Salt City Seven: Defensive Urgency, Slow Starts, Ingles On Fire & More

March 22nd, 2021 | by Dan Clayton

It’s been a little too easy lately for opposing teams to score on the once-formidable Jazz. (Brian Babineau via celtics.com)

Every Monday during the regular season, the 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.

A quick dissection of a big-picture topic or burning question relevant to the week in Jazzland.

Whenever the Utah Jazz underperform for a stretch, the evidence can usually be found at the defensive end of the court. That’s certainly true this time around, as the Jazz — despite a 2-1 week since our last Salt City Seven — have split their last dozen games and seen their cushion for holding onto the No. 1 seed shrink to just two games.

“It’s a collection of things,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said when asked to diagnose his team’s defensive performance in Thursday’s loss at Washington. “Just the urgency we have on defense needs to improve.”

Minutes later, two-time All-Star Dononvan Mitchell used that same word: urgency. That points to a growing consensus in the Utah locker room that some of their recent defensive shortcomings come down to mindset, not ability. Utah’s poor transition defense has rightly gotten some attention lately, a byproduct of sloppy offensive execution that has invited teams to run off rebounds and steals to avoid facing the Jazz’s set defense. But even in halfcourt, the results over the past month have been inconsistent.

In eight of their last nine games, Jazz opponents have managed to score 98 points per 100 possessions in a halfcourt setting1. That happened just six times in the previous 32 games. So objectively speaking, there has been some serious slippage in even their ability to limit teams in a set 5-on-5 atmosphere.

Why? There have been no major rotation changes. Their main guys have all been healthy, except for two games Mike Conley missed for injury management. It’s not like those eight opponents were a murderer’s row of hot offenses either; the average rank of those eight teams in terms of halfcourt offensive for the season is 18th, and the best of the bunch was 13th-ranked Golden State.

In other words, there is no obvious reason the Jazz’s hiccup in halfcourt defense, and yet there’s no denying it has happened. Through their win against the Lakers on February 24, the Jazz were the best halfcourt defense in the league at a suffocating 89.8 points. Since then, they are — no joke — sixth worst in the league at 100.8, per Cleaning the Glass.

The Jazz have a unique defensive style that emphasizes the abilities of maybe the universe’s best paint protector, Rudy Gobert. They do some things differently from most teams, largely because they’re playing the math game: they want to limit threes, even if that means inviting opposing ball handlers into the lane, where they’ll have to face Gobert. The Jazz don’t have a ton of obviously net-positive wing defenders, but their system is designed to elevate the effectiveness (or at least mask the flaws) of their wing brigade by enabling them to be more aggressive.

But because of that unique style, when things go wrong for Utah’s defense… they can go really wrong. It’s harder for a single person to carry a defense because defense is by nature a collective enterprise. If four guys are guarding according to a particular game plan and a fifth starts freelancing, suddenly the integrity is lost. Someone misses a switch. Someone doesn’t apply pressure where they’re supposed to. Someone closes out wrong and instead of funneling a shooter into the help, they channel them right into a seam. Someone can take the easy route on an off ball screen instead of staying in the scheme.

“Urgency” is a good word for it.

This level of on-ball defense probably won’t cut it as the Jazz inch closer to the playoffs:

Even typically good defenders need to fight a little harder to avoid getting completely wiped out of the play by a solid screen.

Other times, guys follow the defensive script but still don’t impact the shot much because of sheer physics. Bojan Bogdanovic walls off these drives, stays in front, and contests with his 6-foot-10 frame. But because he elevates a tenth of a second later than Bradley Beal, these pull-ups are money. 

The Jazz can probably live with contested long twos, even though Beal converts these two. It’s the other stuff that’s harder to live with when the whole scheme is designed to leverage five hive-minded individuals to force/deny certain types of shots.

The Jazz make concerted choices on that end, at least on paper. When their players honor those choices with forceful execution, the opponent only has so many ways to beat them. That’s why in their first 32 games, they only had six nights where an opponent shot above league average BOTH from 3-point territory and at the rim. It has now happened in five of their last nine. When opponents get to have their cake and eat it too, that’s the sign of a collective burp in the defensive game plan. Even in the Jazz’s Friday win, the Raptors shot 69.2% at the rim and 46.5% from deep. That’s a pretty big burden to put on your offense if you have to simply outgun a team that can score at will wherever and whenever it wants.

It’s way more likely that the Jazz will clean this up than that they won’t. Nothing has really changed from a personnel standpoint from those first 32 games where they were stout to these last nine. It’s just about doing it. 

“That just comes with focus,” Mitchell said on Thursday, “I’m not sure we’ve had the past few games. We’ve just got to step up. At the end of the day, we’ve got to communicate, keep the ball in front of us…

“Just gotta pick it up.”

Keeping track of the Jazz’s place in the wild, wild West.

With just under two months left in the regular season, just eight games in the loss column separate one through eight in the hypercompetitive Western Conference.

