Salt City Seven: The Defense is Back, Playoff Picture, Gobert on “Noise” and More

February was quite the month for Donovan Mitchell and his Jazz. (via NBA.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.

The Jazz just wrapped up a pretty convincing February. They won eight of nine games, outscored opponents by a league-best 15.5 points per 100 possessions¹, and by month’s end they had their full rotation healthy for the first time since Christmas.

But the most encouraging development as it relates to their playoff hopes is clear: the defense is back.

The Jazz’s defensive efficiency for the month was the fourth best in the league, and the third best outside of blowout time, per Cleaning the Glass. Getting their paint anchor, 3-time top defender Rudy Gobert, back in action certainly helped, but the return to elite defense even predated his reincorporation into the club’s rotation after a calf injury. In the five February games the Jazz played without Gobert, they held a group of mostly pretty good teams to 102.0 per 100 on that end, and to 108.5 for the month overall.

Gobert has had some pretty sublime stretches since his return, including this past Friday when he repeatedly stonewalled offensive star Luka Doncic on switches. Then on Sunday in Phoenix, he held the Suns to 1-for-4 shooting at the rim.

But this defensive turnaround clearly has more protagonists than just Gobert. Donovan Mitchell has played some of the best defense of his career, and Danuel House Jr. has been squeezing through screens and otherwise pestering opposing scorers. 

But the best evidence of a team-wide commitment to restoring the defensive tenacity might be the transition stats. Transition defense is not about any one guy, and by definition it’s also not about a team facing the established architecture of your core defense or even opponent-specific schemes. Stopping a team’s counterattack isn’t about any of those systemic things, or really even about talent. It’s about being locked in mentally and just playing hard.

That one metric is an interesting barometer for defensive effort from top to bottom, precisely because it’s no one guy’s job. But through January, that was one of the biggest areas where the Jazz’s focus left a lot to be desired: teams scored 128.9 points per possession play, the third worst figure in the league. Only lottery-bound Atlanta and Houston were worse, and the other teams in the bottom seven are also all losing squads: Sacramento, New York, Portland and Orlando. Simply put, a team as good as the Jazz just has no excuse to bleed points like that.

Somebody must have called them to repentance, because since February 1, they have completely refocused in this department. For the month, they held opponents to 107.9 on transition plays. That figure is nearly seven points better than the best season-long transition defense figure, and 15.7 points better than league average on transition plays. That turnaround — from one of the worst to better than the best — is not something that happens by accident. There has been a noticeable commitment to this, as to other defensive areas.

Their halfcourt defense has also held up nicely: 93.3 in February, 92.2 for the season. But that transition defense marker is pretty convincing evidence that the mindset and effort around defense shifted in a significant, intentional and hopefully lasting way, starting nine games ago.

A few other encouraging stats that demonstrate Utah’s defensive turnaround:

• Their defense in the midrange — particularly the short midrange, from four to 14 feet — has gotten a lot more stout, despite the fact that their February opponents have included some very good midrange teams. Teams have shot 42.2% for the season against the Jazz in that range, but in February they held teams to 35.5%.
• Their rim defense has also been better in February, with opponent accuracy at the rim falling from 65.2% for the season to 63.9%. For the season, they’re fifth in limiting such attempts.
• For the season, Utah’s has the fourth best defensive “location eFG%,” per CTG. That means they are forcing the defense to take less productive shots in general.

A restoration of this team’s defensive identity is the best thing that could happen for Utah to bolster its chances at a deep playoff run. That this particular renaissance is being led by the two All-Stars is notable, but the energy and effort in transition shows pretty clearly that this is a team-wide commitment to raising the urgency level.

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

Starting with last week’s SC7, this space is now dedicated to sharing the weekly playoff race graphic showing the status, momentum and remaining schedule of the Western Conference’s best teams.

Six weeks left!

After Utah’s 8-1 February, it’s no longer crazy to imagine them moving up in the standings. Memphis’ schedule strength looks a lot harder than theirs at a cursory glance, but the difference isn’t really that great when you look at their remaining opponents by top/middle/bottom buckets. Golden State also has a rough remaining schedule and has been teetering through their own round of injury woes.

Dallas and Denver aren’t safely in the rear view mirror yet, but Utah’s win over the Mavs on Friday certainly helps. The Jazz now can’t do worse than tying the season series, and the tiebreaker they own against Denver could actually help against Dallas since it likely means they’ll be a division winner, which would be the second tiebreaker in the event that the Jazz and Mavs wind up deadlocked. For those reasons, B-Ref and Inpredictable now give them better than 90% odds at a top-4 seed.

