.

Add all of that up and Gobert is already having the impact of an MVP candidate. FiveThirtyEight’s new player impact stat, RAPTOR Wins Above Replacement, has Gobert as the ninth most valuable player in the league so far this season. They have Donovan Mitchell in the fifth spot, making the Jazz and Lakers¹ the only teams with two in the top 10. 

The pair also rate as solidly part of the star class (top 16 or better) in VORP, Total Points Added, Win Shares and Win Probability Added.

We’ve already covered what it could mean if Mitchell’s special start turned out to be real. Imagine if both he and the Stifle Tower stayed at their current macro levels and the Jazz legitimately had two top-10 players going forward.

18.3

While we’re talking about the Jazz’s starpower at the top of the roster, let’s check in on Mike Conley. The point guard struggled to start the season, but has quietly righted the ship. In his last eight games, he has averaged 18.3 points, 3.8 assists, and a much-improved .558 True Shooting, just a notch above his career mark. The Conley that the Jazz have been getting since October 30 is roughly the version they envisioned when they swung a deal for the former Grizzly in June.

-11

In Utah’s lone loss this week, the Jazz were +9 with lineups featuring any five of their six main guys (the starters plus Joe Ingles). Lineups with 3-4 of those players were +1. Where they lost the game was in the minutes when only two of their trusted six were playing. They were -11 in those minutes, and that’s not a one-night problem. On the season, lineups with three or more of their non-Ingles reserves have not been successful. Only two such lineups have played winning basketball: a +33 group featuring Mitchell and Ingles, and a +2 squad with Ingles and Royce O’Neale. But both of those groups included the injured Ed Davis. Without Davis, the Jazz just haven’t gotten enough from their role players.

The best of the bunch has been Emmanuel Mudiay, who has had a nice start for the Jazz, including being a real factor in a handful of Utah’s wins. But while there’s some hope that his renaissance under Quin Snyder is real, he has never posted a positive season in VORP or BPM, and has never been part of a winning team. Jeff Green may help once his shooting normalizes (he’s currently converting a career-worst .482 True Shooting), but he has also displayed the inconsistency that has frustrated seven franchises. Georges Niang fell from the rotation and has posted a garbage time-adjusted Net Rating of -21.8 on the season, per Cleaning the Glass.

And then there’s Tony Bradley.

+10.8

It’s not really even Bradley’s fault that he’s not ready to play a major role for a contender. He was drafted as a project pick, and had only 77 NBA minutes under his belt prior to this season. The result of all that is that he has been ineffective on the defensive end and very limited offensively. He has had some games with decent counting stats, but the Jazz have mostly bled points with him in the game, largely because he has the worst impact on the Utah defense. In his non-garbage time appearances, he has made the defense worse by 10.8 points per 100 plays, per CTG.

-2.2

All of that is why the timing is great to get Dante Exum back from injury. Exum made the Jazz’s defense 2.2 points better per 100 possessions last year. He was elite at guarding the pick-and-roll ball handler (.75 points per 100 defensive possessions, good for 86th percentile), isolation plays (.77, 75th percentile), and spot-up shooters (.88, 82nd percentile). The Jazz could also use his creation ability, as the bench offense offense gets stuck.

“There’s no question in my mind that he’s going to help our team,” Snyder said of Exum on Sunday.

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

Guard-to-guard screens

I had a perfect play all teed up for this week’s Playbook section — a nifty set design where the Jazz stacked multiple actions, including a decoy “UCLA” cut that helped get Ingles a wide open three. But then I rewatched it and realized that the clever play design was largely irrelevant because one Grizz defender barely moved on the play. So let’s talk about guard-to-guard ball screens instead.

Most teams selectively switch guard-to-guard screening actions, but their rules for when and where to do so are situational. So often, if you start a play that way, you can catch someone in a bit of confusion and attack, like O’Neale does here.

Joe Harris gets caught on the screen and is slow to make the switch. O’Neale recognizes that he has the defender in the rear-view mirror, so he drives in, obligating Jarrett Allen to show on the drive, and consequently Taurean Prince has to leave Bojan Bogdanovic in the corner.

Other times, though, they just run guard-to-guard stuff to create an advantage by setting up the matchup they want. That’s what they do here to help Mitchell take over down the stretch against Brooklyn.

On the first play there, the defense is already mismatched because of the semi-break, so Ingles sets a pick to try to get Allen switched onto Mitchell. Prince navigates the screen through, but Mitchell’s still able to punk him by getting him leaning one direction and throwing a little crossover shimmy to get by him.

Then on the second one, they simply run a little drag screen so that Mitchell can go right at Kyrie Irving, going downhill.

These are a big part of how Utah probes for weaknesses and ultimately generates advantages they can exploit.

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

Two Jazz wins this week, so let’s hand out the (imaginary) hardware.

Jazz 122, Warriors 108: Rudy Gobert. Gobert and Conley finally got their chemistry working, and Mitchell had a very complete game. Any of those three answers would be correct, but I went Gobert. He scored 10 of the Jazz’s first 19 points, and finished with 25 overall on 11-for-12 shooting. And here’s a plot twist: the Jazz’s offense — yes, offense — was best when he played. His ORtg for the game was a game-high 129.2. Mitchell’s night was a tidy 23-8-6, and Conley scored an efficient 22 (6-for-11) and had no turnovers against his seven assists.

