Salt City Seven: Guarding the Best, Comfy Conley, Roster Options & More

March 1st, 2021 | by Dan Clayton

Do the Jazz really have a weakness when it comes to guarding big wings in midrange? Their record says no. (via Heat.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.

At 27-7 overall and having lost just three of their last 26 games, the Jazz haven’t had too many off nights. But whenever they have one, it invites another round of collective hand-wringing: is this the game that betrays the weakness in Utah’s armor?

In particular, Utah’s last two losses — and their only two since the start of February — came to Kawhi Leonard’s Clippers and Jimmy Butler’s Heat, two teams led by big playmaking wings. What’s more, the Clippers were red hot on long twos (65%) in their win over the Jazz, while the Heat had one of the dozen or so best shooting performances of the NBA season inside 15 feet but away from the rim (68%). 

So naturally, a thesis starts to form as to the Jazz’s kryptonite.

Kurt’s not being cheeky or dismissive here; as he clarifies minutes later, he believes the Jazz are elite. He just wonders about their ability to defend against that one type of offensive weaponry. Even Jazz fans have expressed similar concerns. Are big wings who can score in the midrange ultimately going to prove Utah’s undoing?

Similarly, when the Jazz fell to Nikola Jokic, people started to wonder whether the Jazz — and Rudy Gobert in particular — were equipped to handle popping/shooting bigs. And when Kyrie Irving’s Nets boatraced  the Jazz in Brooklyn, the talk was about quick scoring guards who can break the paint.

Every Jazz loss — scant though they may be — has led to a discussion about whether that‘s the type of team or player Utah just can’t handle.

But let’s check those various theories against, you know, reality:

Yeah, Kyrie smoked the Jazz. But Utah also bested Damian Lillard, swept Trae Young,  edged Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and so forth.

  • “The Jazz struggle against popping/shooting bigs.” Utah is 18-6 against teams with a big man who shoots 36% or better from three (again, minimum 30 shots, and excluding games missed by said bigs). 

Yes, the Jazz fell to Jokic on Denver’s historic shooting night, but they also defeated Jokic earlier, just took down Nikola Vucevic, and won twice each against Kristaps Porzingis, PJ Washington and Milwaukee’s Brook Lopez/Bobby Portis combo. 

  • “The Jazz struggle against big wings who love the midrange.” Ah, back to those pesky midrange wings. Actually, Utah is 15-3 this season against players whom Cleaning the Glass classifies as “wings” or “forwards” and who shoot 45% or better on at least 30 midrange shots (outside of 4 feet, inside the arc). 

Yes, Kawhi and Paul George beat them recently. But earlier on, they beat those two, along with Tobias Harris’ Sixers and DeMar DeRozan’s Spurs. They have beaten Luka Doncic, Khris Middleton and Gordon Hayward twice each.

(Of note here, since Utah’s loss to Miami helped revive this talking point: Butler didn’t factor into that 15-3 record at all, as he only makes 32% of his midrange twos this season. Butler made 6-of-10 from that range on Friday night, including a runner from seven feet that bounced around the rim before dropping to give Miami a 2-possession lead in the final minute. He had an outlier night taking the exact shots the Utah defense was comfortable giving him. That will happen some nights. The last time the Jazz saw Jimmy, they held him to 3-for-10 shooting overall, including 1-of-6 on 2-pointers outside of four feet.)

So no, none of these player types have been a consistent problem. There have been nights when a particular guy has busted their scheme with superb shot-making, but trying to extrapolate those losses into evidence of an Achilles’ heel might be a reach.

In other words: no, there is no clear template forming for how to beat the Jazz, whether with shooting bigs, crafty guards, or wings with pull-up skills. The formula, to the degree that there is one, is to play really well, try to force a bad shooting night, and hope you get hot from somewhere on the court. For the Clippers, Heat and Knicks, it was outlier nights in the midrange. The Nuggets, Suns and Wolves went bonkers from deep when they beat the Jazz. Brooklyn picked apart the rim defense.

Beyond that, any theory about the type of player Utah can’t guard falls apart when you look at the plurality of nights they did just fine against a similar player. No matter your personnel, the way to beat the Jazz is to simply make shots. And pray they miss a few.

In their own words.

“Utah’s got me… We love it here. I don’t think I can go anywhere else that plays the way we play.”

-Mike Conley

Tony Jones’ recent Conley feature at The Athletic was full of great quotes about Conley’s belief in the Jazz’s trajectory and, notably, his apparent desire to stick around. Conley showered love on the “unique” Jazz and made it clear he hopes to stay past the end of his contract, which expires this offseason.

The bittersweet part of the article is that it also laid out Conley’s desire to make his first ever All-Star appearance — a hope that was dashed hours after the article came out, and then shattered again the next day when it was announced that Booker, not Conley, would replace the injured Anthony Davis as a Western Conference All-Star.

