Salt City Seven: Last in D, Rookie Run & More

The Jazz rank last in defense this season. (Rick Egan via sltrib.com)

Every week during the regular season begins here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring 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. 

A quick exploration of a big-picture topic

Thirty games in, the Utah Jazz are currently on pace to be the league’s worst defense for a second straight year. They currently rank last in defensive efficiency, which is probably to be expected for one of the league’s four youngest team’s by minutes-weighted and usage-weighted age.

Still, it’s probably worth spending some time to figure out exactly what is holding the Jazz back  as they allow 119.4 points per 100 possessions. Here are a few issues contributing to their defensive woes, with some reasons for mild optimism thrown in as applicable.

Inability to force turnovers. The Jazz hardly ever turn their opponents over: just 11.9% of their foes’ possessions end in turnovers, the second lowest figure in the league, and the figure from Cleaning the Glass that excludes garbage time actually ranks dead last. Only one player who’s qualified for the leaderboard averages even a steal a game (John Collins), where other teams have, on average, more than three such players past that threshold. Also, the Jazz as a team have only drawn 36 offensive fouls all year. The Jazz keep talking about how the cohesion is improving, but even over the last eight games, their defensive turnover rating is not getting any better.

Opponents are outperforming their expected shot value. The Jazz actually force their opponents into the ninth hardest shot diet, per CTG’s “Location eFG” stat. The problem is that teams then outperform that expected mark against the Jazz. In particular, Jazz opponents shoot much better than expected on twos: 69.2% at the rim and 46.5% from midrange.

But there is some good news here in terms of a foundation: Utah does a good job of forcing opponents to take the right kinds of shots, including limiting them to the third lowest proportion of rim attempts (29.5% of their opponents’ shots come within four feet of the basket, per CTG.

Jazz mistakes -> opponent points. The Jazz also obviously have their own turnover problem on offense that makes defending soundly that much more difficult. No team’s opponents generate a transition scoring opportunity more often than the Jazz’s, with 19.8% of possessions starting with a transition play.

But this is not just the product of turnovers; even Jazz misses turn into transition opportunities for their foe almost 40% of the time, an absolutely bonkers figure that is nearly seven percentage points higher than the next closest team. Luckily, Utah is a good offensive rebounding team (third best), but when they don’t secure the board, their opponent is most likely sprinting 94 feet in the other direction. Utah allows a league-worst 23.2 fast break points per game.

And it’s not like Utah’s defense is only bad because of fast-paced opponents, either, because…

Halfcourt woes. Utah also sports the worst halfcourt defense in the league, at 102.6 points per halfcourt possession, outside of garbage time. This is honestly probably mostly about a young team struggling to apply a scheme with precision, because Utah has the lowest proportion of opponent shots that are “tightly” or “very tightly” guarded: just 40.7%.

Schedule. To be fair, Utah has also played a pretty tough schedule, both in general terms and as it related to opponent offensive strength.

In addition to having played four more road games than home, the Jazz also have played 13 games against teams with a top-10 offensive efficiency, 9 games against the middle 10, and just 7 games against the worst 10. Their defense has been sub-average relative to all three groups, but it might be making the overall defensive product look slightly worse than it is that the Jazz have played nearly twice as many elite offenses as bad ones. That will even out eventually, at which point Utah might move into “regular bad” territory and away from “worst in basketball.”

On all of these fronts, those are some trends to keep an eye on at that end of the floor. Utah’s relying on a lot of young players, and oftentimes those players are precisely the ones who struggle the most with scheme application and adherence. Utah’s not exactly aspiring to a deep playoff run this season anyway, but it’s still interesting to see how Will Hardy goes about laying the foundation even during a 7-23 season.

Telling or interesting words from Jazz people

“Just continuing to get stronger and keeping more consistent with my shot… You got Joel Embiid, you switch onto him and it’s like, ‘Alright, left me go lift after the game.’ Definitely just getting stronger… The biggest thing for a skinny guy like me, you have to consistent with what you’re eating and then lift all the time… but that’s what it takes to progress.”

