Salt City Seven: Jazz Survive PG Crisis, Mitchell Comes Up Big, DHOs & More

January 14th, 2019 | by Dan Clayton

Mitchell had a big week despite added responsibilities. (Melissa Majchrzak via utahjazz.com)

The Salt City Seven drops every Monday 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.

“(Friday) night (versus the Lakers) was a really emotional game I think, because guys felt that a couple of guys were out. They knew they needed each other. And then to come back again and do that again on a back-to-back is hard. I thought we kept our focus.”

-Jazz coach Quin Snyder, in his postgame presser after his team won its third straight on Saturday night

Without a doubt, the story of the Jazz’s week was the club finding itself extremely shorthanded on the guardline, and the way the remaining healthy players reacted, winning three straight games by an average margin of 13. The level of competition helped them weather the absences, but don’t discount how hard it is to pile up wins playing without a starter, two important rotational guys, and 2-3 depth pieces.

The Jazz had only 9-10 regular roster players available for each of their wins this past week, and the need was most acute at the point guard spot. Regular floor generals Ricky Rubio and Dante Exum suffered injuries last weekend, and after a game filling in for them as a provisional starter, reserve Raul Neto joined them in street clothes after tweaking his own hamstring/groin. Thabo Sefolosha, a capable veteran who usually buys the Jazz big men a few extra minutes of rest each half, was also out.

With the team down three point guards, the Jazz could have looked into some emergency roster gymnastics to find outside help in the form of a more traditional point guard option, but they (smartly) chose to instead rely on their guys. That meant Donovan Mitchell would have to both initiate a huge chunk of the offensive activity and then also function as its main output option, and that Joe Ingles would have to take on more creation responsibility in addition to his regular offensive and defensive duties. The Jazz basically decided to trust in the nine regular roster players they still had standing and improvise to make it work.

That it worked to the tune of 3-0 helps justify the decision, but I like the message that sent regardless, the vote of confident Jazz brass showed to not look for solutions elsewhere. Mitchell, Ingles and others would have to play outside and beyond their usual roles to make it work, but it sounds as though they understood what that meant about the organization’s belief in their ability to get through a sub-optimal situation.

“We came out with the same mindset — every guy gotta step up,” starter Derrick Favors told the Salt Lake Tribune. “We had a couple guys who had to play multiple positions tonight, and things were a little different, but we just came out with the mindset that we wanted to win.”

And win they did, primarily with a great defensive effort. They had D-ratings of 98, 88 and 103 against the Magic, LeBron-less Lakers and Bulls, respectively. It was important for Utah to be able to rely on its dominance on that end given that offensive production would look a lot different.

The Jazz didn’t play a single non-garbage time minute without one of Mitchell or Ingles on the floor to run the show, even before Neto joined the injured ranks. Rookie Grayson Allen (ankle) made it back on Saturday and helped as the nominal point guard by bringing the ball up the floor, but it was still the DM-Joe duo that was responsible for the lion’s share of the pick-and-roll action. 

The results were great both offensively and defensively when the Jazz had both of their creators on the court. They ran into issues with the offense whenever it was down to just one of them — we’ll come back to that later in this SC7 edition — but all told, they got enough offense out of those makeshift lineups to let the defense carry them to wins.

They’ll have to keep grinding through the adversity, and against better competition. Their week starts with no changes to the injury report, although some of their embattled guards should be reevaluated early this week. At the very least, they’ll face the Pistons at home on Monday without any help from returning players, and there’s no telling if anybody will be back in time for Wednesday’s visit to the Clippers.

 

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

100

Amid concerns about how he’d deal with the increased responsibility thrust on him by injuries, Mitchell turned in scoring performances of 33, 33 and 34 to level off at the century mark in the first three games of Utah’s homestand. He also joined Deron Williams as the only Jazz players since 1996 (Karl Malone) to have a streak of three games with 33 points or more1. Over the past five games, he’s averaging 30.4 points, 5.6 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 48-48-82 shooting numbers. 