Jazz 119, Nets 114: Rudy Gobert. There were a lot of candidates here, starting with Mudiay and Green who scored more than half of the Jazz’s fourth quarter points (10 and 9, respectively, of the team’s 35 in the frame) and put Utah’s starters in a position to win. Mitchell had a 30-point night, and both O’Neale and Ingles did great defensive work on Irving. But Gobert was the most important player down the stretch — on both ends. All Nets were a combined 6-for-24 against Gobert’s defense, including more than a dozen plays where he picked up Irving. The all-league guard didn’t score in the paint in the entire fourth quarter, as Gobert routinely turned him and other Nets away from the lane. On the other end, Gobert also scored the Jazz’s two final buckets, part of an 18-and-15 night. Dominant. Superstar stuff. Like most Jazz starters, he wasn’t quite as good early on, but he was the best player on the court late, no matter who had the ball.

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

The Jazz’s unbudgeted loss in Memphis didn’t do much to change their high-level outlook; FiveThirtyEight still has them finishing at 55 wins, tied with Houston for the second seed in the West. Those two, the L.A. teams, and Denver are still looking like the top of the conference, but after that, there are some surprises.

• Is Phoenix real? They have the third best SRS in the conference, and 538 has them tracking to 45 wins — enough for eighth in the conference. Now that their young star Devn Booker has some veteran help, they’ve improved to essentially a league-average defense.
• Minnesota is looking like a fringe playoff team via 538, but they have a negative SRS (-3.15) and are 12th in the conference in BPI. Karl-Anthony Towns is playing like an MVP candidate, but he might need more help to improve Minny’s chances over the next 69 games.
• Speaking of MVP-caliber youngsters, Luka Doncic’s Mavs are as likely to make the postseason as anybody outside the West’s top five, per 538. He’s been amazing, and the Mavs are 7th in both SRS and BPI.
• Portland has been a playoff fixture, but their 5-8 start has Oregon feeling nervous. BPI has them sixth in the conference, but 538 puts them 11th, with just a 23% chance of making it.
• The Thunder, Pelicans and Kings are long shots, per 538, which also gives the Spurs essentially no chance at the postseason. San Antonio is 5-8 despite playing one of the five easiest schedules. 

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

After a few relatively light weeks, the Jazz head into their first 4-in-6-nights stretch of the year.

Monday 11/18, Jazz vs. Timberwolves: Gobert-Towns is always a fun matchup, but since both are playing like top-10 players, this matchup is particularly meaningful. It’s also a good test for the Jazz, since Minnesota is looking like a potential playoff team. They’re the best shooting team in the midrange, an area the Jazz are usually happy to concede. Although Andrew Wiggins’ absence from Monday’s game might make a dent in that pull-up game..

Wednesday 11/20, Jazz at Timberwolves: Taking on the Wolves once is hard enough — getting them two nights later in their gym should make Wedensday’s matchup a tough one. One weakness the Jazz can probe: while Minnesota doesn’t give up a lot of threes, the ones they do concede are good shots. They have the fourth worst 3FG% defense in the league, per CTG.

Friday 11/22, Jazz vs. Golden State: Somehow the Warriors are even more depleted than they were last week when the Jazz beat them by double digits in San Francisco. All-Star D’Angelo Russell hurt his thumb and will be out for two weeks, which makes this Friday home game a must-win.

Saturday 11/23, Jazz vs. New Orleans: Speaking of ridiculous injury reports, the Pelicans are also getting awfully close to needing to suit up a waterboy. Still no Zion Williamson, plus seven other players missed Sunday’s game against the Warriors. That includes Derrick Favors, who has been struggling with back spasms.

Because after all, following a basketball team is supposed to be fun

Easy call this week: Conley got a hero’s welcome in his return to Memphis, and it was heartwarming to watch the reception and tributes for a guy who has defined professional basketball in Memphis.

Thank you for everything Mac

Legendary Moments presented by @budweiserusa pic.twitter.com/8cXYxOEwiv

— Memphis Grizzlies (@memgrizz) November 16, 2019

It would be hard to explain to a modern Jazz fan how much Conley meant to Memphis. The Grizz had averaged 36 wins in their first six seasons after moving down from Vancouver, and then Conley arrived as a lottery pick and slowly started to build up the club into a consistent, gritty playoff team along with Marc Gasol.

There’s just not even a real parallel in modern Jazzdom. He was a Grizzly for 12 seasons, so he was more tied to the franchise than even a Favors or Andrei Kirilenko type. He is the franchise leader in games, points, steals and assists, and for a star player he had a remarkable presence in the community. You would have to go back to the Stockton-to-Malone days to begin to understand what it meant to Memphians when he walked into FedEx Forum on Friday night.

The franchise and fans handled the reunion with absolute class, and it was great to watch his response to the respect paid.

Another week in the books. Seven more things coming next Monday!