Salt City Seven: It’s the Defense, Did Utah Overcorrect Their Identity, Playoff Race & More

Much more than in previous years, opposing teams are finding their way to the rim against Utah’s defense. (Melissa Majchrzak via espn.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

“It starts on defense for us, being more physical. Come out with an edge that we used to have… If we want to be a champion, if we want to be one of the best teams in the league, it’s gotta be who we are.”

-Jazz All-Star Rudy Gobert, via KSL.com’s Ryan Miller

Simply put, most of what is plaguing the Jazz right now starts on the defensive end.

They lost two more games since reconvening after the league’s break for All-Star weekend, and sub-average defense was again a key in both games. San Antonio rattled off 112 per non-garbage time possession, and then Houston pounded nearly 118. Utah’s defensive efficiency has been below the median in 10 of their last 12 games, a stretch during which they’ve limped to a disappointing 5-7 record, and falled from second place in the West all the way to No. 5.

They just haven’t been bothering people. They have had 10 straight games where they were in the bottom third of all NBA games this season in terms of forcing turnovers (per stats site Cleaning the Glass), and overall their defensive turnover percentage is second lowest. They also have the fifth worst defense in the league on plays when their own turnovers turn into transition possession for the opponent.

But the main problem is that the exterior defense has just been far too porous, and that’s allowing teams to put pressure on the rim in a way previous iterations of the Jazz never had to deal with. Their opponents have shot better than average at the rim in eight of 11 games. Already this season, they’ve had 14 games where the rim defense was in the bottom quartile for the season, per CTG. They had 13 such games last season.

In all, they’ve slipped from the third best team in rim field goal defense… to 17th. Most of that deterioration is due to how Utah’s outside defenders perform at the point of attack.

Utah knowingly traded in some defense for offense when they remade their roster over the course of 2019. After being mired in the middle for years, they clearly needed more creation and shot-making on their roster.

But as more opposing teams just job around Utah’s first line of defense and beat a path to the basket, it’s fair to ask: did Utah maybe overcorrect?

Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic are macro upgrades over the players whose roles they inherited — Ricky Rubio and Jae Crowder, respectively — but those acquisitions didn’t come without a defensive sacrifice. It’s not even necessarily their fault; it’s partially just physics. Neither Bogdanovic nor Crowder is the poster child for staying in front of guys with lateral movement, but Crowder is at least a harder guy to move around because of his build. And Conley is a high-IQ player who contests well and adheres to schemes, but he doesn’t have the size or length of Rubio. That makes him less able to disrupt passing lanes, but it also means that shooters can get clean looks even when he executes a textbook closeout.

Still, those two aren’t the bulk of the problem. They’re borderline stars who make Utah better overall, even though they don’t impact the defensive end as much as their predecessors.

But Utah wasn’t done there.

They added Emmanuel Mudiay, hardly a defensive stopper, at backup point guard. Mudiay has a big body and has gotten better defensively since joining the Jazz, but still winds up in opposing guards’ rear view mirrors way too often. They promoted Georges Niang and Tony Bradley up the depth chart, both minus defenders overall. The additions of non-paint protecting big men Jeff Green (later waived) and Ed Davis (out of the rotation) didn’t pan out.

Then they ended the calendar year by acquiring Jordan Clarkson, and that’s the most interesting one for this conversation because the wiry guard is a perfect microcosm of this whole offense-defense tug-of-war. Clarkson has undeniably helped the Jazz pull their offense out of the mud since arriving in a December trade, and he has been one of the hottest bench players in the entire league over the last month. But on the defensive end, he is still a bit lost.

Two months into his Jazz tenure, he’s still unsure of where to be on many plays, is surprised by really routine ball screens and cuts, and just generally lacks the instincts of a plus defender. Take this play.

That’s a whole lot of defensive mistakes in an 8-second clip. First, he comes to show on the ball but doesn’t actually seal off the driving lane, so now James Harden is into the lane and the whole defense is compromised. Then, Clarkson ball watched (from one pass away, mind you) instead of actively guarding Eric Gordon or trying to ball deny. Then, he’s surprised by a totally predictable PJ Tucker screen, and completely dies on the pick. Rough eight seconds there.

Against San Antontio, he got (rightly) roasted on the broadcast for sagging 20 feet off a shooter to make an unplanned help on Gobert’s man. 

Smart teams will sniff out mistakes like that and just keep picking at the scab. And they’re not just coming from the newly acquired scoring specialists. We could find clips of roster holdovers Donovan Mitchell and Joe Ingles getting toasted in the last two games, and even Gobert gave up consecutive baskets to LaMarcus Aldridge simply because he jogged back while the Spurs center sprinted, sealing his position deep in the paint.