-Cody Williams on his focus areas 

Now that the Jazz’s lottery rookie is back from the G League and playing with grown men again, it’s increasingly obvious that nothing matters to his long-term development more than building up his body. He has the same listed weight as Sexton. who’s four inches shorter, but it’s not just a weight thing, it’s about dealing with contact. As a starter against the Sixers, he lost control of the ball on his first touch as soon as a Philly defender made the slightest contact, and minutes later, he coughed up a rebound upon contact.

(He also had a gliding layup and an athletic finish later on, as well as mutliple boards… it’s not all gloomy.)

But it reminded me of what the Clayton nephews and nieces want to introduce a complicated new game at holiday gatherings. They’ll explain it, and the befuddled adults will invariably arrive at, Let’s just go around once as a practice round so we can see how it goes.

Williams is sort of at that stage of his career. We can obsess over his sub-30% shooting, or the fact that he only uses 11% of possessions while on the floor, the lowest of anybody with at least his minutes. But this is sort of his first go-around just to see what the NBA feels like inside the lines. He even acknowledged on Sunday that his body transformation probably won’t really start happening in earnest until the summer.

“It’s hard during the season to put weight on, but they’re trying to keep me strong,” Williams added. “That way during the offseason is when I can really start putting weight on and lifting heavy.”

In other words, it could be a while before he’s not just ricocheting off of bigger bodies. This will take some patience.

Stats that tell the story of the week

24

Hat tip to Will Hardy, who came to the postgame presser in Portland with this gem: Utah allowed 23 Blazer points at the rim through three quarters and then 24 in the fourth. Portland’s 50-36 paint point advantage was one of the only things that kept them in it despite Utah’s 18-point edge on points scored from beind the arc.

+7

Jazz-Sixers was just the seventh time this season a team lost a game after exceeding the other team’s number of made field goals by seven or more. Obviously the culprit in that one was the 29-13 deficit in freebie points, and the 22-21 Philly advantage in points off turnovers was a familiar bugaboo as well.

63.3%

Hardy spoke before Jazz-Sixers about how Lauri Markkanen has really been “hunting threes” (in a good way), and then the Finnish forward went out and got 15 outside shots off. In the month of December, 63.3% of his field goal attempts were from outside, up from 57.4% previously. His efficiency has dipped some as he’s tried to force the issue, but even a relative slump for Lauri is still pretty good: he’s at 57% true shooting (league average is 57.4%) over his last 12, after starting out at 65.2%.

15

Utah’s up to 15 different starting lineups used this season. That’s because each of their preferred starters (post-Taylor Hendricks injury) has missed at least some time. Markkanen and Keyonte George have missed five games each, Walker Kessler missed six, and John Collins has missed four since being reinserted in the starting five. Collin Sexton hasn’t missed games, but did come off the bench twice while Hardy tinkered after Hendricks’ bad fortune.

Dissecting a Jazz scoring play from the week

Smart teams are ready with quick counters to different opponent schemes, and the Jazz had a couple of wrinkles pre-loaded into their game plan on Saturday. For example, the Jazz had multiple scoring plays that resulted from the same little tactic against switching defenders.

On both these plays, Utah knows the switch is coming so they have the screener open up early to keep the defender on that guy’s shoulder. First, Jordan Clarkson did it to essentially screen for Sexton, enabling the latter to use his first step to get deep into the defense and engage Joel Embiid so that Kessler can slip behind for a dunk. A few plays later, Markkanen is the screener, and he also keeps the switched defender on his left shoulder, but it’s so he can roll all the way in.

Quick bonus play because I liked how quickly Clarkson recognized the 2-3 zone and broke it apart with a smart cut.

Philly likes to defend with Embiid as static as possible. He’s a good defender when his feet are planted, but he doesn’t like to cover a lot of ground these days. So the Sixers put a quick zone in front of the Jazz to give Embiid a break from guarding all these actions, and JC immediately sniffs it out. The whole time, he’s directing traffic, and as soon as Kessler catches on and engages the wing defender with a simple screening action, Clarkson heads to the spot in the zone that he knows will have a crack in the defense. He knows this will force Paul George to lift out of the corner, and then all he has to do is gauge whether Kessler will have a better shot at the rim or Markkanen in the left corner. Since Embiid wants to stay home, he flips the ball to Lauri for the Jazz’s biggest lead of the night.