With just under two months left,

The Jazz no longer have the easiest remaining schedule; that honor now belongs to the No. 8 Mavericks, who don’t have a single road game remaining against a team currently in the top 10 for winning percentage.

Among teams realistically vying for homecourt, though, Utah still has a softer two months ahead. They’ve also performed as well as anybody against the other teams in this group, at 8-3, and the schedule also owes them some home-heavy stretches. Eighteen of their last 31 will be in the Beehive State. 

But it’s impossible to talk about the playoff race this week without talking about the tectonic implications of the LeBron James injury in L.A. The top-3 MVP candidate will be out indefinitely for a Laker squad that’s already without Anthony Davis. At this point, a fall to the 4-5 matchup (or worse) is more likely than not, according to projection sites like FiveThirtyEight and B-Ref. That could mean the Jazz would have to deal with a theoretically healthy (by then) Laker team in the second round.

Portland managed to stay in the hunt without CJ McCollum, who’s back now, and also could be gettign Jusuf Nurkic back in a week or so. Denver’s surging and still has an easier-than-average remaining schedule, although all of their games left against teams above them in the standings are away dates. And finally, based on schedule strength discrepancies, don’t be shocked if No. 7 San Antonio and No. 8 Dallas swap spots at some point.

In their own words

“We have to realize we haven’t accomplished shit. We get upset when people laugh at us on TV and disrespect us but it’s on us to have respect for ourselves and understand that we’re not the not the champions. We are not a team that can just cruise.”

-Gobert, on the team’s recent inconsistency

There’s not a whole lot to add to this spicy quote, which comes to us via the Deseret News’ Sarah Todd. The Jazz still probably don’t get the respect befitting a team that has held the No. 1 seed consecutively since February 2. But to Gobert’s point, approval from the TV crowd isn’t really what they’re battling for, either.

As illustrated in our main section above, the Jazz have probably been guilty lately of deciding which nights they want to work hard. And their All-NBA player reminds them here why that won’t work.

After the Jazz blew an 18-point lead in New York, Gobert famously mused that losing to the Knicks was a win in the long term because it reminded the Jazz how they have to play to be elite. The Jazz went on a 20-1 tear after that. Maybe this recent malaise will serve as a similar reminder of the urgency and focus the Jazz need over their last 31 games and into the postseason.

Stats that tell the story of the Jazz’s week.

0.76

Why do NBA players still try to take Gobert 1-on-1? Let me help you out, ball handlers of the league: IT’S NOT A MISMATCH! Per the NBA’s play type data2 iso scorers guarded by the Stifle Tower at the end of the play score just 0.76 points per possession. His opponents’ effective field goal percentage on those types of play is just 39%, and he only commits a shooting foul once on every 25 such plays. And yet we keep seeing guys try to take him on. There are people left on this earth who still think Gobert is “just” the world’s best rim protector, but the reality is that he does just fine checking guards, too. 

98.0

Over the Jazz’s last eight games, their first-quarter offensive efficiency is just 98.0 — second worst over that span in the entire NBA. Their 102.3 over their last 12 is fourth worst. Simply put, the Jazz are letting teams punch first. Utah’s read-and-react system does sometimes require them to take a little time to figure out the opponent’s defense and determine where their shots are going to come from. But they need to figure out a way to open games stronger. That starts with Mitchell, whose TS% in the first quarters is an anemic .403 during this 6-6 stretch, and his net rating in those opening frames is -15.0. (Their first-quarter defense hasn’t been great either, at 17th in the last 12.)

.732

Joe Ingles is at a red-hot 62% from three since the All-Star break, which has buoyed his true shooting percentage up to a league-leading .732. As our own Jake Lee was first to point out, that would be the highest single-season TS% in history if it held up. We won’t belabor the point since we talked a lot about Joe’s role last week, but yeah: the dude needs to be as involved as the Jazz can without running him into the ground. 

.517

Speaking of shooting… there has been a lot of handwringing about Bogdanovic’s recent slump, and rightfully so; he’s had some clunkers in there. Overall, though, his TS% over that stretch is actually .593 during this 6-6 span, which is actually above both his season and career marks. Meanwhile, somewhat quietly, Utah’s electric sixth man and scoring machine Jordan Clarkson is the one who is struggling to score efficiently: .517 over the last 12. They have similar turnover rates, and Clarkson’s overall usage (28.5%) is half again what Bogey’s is (19.6%). So you’re right to suggest that one of Utah’s best scorers is mired in a shooting funk; it’s just not the one everybody’s talking about.