Simply put, the way they’re guarding right now is not going to work as playoff defense. And since Utah employs a lot of specific coverage schemes when they face unique offensive teams — like small-ball Houston or the midrange-happy Spurs, to name a couple — the opportunity for mental mistakes seems to multiply.

Look, the Jazz needed to get better offensively. They just had to. After firing blanks in a too-short postseason, it was clear that Utah needed a bunch more creation and shot-making on their roster. Players like Conley, Bogdanovic and Clarkson are undoubtedly huge gets in that department.

But now it’s on those players and others to improve defensively, individually and within the team construct. The defense needs to tighten up or else all of that added firepower on the other end of the court will just come out as a wash.

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

Let’s check in on the playoff race.

Going into February 24 games. New Orleans looms just 1/2 a game back of Portland, too.

Utah needs to make some hey in the next seven games. Boston, whom they’ll face both home and away during that 7-game stretch, is the only opponent they’ll see between now and March 8 who has a winning record, and their average opponent record is .436 for those seven games. They won’t face another team in this playoff battle until March 11, at OKC.

But make no mistake: their recent home losses to Houston (twice) and Denver really hurt them in the quest for homecourt advantage in the playoffs. They’ve already lost the tiebreaker to Houston, and it would be nearly impossible at this point to wrest the tiebreaker away from Denver. Utah’s best shot of avoiding an underseed now is to catch the elite Clippers. Otherwise, they’d need to pass the Nuggets or Rockets completely — a tall order in both cases. Denver has a 2-loss cushion on them, and while Utah and Houston tied, the Rockets’ remaining schedule is far easier than anybody else on this board.

The race for eighth is interesting, too. Memphis’ 4-game lead in the loss column may not be enough given its brutal closing schedule, and New Orleans is surging.

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

55.4% to 45.4%

Before losing to Houston on Saturday, the predictive model at Basketball Reference gave Utah a 55.4% chance at capturing a top-4 seed in the Western Conference playoffs. After the home defeat, which also clinched the tiebreaker for Houston should the two teams finish with the same record, those odds dropped by a full 10%. It’s obviously very early, and those numbers will continue to shift in either direction as the remaining 26 games play out… but it just shows how important that game was if one single outcome could shift Utah’s odds of homecourt advantage by that much.

For the Rockets’ part, they went into that contest with just a 45.7% chance of being a top-4 seed, and those odds sat at 66.7% on Sunday, meaning that one win (and some other Western Conference results, like the Clippers losing) bumped their chances of securing homecourt by 21%.

In other words, these games are essentially already playoff games.

188.9

Houson was able to score nearly two points per possession when they attacked in transition off live rebounds. That 188.9 ORtg on those plays was especially problematic because of the frequency with which they were able to turn live boards into transition opportunities: 27.8% of the time they secured a missed Jazz shot, they were off to the races.

Also of note: 49% of Houston’s non-garbage time shots were from 3-point territory, one of the highest figures in any game this season, per Cleaning the Glass.

15th

Play type tracking (at least the version that’s publicly available) is a little testy and flawed, but it’s interesting in a directional sense when there’s enough sample. It only measures the endpoint of the play, not the action that really birthed the scoring opportunity, but if you know that, it’s an intersting window into a teams strengths and flaws. Unfortunately for the Jazz, the defensive play tracking has more flaws than strengths at the moment: they rank 15th or worse when the end user of a possession is a roll man (15th), shooter off a screen (16th), P&R ball handler (23rd), transition scorer (25th), putback (27th) or a player receiving a handoff (29th). Those play types combined make up 63.1% of their opponents’ portfolio of possessions, and yet Utah is at or below the median in all of them. That’s troubling for a team that hangs its hat at that end of the court.

They do guard iso scorers well (2nd), but that’s only about 7% of their total defensive possessions. They’re also ninth in limiting points on possessions used by spot-up shooters, and second-best at keeping the frequency of those possessions pretty low.

17th

I wrote this above, but it bears repeating: Utah is currently 17th in rim field goal defense, after finishing third last year. That is a pretty underwhelming number considering that the team has as its interior fulcrum the best rim-protecting big man in the NBA. That variable hasn’t changed, so if you’re trying to solve for how a team drops from 3rd to 17th, you should look elsewhere — in this case, to the sieve-like perimeter D.

+3.8

And yet, for all the Jazz’s troubles, they still reside just inside the top 10 for both offensive (9th) and defensive (10th) efficiency. The L.A. teams are the only other Western Conference teams in the top 10 in both, along with the Eastern elite of Milwaukee, Toronto and Boston. They also own the league’s eighth best Net Rating at +3.8.