Recognizing the best (or most memorable) performances from each Jazz win

The Jazz had two close losses since our last installment, with plenty of high performers to choose from.

Strong in defeat:

• Jazz 120, Blazers 122: Lauri Markkanen. I think the Finn is the only real answer here. Sexton’s 11 assists tied the max by a Jazz player this season, but he didn’t have his usual shooting efficiency, and Drew Eubanks and Johnny Juzang both had impressive spurts in low minutes. Honestly, Svi Mykhailiuk might have as much of a case as anybody with his 18-point explosion over 12 minutes of the second and third. But Lauri was solid throughout (25, 6 and 3 steals), and we probably shouldn’t overthink this one given his eight clutch points including a game-tying three.
• Jazz 111, Sixers 114: Brice Sensabaugh. In literal game MVP terms this should probably have been Sexton (20–6-8) or Markkanen (23, although his second half was quiet). Even Clarkson has a strong case with 17 including several key buckets when the Jazz were otherwise stuck. But Sensabaugh was right in the ballpark with those three and also gets “story of the game” points. Regular readers know I don’t always like to give this to the “random spark” guy, but Brice played 25 minutes and closed the game, and his playmaking was legitimately a key ingredient, more so than a player just hitting three straight threes or had a big quarter or whatever. He had 20 points (on nine FGAs), plus five rebounds and two assists.

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of action

The Jazz wrap up the year by facing another recent MVP, then head east to start 2025.

• Monday, December 30: Jazz vs. Nuggets. The Jazz just battled with one of the two consensus best big men in the league, and now they get to face the other. Reigning MVP Nikola Jokic is having another downright silly year, nearly averaging a triple double while leading the league with his 48.7% 3-point percentage. That said, Denver as a team has still been a bit wobbly of late as they deal with rotational injuries; they’ve split their last six, and will face the Jazz at the tail end of a 4-in-6-nights stretch.
• Wednesday, January 1: Jazz @ Knicks. The Jazz will spend New Year’s Eve in the Big Apple, which might be the best defense a team could dream up. Utah beat the Knicks in their previous meeting behind one of Markkanen’s best games (34 and 9), but the Knicks have won eight straight heading into Monday and have a pretty full complement now (minus the injured Mitchell Robinson). They have a +7.3 net rating when their big three of Jalen Brunson, Karl Towns and Mikal Bridges are on the floor together, and those three have combined for just over 71 a game during this win streak.
• Saturday, January 4: Jazz @ Heat. Depending on how seriously you take reports of Jimmy Butler’s “trade preference” (or for that matter, Pat Riley’s coarse dismissal thereof), Miami is the capital of NBA drama at this exact moment. Butler’s currently posting his lowest scoring average in ten seasons, but Tyler Herro has exploded with career highs almost across the board. They’ll host the Jazz as part of a 5-in-7 stretch, and also right before heading off on a 6-game western trip that actually includes the SLC rematch.
• Sunday, January 5: Jazz @ Orlando. The Magic were looking way ahead of schedule at 15-7, and then the injury hammer dropped. Stars Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner have matching oblique tears, and then Wagner’s brother Moritz suffered a season-ending ACL tear. That has left Jalen Suggs as the only double-digit scorer still available, but the Magic have still picked up some wins here and there (5-7) because of their league-leading defensive rating.

Random stuff from the Jazz community

I commented in the Portland game when Drew Eubanks smashed home an alley-oop to reach 2,000 career points, which was pretty cool since he’s from the area and his parents were in attendance.

Here are some other Jazz players approaching milestone numbers:

• Sexton’s next bucket will put him at the 7,000-point mark for his career.
• Markkanen should cross the 8,000 mark sometime in the next month. He’s 199 away.
• Clarkson just hit exactly 600 steals. Also, at his current rate of 1.8 threes per game, it would take him 41 games to overtake John Stockton for #3 on the franchise ranking for made threes.
• Markkanen needs 63 threes to move into the top 10 for the franchise, and Sexton needs 23 to reach the top 20.
• Kessler needs four block for 400.
• Svi Mykhailiuk needs seven more threes to reach 400 in his career.
• If Patty Mills plays enough to get three more assists, he’ll be at 2,000.

Enjoy the last of 2024!