Other observations:

• The Suns’ hold on No. 1 should be firm enough despite Chris Paul’s injury, but they have six road games against current top-7 teams in the West, so the games they win or lose without CP3 will go a long way to determining how this shakes out. They’ll clinch a playoff spot with any combo of four wins or Minnesota losses.
• The Dallas-Denver race is going to be really heated, and directly interests the Jazz since whichever team finishes in front is Utah’s likely first-round opponent. Dallas has an easier average remaining opponent, but Denver has homecourt in two thirds of its remaining games. Dallas owns the tiebreaker there.
• The Pelicans’ strong play since acquiring CJ McCollum has already bumped Portland out of a play-in spot (for now). Could they climb higher? Imagine if they caught Los Angeles, requiring LeBron James & co. to win two road games to qualify for the postseason.

In their own words

“If anything, when people keep talking about you, keep targeting you in some way, it means you’re doing something right. I’m just going to keep trying to be the best Rudy I can be, on and off the court and for my team.”

-Gobert, responding to another round of chatter about him from co-DPOY candidate Draymond Green

At the risk of giving more oxygen to Green’s ridiculous attempts to express disdain towards the 3-time DPOY winner, Gobert’s response to what he called “just noise” was far and away the quote of the week.

It’s honestly weird how proactive Green has been about hunting opportunities to deride Gobert. I mean sure, Kenny Smith kind of set him up to relitigate the whole “can’t cry” nonsense from when Gobert didn’t make the 2019 All-Star team. But on a recent TBS broadcast, the 3-time champion went out of his way to drop some disrespect, all while refusing to say Gobert’s name.

To some degree, this is just Draymond being Draymond. He also recently kvetched about a former teammate, he has ongoing feuds with the likes of James and Kevin Durant, and he recently raised eyebrows by saying he was on pace to be the 2016 Finals MVP before a 1-game suspension gave Cleveland life. He’s just always talking, something Gobert also noticed.

“The more noise, the harder it becomes to take these people seriously,” Gobert added.

Is Green just salty about the man with whom he continues to contend for DPOY trophies? Green was 3rd in voting last year when Gobert won his third award. On Gobert’s previous two, Green ranked sixth both times. So if he just feels like he was robbed of hardware, he’s got a whole lot of other people to be made at than just the league’s premier rim protector.

Should Green have more than one DPOY trophy? Probably, yeah. In the aggregate he has been one of the best modern defenders, period. He’s special defensively, and he reads the court defensively about as well as anybody alive. He should have more to show for a career of game-bending defensive intelligence than a single DPOY, but that’s not exactly how voting works. It’s not a lifetime achievement award, and in most of Draymond’s best seasons, somebody else has had a legitimate claim. So it’s possible to be one of the very best of your generation at something and yet often come in as the runner-up for awards. Jerry Sloan was just named a top-15 coach in NBA history despite having never won Coach of the Year, because every time Sloan was up for the award, some other coach also had a great year.

For what it’s worth, Green’s DPOY finishes in his nine previous seasons were: not one of 21 vote-getters in 2013 (Marc Gasol won), not one of 17 vote-getters in 2014 (Joakim Noah), 2nd in 2015 (Kawhi Leonard), 2nd in 2016 (Leonard), 1st in 2017, 6th in 2018 (Gobert), T-6th in 2019 (Gobert), not one of 13 vote-getters in 2020 (Giannis Antetokounmpo) and 3rd in 2021 (Gobert).

This year, Green is unlikely to win it. Not because he’s not an absolute force on that end — he is. Rather, the games he is on pace to miss might cost him another opportunity this season. He has already been unavailable for 44% of his team’s games, and he may still be weeks away from returning. As a result, Vegas currently has Gobert as the odds-on favorite. 

In any season where both Gobert and Green are healthy, they’ll be among the top contenders for the award. The difference is that Gobert has chosen to make his case inside a 94-by-50 rectangle, instead of campaigning against his peer.

“When you’re great at what you do, you don’t need to talk down on anybody. The world will recognize you for who you are and what you do. That’s my mindset. It’s just noise.”

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

66.7%

That’s Mitchell’s True Shooting figure during a red-hot February that saw him average 28-5-5. He also achieved shooting splits of 50-47-85 and, as mentioned above, also played stellar defense for the most part. Truly a superstar type of month for #45.

79.9%

More TS% figures from the month: both of Utah’s low-usage defensive wings were red hot in February, with House at 79.9% and Royce O’Neale at 69.5%. Trent Forrest (61%) and Jordan Clarkson (56.7%) both had strong months, too.