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

Splitting the switch

With three Jazz-Rockets contests in the last month, we’ve talked a lot about what Utah can do to combat defenses that switch every pick-and-roll, which can have a neutering effect on the action that most of the Jazz offense is built around. If Utah gets lined up across from Houston in a playoff series for the third straight year, we’ll undoubtedly talk about it some more.

There are a lot of ways to counter that switching, including some very simple ones. The screener can slip down before the switch is complete, forcing backside defenders to make a tough choice. Or ball handlers can attack without a screen; both Ingles and Conley did a great job moving the defense with solo drives that created the same types of collapsing helps that P&R plays usually generate.

But let’s look at another: Jazz guards splitting the switch.

The screener’s man on each of these three plays is waiting on the other side of the screen to pick up the ball handler — Mitchell on the first one, Conley on the other two. But because of the angle they’re at while waiting to execute the switch, they often leave a sliver of daylight. So whenever any kind of gap existed on those switches, the Jazz guards would dart right through it. First, you see them “sell” that the switch worked, and continue to dribble out around the perimeter. Then, with a well-timed cut back to the middle and the slightest crossover, so get by the switcher and into the teeth of the offense.

It’s just one more option to keep in their arsenal for when they face that particular type of defensive scheme. 

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

For the second time this season, the Game Ball committee gets the week off. No Jazz wins since our last installment of the SC7, so this section sits depressingly empty this week. Cue the sad trombone.

The Jazz have three games in the next five nights as they complete their current homestand before getting back out on the charter plane next week.

Monday 2/24, Jazz vs. Suns: The Suns’ new veterans — including Jazz alum Ricky Rubio — are helping the kiddos figure out how to play team basketball. Phoenix leads the league in percentage of field goals assisted (66%) after finishing last season just below average. Perhaps not coincidentally, Devin Booker is having his most efficient season in his 5-year career. As their newly minted All-Star goes, so go the Suns; they’re 13-4 in games where Booker drops at least three triples, 10-30 in all other games.

Wednesday 2/26, Jazz vs. Celtics: The league’s fifth best offense and third best defense is no joke. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are having their best seasons ever, and Kemba Walker is in the middle of his second-best outside shooting campaign because of all of the offensive threats to share the defensive attention. Gordon Hayward is also looking much closer to his old Utah Jazz version: he’s averaging 17-7-4 on 51/38/87 shooting. They have the fourth best halfcourt defense (behind the Raps, Bucks and Lakers) because of all of the big, switchable bodies they can shift around based on matchups. This one will be tough.

Friday 2/28, Jazz vs. Wizards: Washington has been flirting with competency lately, at 5-4 over their last nine. Only one of those games came on the road, though, and they haven’t beaten a top-10 team since besting Denver and Boston in consecutive home games in early January. They’re a bit of a one-man show right now, but that one man is playing some electrifying hoops: Bradley Beal just dropped 53 in a Sunday loss in Chicago, and is averaging 36 points (on 25 shots) over his last 13 games.

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

“What didn’t I enjoy?”

👊 @rickyrubio9 pic.twitter.com/iEFCgHabs4

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) February 24, 2020

Jazz fans are going to have a couple of interesting opportunities to try on the “Always a Jazzman” approach for size this week. Rubio and Hayward are players who absolutely defined the identity of the Jazz teams they played on. They were central in moving the team forward after a rebuilding period, and yet a lot of fans chose to focus on their limitations. One way or another, both are back this to, umm, reconnect with the fan base that once celebrated them, often misunderstood them, but undoubtedly benefited from what they helped build.

That they’re visiting Salt Lake in consecutive games will likely accentuate the different emotions Jazz faithful still pack around for each guy. Hayward’s tumultuous departure obviously stands in sharp contrast to the still well-liked Rubio, from whom the team simply decided to move on. Perhaps that’s why Hayward received an icier reception in his lone game back as a visitor since his 2017 exit. Rubio has yet to face the Jazz as a member of the Suns.

It might be time for Utah’s fans to move on from the rancor around Hayward. The team has smartly retooled since he left, currently has a pair of charismatic All-Stars, and has used the flexibility of not having Hayward on their books to go after the likes of Conley and Bogdanovic. Of course, being a fan is an emotional experience, and some will still harbor some resentment over Hayward opting off of a rising team with a unique identity. There will be some boos. That’s fine. But sooner or later, the still-jilted few will realize the Jazz are in great shape without their former All-Star and the sharp feelings will fade.

One thing’s for sure: you can’t write the modern history of the Utah Jazz without including the words Hayward and Rubio.

That wraps another week in Jazzland.