89

As much as the talk this week revolved around Point Donovan, the reality is that the Jazz offense has looked shaky whenever either of Mitchell or Ingles was running the show without the other one. In the two games without a true point guard available, the Jazz’s O-rating averaged out to 89 whenever one of Mitchell or Ingles was on the court. When Mitchell sat and Ingles ran the O, the offense produced just 88.2 points per 100 possessions, thanks in large part to 46 percent true shooting (23 minutes). When Ingles sat and Mitchell was in charge, it was a 90.3 O-rating with 48 percent true shooting (31 minutes).

Luckily, both the offense and defense were pretty spectacular in the 39 minutes when both played: 122.7 O-rating, 63 percent true shooting as a team, and a spectacular plus-35.1 net rating.

But be warned: neither guy has been able to run the offense to overwhelming success yet without the help of the other.

22-41

For the sake of completeness, we should reference Utah’s lone loss of the week. They were actually up 80-73 in Milwaukee on Monday night, but then got outscored 22-41 at the end. The game plan — specifically, Rudy Gobert guarding MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo — worked well to gum up what usually makes the Bucks great on offense. Utah just ran out gas late, missing too many bodies at the end of a road trip.

50%

Someone who made the most of the unfortunate injury situation: Royce O’Neale. The defensive wing had been teetering on the edge of the rotation, but responded when pressed into additional duty. He averaged nine points and seven boards for the week, but most importantly, he got some confidence back as a spot-up threat, making nine of 18 threes.

 

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

DHO & Counters

The Jazz love incorporating dribble hand-offs (DHOs) into their offense. When a player takes the ball from his teammate while running around that teammate’s screen, it basically creates a lot of the same options as a basic pick-and-roll, while giving the guy who starts without the ball a little more freedom to decide how and where to attack.

Here are a few examples from this week of how the Jazz run DHOs, and how they can counter different things the defense does against them.

This one is a guard-to-guard DHO, where Mitchell uses Gobert’s screen, but then runs straight into a DHO with Ingles. But because of the timing on the play, Ingles gets to play “follow the roller” here. Because Gobert rolled against the switch on the initial screen, and because Ingles followed his same path after taking the hand-off, the guy who would normally step up to contain Ingles’ drive is a retreating defender. Eventually, Brandon Ingram figures out the play, but by that time, Gobert’s in the “dunker” spot, and Ingram has to choose to either give up the lob or the open floater. He chooses the latter, and Ingles obliges.

But far more often, the Jazz run the DHO with a big out front. Gobert gets a lot of assists and screen assists this way, just pitching to a wing who either attacks the lane with a defender on his back, or goes straight up if the defender goes under. On Saturday night, the Jazz kept catching the Bulls trying to sneak under the DHO screen early, so a couple different times the Jazz player would stop just short of the screen instead.

That’s one smart way to counter passive DHO defense. Against the Bucks, though, Utah came up against the opposite: aggressive defenders overplaying and even denying DHO. Watch Milwaukee try to take away two separate DHOs, one for Ingles and the other for Neto. On this play, the Jazz were ready to counter that denial.

Ingles’ man denies him the angle to get the DHO pass from Gobert. At that point. Gobert is either supposed to pivot and look for someone coming from the other wing, or wait for the guy in the corner to come up to the ball. When Eric Bledsoe halfheartedly tries to overplay the Gobert-Neto DHO, Neto just cuts hard backdoor, and Gobert whips an impressive pass to him. Help comes over, and Favors realizes that his man has left him a free path to the cup. It’s a beautiful outcome here — four passes in just under five seconds — and it starts because Milwaukee is afraid of the Jazz’s DHO.

 

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

Jazz 106, Magic 92: Donovan Mitchell

Spida made this easy. Not only did he turn in another in a string of spectacular lines (33 points on 21 shots, seven assists, four boards), but he came out swinging when the Jazz were down 17 at the half. He started the second half 3-for-3 in a matter of minutes, exerting the pressure that would help Utah claw back. Then when it was still close late, he sealed the deal. Utah led 90-88 with just over four minutes left, and from there, Mitchell engineered a 10-1 run (it became 12-1) with a ridiculous three, a coast-to-coast layup off a rebound, assists to Ingles and Jae Crowder. 