27-9

The Jazz are now 27-9 in games for which Gobert, Mitchell and Mike Conley Jr. are all available. They’re also 14-3 when all of their rotation players are healthy, something that didn’t happen for 27 straight games between a Christmas night win over Dallas and Sunday’s victory in Phoenix

31

This number is pulling double duty here: it’s the number of threes Bojan Bogdanovic needs to enter the top five in franchise triples… but also, he’s been a little stuck because of a 31.7% February.

.410

Six of Utah’s next seven games are against teams with .410 records or below. The catch: after that, their remaining average opponent record will be .546.

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

The Jazz came out of the break with two impressive wins, so let’s hand out some (imaginary) game balls.

Jazz 114, Mavs 109: Rudy Gobert. When the Jazz’s two All-Stars are playing at this level, deciding game ball is brutally hard. Mitchell was unstoppable on offense and really important to the defense. Gobert was an impenetrable force on defense, and really important to the offense. On the one hand, how can a guy score 33 points on 19 shots (with five assists, to boot) and NOT get it?! On the other hand, Gobert absolutely took over the game with his late defense, in a way that got even the nationals talking. Oh yeah, and he had 14 points, 17 rebounds, three blocks, and shot 6-for-6 including the tying dunk at 107-all and the clinching pattycake layup at 11 seconds left. The two were easily co-MVPs, and usually when that’s the case, the tiebreaker is, “Which one was the bigger story?” On this night, that was Gobert. Bogdanovic was a not-too-distant third with his 18-point night that included the game’s biggest bucket, and Conley had an all-around night with 15-6-5 and 3 steals.

Jazz 118, Suns 114: Donovan Mitchell. House won the popular vote, which I might have been more inclined to abide if I didn’t feel bad about freezing out Don’s 33-point against Dallas. The reality is that Mitchell was pretty easily the biggest catalyst for the win down south, even though House was a fun storyline and a pesky defender who earned extra minutes down the stretch by harassing Devin Booker through screens. Mitchell, meanwhile, had 26 points, five assists, and kept the Jazz connected through a pair of lulls that could have been death sentences if not for the young star. Clarkson would be my personal runner-up, with a 10-point fourth quarter and one of his best all-around games of the season. His 22-5-3 is emblematic of how the Jazz relied on their bench to get past Phoenix. But yes, House deserves a ton of credit for his defense and his two timely threes, and Gobert (16 & 14, 1-for-4 rim defense) was great as usual.

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

Have game, will travel. The Jazz are on the road for all three of this week’s games, part of a 5-game trip.

Wednesday 3/2, Jazz @ Rockets: The Jazz blew the Rockets out by 31 and 34 already this year — and in between those two, they coughed up a 13-point lead to somehow lose to lowly Houston at home, in a game without Mitchell or either bench big. The Rockets are 1-13 since that upset win in January, and Kevin Porter Jr. has been in and out of the lineup with a sore ankle. The Rockets will be playing on no rest after hosting the Clippers the night before, and the rested, healthy Jazz should be wary enough of the frisky Rockets to take this seriously. They’ll certainly run a lot of 5-out offense to try to make Gobert guard in space, but as I wrote last week, the Jazz haven’t struggled in those situations quite as universally as the narrative would suggest.

Friday 3/4, Jazz @ Pelicans: The Jazz won’t quite make it for Fat Tuesday, but they will catch a Pels team that is playing better of late. After going 1-4 in CJ McCollum’s first five games as a Pelican, they have scored impressive road wins in Phoenix and Los Angeles since the break. McCollum is averaging 30-6-6 over his last half dozen games, and Brandon Ingram has had five games with eight assists or more in the past month. Like the Jazz, the Pelicans have just one game this week before the Friday night affair: they’ll  host Sacramento on Wednesday. This is a homecoming game for Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and it also pits the Hernangomez brothers against one another, although neither Utah’s Juancho nor New Orleans’ Willy have been playing much. 

Sunday 3/6, Jazz @ Thunder: OKC has won just five times in it’s last 19 games: three of those required overtime, and the other two were against the struggling Blazers. Lu Dort has missed four straight games, one of six Thunder players currently on the injury report, including precocious playmaker Josh Giddey, who “could miss some time,” per his coach. Dort’s absence may be good news for Mitchell, who had an off night in OKC last November: 13 points on 16 shots in a narrow Jazz win. Former Jazz center Derrick Favors has been playing sparingly of late for the Thunder, and current Jazz assistant Irv Roland is an Oklahoma native.

Random stuff from the Jazz community.

Before we leave February, let’s make sure we tell the fellas we appreciate them using their voices to amplify and celebrate messages of equality.

“You do have a lot to carry and I think a lot of us understand that responsibility, understand that we have to be more than just basketball players.”#BlackExperienceMonth | #BHM pic.twitter.com/GS00hC2b7n

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) February 27, 2022

Six weeks to go. Are you not entertained?