Look, Booker is a deserving player: he averages 25-4-4 as the most schemed-for player on a team that is currently breathing down the necks of the Clippers and Lakers for a top-3 seed. So is All-Star reserve Zion Williamson, a 26-ppg wrecking ball who is one of the game’s most exciting young talents. Chris Paul — whose case is probably closest to Conley’s own All-Star case — has decent enough counting stats (17-5-9, rounded), but has instantly legitimized a club that hadn’t been to the playoffs since before Steve Nash left Maricopa County.

In other words, at a certain point it gets to be a little bit of an eye-of-the-beholder exercise. Conley’s case was a strong one, grounded in his impact on winning. Ultimately, one of these four deserving stars1 had to stay home. Conley drew the short straw. Again.

But be heartened, Utah. The main takeaway from Tony’s piece about Conley is this: the veteran guard senses something really special about what Utah is doing, and he’s interested in continuing to be a part of it. At some point we’ll have some analysis for you on Conley’s free agency options, but this is an undoubtedly encouraging sign.

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

17

The Jazz’s franchise record for made 3-pointers in a game stood at 20 for 356 calendar days before they dropped 21 in Milwaukee in November 2019. They broke that record 257 days later, when they poured in 22 against Denver in the bubble last August. It took them 153 days to beat that record, this time with 25 triples on January 8, the first game of their current 23-3 surge. All of 28 days later, the record fell again, with 26 threes in Charlotte, and then 17 days  after that — this past Monday night — they had 28 at home against those same Hornets. 

Point is, this thing seems to have a half-life, so expect 29 or more threes to come soon… probably very soon.

64.3%

The Jazz are slowly but surely getting back their proficiency at the rim. Through their first 11 games they were the league’s second least accurate team on rim attempts, per Cleaning the Glass, and they were in the bottom quarter of the Association as late as a month into the season. But they have steadily trended upward since their nadir, a 38.9% rim effort in Cleveland that was in the bottom 1% of all NBA games played this season. Now, they’re up to 64.3%, just barely above league average. Gobert has climbed back to 72%, matching his 4-year plateau even as his porfolio grows more diverse in terms of rim finishing methods. Donovan Mitchell (57%), Conley (55%) and especially Bojan Bogdanovic (50%) are still below average at the rim for their respective positional groupings, but those three have also drawn a combined 52 shooting fouls on rim attempts.

And perhaps more to the point: Utah has maintained the second best eFG% in the league despite three of its best scorers still below their norm for rim efficiency.

2

After Shaquille Harrison’s Wednesday release, the Jazz will have two empty roster spots as they head into these final three and a half weeks before the March 25 trade deadline. They will have to sign a 14th roster player within two weeks, either on a rest-of-season contract or to a 10-day if they want to keep their options open and see who might become available via a contract buyout. Buyouts usually don’t happen until after the trade deadline, so Utah might have more options available if they can preserve some flexibility until then.

Some options for the Jazz:

  • Trade for a player using their Ed Davis ($5M) or Tony Bradley ($3.5M) TPEs, or trade for a player playing on a minimum contract, as long as receiving a player in trade doesn’t take team salary above the hard cap of $138.9M.
  • Make a trade where they receive one more player than they are sending out (same hard cap caveat).
  • Sign a player to a rest-of-season deal using the minimum exception or the bi-annual exception2 (including potentially converting one of their two-way players to a standard NBA contract).
  • Sign a player to a 10-day contract and then revisit their options within two weeks after said 10-day deal expires.

To be clear, they must do at least one of those things by March 10. They can ultimately perform two of those operations (or one of them twice), but if they want to keep the buyout avenue open, they need to buy themselves a little bit of time.

$770K

Also, the Harrison waiver likely means the Jazz will not attempt to dodge the luxury tax this season via a maneuver I had previously described. It’s still technically possible, but by waiving Harrison instead of moving him into another team’s cap space or trade exception, the Jazz now how have a $770K cap charge for for the waived guard that they can’t remove from their salary sheet. That makes the likelihood of maneuvering their way under the tax line a bit more complicated.

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

Jazz 132, Hornets 110: Georges Niang. Niang himself used his postgame walk-off interview to cast a vote for Gobert, who was phenomenal defensively and had a season high-tying six blocks, even on a night when Utah had a hard time getting him the ball. But this really came down to a trio of Jazzmen who got Utah on track: Niang (21, 7-for-7 from three), Jordan Clarkson (20 points, 4 assists) and Joe Ingles (21-5-6, 7/11 shooting). The Jazz turned this game with a 26-2 run in the second half, and during that stretch, Niang scored 12, Clarkson scored nine, and Ingles assisted 14. Whoa. Any of them could have taken home the game ball, but the people voted for Niang, and I agree. He also played solid D, and a game ball here would be his first of the season. But also, in a game that largely came down to Utah breaking through from deep with another record-breaking 3-point shooting performance, Niang’s perfect 7/7 from outside is kind of emblematic. (Mitchell also finished with 23-4-8.)