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

Two wins this week, plus one “strong in defeat” consolation prize to hand out:

Jazz 117, Celtics 109: Rudy Gobert. Ingles and Clarkson both provided huge shots in the arm when the offense needed to get unstuck, and Mitchell was superb late, scoring or assisting all 9 clutch Jazz points. But Utah got in the driver’s seat mostly because of Gobert’s two-way dominance. The Jazz opened the fourth quarter on an 18-7 run, during which Gobert had 7 points, 3 rebounds, 2 blocks and one defensive stand after another. The Celtics’ star wings tried isolating him on switches and came up empty, and when Boston tried intentionally fouling him at the end, he calmly sank four straight freebies to ice the win. In all, 16 points (on six shots), 12 boards, 4 blocks, +14. The Jazz also got active minutes from Derrick Favors,  and all four of the rotation ball handlers had great stretches. 

Jazz 115, Raptors 112: Donovan Mitchell. Gobert led the popular vote based on the perception that he shut down the Raptors late, and he did have some amazing sequences. But this game wasn’t actually won on the defensive end; far from it actually, the Raptors actually scored 22 points in the final 6 minutes, including eight straight productive possessions where Utah could not get a stop. Not that I’d have a problem giving it to Gobert (who had 15 & 16), but to me it was Mitchell who won this game with a late surge. After the Raptors went up 5 with 1:36 to play, Don powered a 10-2 run by scoring eight straight of his own. Ingles couldn’t miss, with a ridiculous 122% true shooting night on the way to 19 points. But I just couldn’t justify giving it to Ingles’ 19-6-5 on a night when Mitchell had 31-6-5 and did what he did in the final 90 seconds.

Strong in Defeat:

  • Jazz 122, Wizards 131: Joe Ingles. We’ll recognize Ingles here instead, after a career-high 34 on another can’t-miss night (8-for-10 from deep). It’s a little crazy that the Jazz couldn’t win even on a night when Ingles and Mitchell combined for 76 points, but that just speaks to the defensive problems we’ve highlighted elsewhere. Mitchell (42 points, 6 assists) would also be a fine pick here, but Joe was far more efficient and Don was a little shakier on defense, where the Wizards shot 7-of-8 while he was the primary defender.

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of Jazz action.

After one more stop to complete their current zig-zaggy road trip, the Jazz get to head home for the next four.  

Monday 3/22, Jazz @ Bulls: Bulls star Zach LaVine is a few miss free throws away from the vaunted 50-40-90 club (his current shooting splits are 53-44-87, rounded). It used to be fair to wonder if he was an empty-calories stat stuffer, but he has taken major strides this year in just about every important way, from per-minute scoring to playmaking to being one of the league’s most efficienct volume scorers. He’s a beast. The Bulls still don’t have a great cast around him, which is why they’ve lost six of 10 with a middling offense (17th) and defense (15th). They’ll also be on a back-to-back, flying back from Detroit while the Jazz waited for them in Chicago.

Wednesday 3/24, Jazz vs. Nets: The Nets won’t have Kyrie Irving on this 3-game road trip, and Kevin Durant also appears to still be a week or so away from returning. Role playing guard Landry Shamet is also out, and Spencer Dinwiddie won’t play again this season. Still, the Nets have plenty of talent to give Utah a test, starting with former MVP James Harden, whom the Jazz know well. The Beard is averaging 25-9-11 since forcing his way to the Nets in an early season trade. Joe Harris is having a heck of a season shooting the ball, Bruce Brown’s versatility and defense gives them some interesting lineup options, and Blake Griffin apparently can dunk again. 

Friday 3/26, Jazz vs. Grizzlies: Ja Morant has been in a shooting slump since the All-Star break, and even at his best he’s not really a 3-point threat. Even with him in a mini-funk (and without Jaren Jackson Jr., who has yet to debut this season), the plucky Grizz are still right there in the playoff hunt. They’ve gotten great minutes from rookie Desmond Bane, the apple of some Jazz fans’ eyes before the November draft and a 45% outside shooter. Meanwhile, Dillon Brooks and Brandon Clarke are having off years from deep, which has opened the door for former Jazzman Grayson Allen to play a bit more at times. 

Saturday 3/27, Jazz vs. Grizzlies: Overall, though, the Grizzlies are just what the doctor ordered for a team needing to recommit to its halfcourt defensive execution. Memphis has the third worst halfcourt offense in the league, and the Jazz will face them three times in four games — pausing in the middle only to face league-worst Cleveland. In particular, Memphis’ offense doesn’t generate threes (29th) or convert them (29th), and they’re only OK at the rim. As long as they limit their turnovers and long misses (Memphis is good in transition), these games should be an opportunity for Utah to realign its halfcourt D.

Random stuff from the Jazz community.

Our pal JazzUniTracker unveiled this cool package on Sunday: a whole new identity concept for the Jazz that marries some of their most successful and enjoyable eras as a franchise.

Make sure you read the whole thread, which explains how he landed on some of these designs and specific color combos. We’re lucky to have JazzUniTracker joining us at SCH this year with his popular Threading the Needle series, and I’m sure we’ll hear more about this and other jersey concepts in future columns.

Thanks for reliving the week in Jazzland with us!

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