Jazz 113, Lakers 95: Donovan Mitchell

 O’Neale (17 points) rightly got some love from readers after claiming some of the narrative points with his spot-up shooting throughout the game. But when a team’s MVP have flat-out dominant performances, that usually takes the cake, and both Gobert and Mitchell were flat-out dominant. Much of the game revolved around L.A.’s inability to do anything about Gobert, who posted another double-double (12 & 18) and was superb all night at guarding two or more Lakers to contain pick-and-roll situations. Ultimately, I went with Mitchell, who dominated in his own right. The narrative heading into this game was around whether the Jazz would have enough playmaking to weather the absence of three point guards, and Mitchell answered that with nine assists, an efficient 33 points, 4-of-5 from deep, and a plus-18. And he ended Javale McGee. Favors and Ingles were also great and each posted a double-double.

Jazz 110, Bulls 102: Rudy Gobert

We could have easily just kept it with Mitchell, but instead let’s spread the love around and recognize a near triple-double (15-16-8) by Gobert. The Stifle Tower did all his usual stifling (0-for-6 rim defense, two blocks), plus he tied Mehmet Okur for the most assists by a Jazz center (8) since 1984. He scored 15 points on just six shots, his passes led to another 21 points, and his 14 screen assists produced another 34. Mitchell was once again superb (34-6-6), and Ingles and Kyle Korver were both really important in this one.

 

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

After 44 games last season, the Jazz were 11 games behind the No. 3 Spurs and 10 games behind the No. 4 Timberwolves. They wound up passing both teams. They were also still five games out of the playoff picture.

Now, with 44 games behind them this year, they’re in much better shape relative to the Western Conference. They trail the first-place Nuggets by fewer games (7) than the deficit they made up last year over the Spurs and Wolves. Heading into Monday’s action, they’re only four games out of third place (as opposed to 11 at this point last year) and only three games out of homecourt (as opposed to 10). And they still have the easiest remaining schedule of anyone in the race.

There’s far less ground to cover for Utah to become relevant in the conversation for a top seed in the WC. But they certainly need to get and stay healthy to capitalize on the chance.

 

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

Utah has one more left in its current homestand, but after a quick jaunt down to California, they’ll be back in the friendly confines of Vivint SmartHome Arena for four more. 

Monday: Detroit at Utah, 7:00 p.m. MT 

  • State of the Pistons: Detroit’s season is in danger. They beat the Clippers on the road on Saturday, but before that they had lost seven of eight, and their offense struggles.
  • Jazz-Pistons: The Pistons held an 18-point lead over the Jazz on January 5, and then let Mitchell’s team charge from behind to take a 110-105 victory. It was Utah’s fifth straight win over Motor City.
  • Key for the Jazz: Attack the paint. Despite starting two traditional bigs, Detroit ranks dead last in opponent FG% at the rim. 

Wednesday: Utah at L.A. Clippers, 8:30 p.m. MT

  • State of the Clippers: Doc Rivers’ team is hanging on to fifth in the West, despite the fact that they haven’t beat a winning team since December 28 (0-3).
  • Jazz-Clips: This is the first of three meetings between the teams this year. The Jazz took last year’s season series 3-1 after hastening the breakup of the CP3-Blake era Clips with a 7-game playoff defeat the prior year.
  • Key for the Jazz: Defend without fouling. The Clippers lead the league in FT rate.

Friday: Cleveland at Utah, 7:00 p.m. MT

  • State of the Cavaliers: The Cavs are a really bad team, as evidenced by their recent 12-game losing streak. But their Sunday win over the Lakers — which dropped L.A. into an eighth place tie with Utah — is evidence that you can’t completely overlook them, either.
  • Jazz-Cavs: This will mark the first visit back to Salt Lake City for both Hood and Burks since the Jazz traded one last February and the other in November. The pair made things interesting early in Utah’s January 4 trip to Cleveland, but the Jazz pulled away, 117-91.
  • Key for the Jazz: Basically, just show up and play hard. If the Jazz execute with force, they can get whatever they want against Cleveland’s league-worst defense. 
 

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

Let’s end on a couple of career milestones. First for Favors…

…and then for Snyder.

That does it for this week. Seven more bits of Jazziness come your way next Monday.

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