Jazz 114, Lakers 89: Mike Conley. Conley and Mitchell were both extraordinary in an overall sense: 14-8-8 for the former, 13-10-8 for the latter. Conley’s near triple-double came more efficiently (14 points on 10 shots) and in fewer minutes. But mostly, I thought Conley won this one with narrative points. After all of the All-Star chatter, Conley calmly came out and scored or assisted the Jazz’s first 13 points. Gobert was dominant (again) on defense, but also scored 10 of Utah’s points in a 13-0 blitz they used to put the game out of reach in the early third quarter. Royce O’Neale deserves a lot of credit for his defense, and Clarkson and Bogdanovic both made  their shots.

Jazz 124, Magic 109: Donovan Mitchell. The early part of this game was mostly about the Ingles-Gobert pick-and-roll, and the second half was mostly about Mitchell being silly talented. His 25-point outburst after intermission was rightfully the headline from that game, and the battering ram the Jazz used to smash Orlando’s hopes. Ingles was still awesome (17 points, 7 assists, +25) and Gobert visibly impacted Vucevic and was perfecct from the floor on the way to a 12-and-16 double-double.  But Don’s 31-4-6 was just too good to really consider giving the game ball to anybody else. Clarkson (18-6-5) had a balanced night, and O’Neale and Niang were both sneakily impactful too.

Strong in Defeat:

  • Jazz 116, Heat 124: Rudy Gobert. I initially had Mitchell here, but a second look changed my mind. The Jazz guards had rough shooting nights against some really focused Heat defense, but MItchell was ultimately able to push back and give Utah a chance with some unreal shot making down the stretch and a 30-6-3 line. Ultimately, though, the door was only open in the first place due to Gobert’s paint denial. The Jazz held Miami to just one bucket — a 17-foot stepback — in a four-plus minute stretch in the fourth quarter. Without that defensive stand, Mitchell’s late flurry would have been purely cosmetic, and if you look back at that defensive stretch, Gobert was the central figure once again. He also had 15 points (on 7 shots), 12 boards, and made all seven of his free-throw attempts. 

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

Let’s give SCH alum @rgiss11 some love and check on the Jazz via his latest TrueLo update.

Wow. His model has the Jazz holding onto first place… BY SEVEN GAMES! 

What’s craziest about that is that it’s, well, not crazy. FiveThirtyEight actually gives the Jazz the same 7-game cushion. The BPI model at ESPN projects a 5-game Utah lead at season’s close, while B-Ref’s SRS’driven forecast says they’ll finish eight games ahead of the second-place Clippers. That B-Ref model now includes seeding probabilities, and they give Utah a staggering 97% chance at the West’s top seed, and a 0% chance of falling outside the top three.

Next week we’ll roll out the ever popular Western Conference playoff race graphics that grace these pages every year following the All-Star break.

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of Jazz action.

Just two more games before two Jazz All-Stars and Utah’s coaching staff head to Atlanta and everybody else heads off for some rest and relaxation.

Monday 3/1, Jazz @ Pelicans: Utah has already clinched the season series with New Orleans by virtue of consecutive wins back in mid January, despite the fact that Williamson dropped 59 total points on nearly 70% shooting in those two games. The Jazz did a good job guarding Brandon Ingram inside the arc without fouling, and they held NOP to just 33% combined from three in those two games. The Pels have had an up-and-down season since then, but most recently they have lost 7 of 10, due mostly to porous defense (125 DRtg over that stretch).

Wednesday 3/3, Jazz @ Sixers: Philly’s Ben Simmons pounded his way to 42 points the last time he faced the Jazz. Expect this game to have a significantly different feel to it, though, as All-NBA big man Joel Embiid is expected to partcipate. He missed the President’s Day tilt, and has still gone head-to-head with Gobert just five times in his career. (He holds the slight edge, 3-2.) Embiid gives opposing defenses all kinds of problems: he’s a 41.5% 3-point shooter, but he can also overpower you inside. He’s a more complete scoring threat than he has ever been, as evidenced by his 30-point scoring average,  second in the league. This will be a tough one for Utah to conclude its first-half schedule.

Sunday 3/7: NBA All-Star Game: We’ll find out on Thursday whether Jazz coach Quin Snyder will team up with one or both of Mitchell and Gobert on Team LeBron, or if the Jazz triumvirate will get split up when the two team captains select their squads. Either way, the trio’s participation should bring even more recognition of the season the Jazz are unleashing on the rest of the NBA.

Random stuff from the Jazz community.

Fun, you say? Jordan Clarkson is fun.


That’s a wrap on seven more days of Jazz basketball. In next week’s SC7, we’ll start looking at the playoff race graphics, and we’ll have an update on Gobert’s block list. Don’t miss it.

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