Salt City Seven: Jazz Flat in Gotham, Dominate the Bucks, Plus The Wink, Game Ball & More

January 11th, 2021 | by Dan Clayton

After speaking up about getting the team back on track, Mitchell liked what he saw in Milwaukee (Game still)

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.

It’s easy for Jazz fans — or fans of nearly any franchise, really — to feel frustrated when they see signs of the team’s potential in big wins against elite opponents juxtaposed against disappointing defeats to humbler teams.

It feels like (and is often described as) inconsistency of focus and effort, or an unconscious tendency to “play down” to a lesser foe. And there might be some of that at play. The Jazz looked flat against the Kevin Durant-less Nets and then the perennially mediocre Knicks, but somehow led for nearly 48 minutes against the contending Bucks. Without mind reading ability, it’s impossible to say for sure what’s going on inside the noggins of 17 Jazz players to lead to such disparate outcomes.

“Look, we have a tendency as a fan base to kind of go crazy during a 4-4 start,” Jazz star Donovan Mitchell said in a now-famous postgame chat, first relayed by KSL’s Ben Anderson. “During my four years, you know, we’ve had stretches like this… At the end of the day, we’re going to do this.” 

Here’s one possible factor that doesn’t get as much attention: preparing tactically for an opponent is a lot easier when you know how they play, and contending teams by nature have more of an established identity. Perhaps part of the reason the Jazz look inconsistent against lesser teams is because those teams are less consistent, too. It can be harder to prepare from an X-and-O standpoint for an opponent who doesn’t necessarily do the same things, scheme-wise.

Take the Milwaukee games. The Bucks know what they want to do from a defensive stanpoint, and they do it very well. Their philosophy is to protect the rim at all costs, even at the expense of leaving shooters free. The Jazz knew that, and ball handlers like Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley were prepared to trigger that defensive collapse and then find open guys dotting the perimeter.

This approach still could have backfired if those open shots didn’t fall, but because they went in, the game plan looked genius. Jordan Clarkson also found spots in the paint where he could reliably get to his floater beccause of Rudy Gobert’s roll gravity, and Royce O’Neale and Bojan Bogdanovic did a great job moving to open spots. Because the Bucks do the same thing on defense night after night, the Jazz were able to figure out exactly where they could get clean shots, and then make them.

Detroit isn’t very good, but they too have a set of defensive principles. Dwane Casey has them playing aggressively at the top, putting pressure on passing lanes even when that might leave the last line of defense vulnerable. It’s the inverse of the Bucks’ defense, but once again, the Jazz knew that was going to be the Pistons’ approach, so they could plan for it. Watch Joe Ingles get two early triples with easy counters to Detroit’s high pressure.

First, O’Neale recognizes the aggressive closeout, so he’s ready to make a catch-and-go move. This obligates Ingles’ man to help out of the strong side corner, leaving Ingles wide open. On the second clip, Ingles’ man tries to deny the pass out front, so he simply flares out behind a Derrick Favors screen, turning the defender’s aggressiveness against him as now he’s trailing the play thanks to an on-target pass, again from O’Neale.

In both cases, the Jazz showed up at Fiserv Forum and Little Caesars Arena knowing what kind of defense they’d face and how to attack it. In a way, those games were won long before tip-off by advance scouts and coaches who identified those weaknesses and the tactics to attack them. Jazz players still had to execute with precision and get the shots to go down. But it started with a winning strategy.

The Knicks don’t really have a solid defensive identity yet, though they’re working to establish one under veteran coach Tom Thibodeau. And any identity the Nets may have was rendered moot for Tuesday’s game, as Durant sat and rookie coach Steve Nash completely reorganized his rotation after the Jazz had already had their shootaround. In those two games, the Jazz tipped off without really knowing what they’d be facing. While the weekend games were largely about executing a set game plan and then getting shots to drop, the two games in the Empire State required the Jazz to first take the extra mental step of sussing out the scheme and then solving for it on the fly.

That’s not an excuse for dropping the Gotham games. If the Jazz want to be great, they need to get better at quickly adjusting to unexpected defensive gambits, or responding when an opponent toggles between schemes. They’ve had success doing that at times, but there are nights when it takes them a bit too long to wrap their collective heads around what is happening and where the counters are. Then there are games where the Jazz have a great game plan but the shots don’t fall. None of those outcomes mean they’re constitutionally flawed. It’s just how basketball goes. The win goes to the team with the best combination of a solid game plan, precise execution and shot-making.

The Jazz also scheme differently for individual opponents for the same reason, although they do within certain core defensive tenets. In the season opener, they came armed with a specific set of strategies designed to take the ball out of Damian Lillard’s hands, and they employed similar tactics to show Clipper forwards Paul George and Kawhi Leonard different looks and extra bodies. Eventually those well-coached teams tried adjusting, but the time lost sniffing out the Jazz’s defensive scheme put those squads in a hole to start the games.

Frankly, this is often behind that “wounded animals” cliché we hear when a team is successful without a star who defines the way they play. If you know Russell Westbrook is going to handle the ball for 40 possessions, you can come up with a Westbrook-specifc approach for guarding the other team that may or may not be successful. But when suddenly Westbrook (or Durant, or James Harden, or Steph Curry, or whoever) is out, now the whole identity of your opponent by nature has to change. Losing a star is an obvious talent downgrade — but an enigma upgrade. It’s not that the aminal is wounded, it’s that it’s a different animal now, and the opposing team has to figure out what you even want to do without your main creation engine on the court. (The Jazz will deal with this on Tuesday when they face the Wizards without Westbrook.)

So if the Jazz occasionally look more focused and precise when they take on better opponents (Portland, LAC, Milwaukee) it might not mean they’re taking everybody else lightly. Those teams’ strong identities might just be simplifying the Jazz’s preparation, because they know what to expect and how to push back. 

In their own words.

“I’m not saying we are expecting this to click at some point. We’ve got to do the work…

“I’m not worried, but it’s definitely something where it’s like: OK, we gotta do it.”

-More from that postgame soliloquy by Mitchell after the loss to New York

The nice thing about Mitchell’s version of a “we’ll be fine” speech is that he backed it up with stellar play. For the week, Mitchell averaged 27.3 points, including 30-4-5 on 63% true shooting in the Jazz’s weekend wins. He looked spectacular against Milwaukee, putting his whole arsenal of moves on display but also playing a smart floor game. After a slow start to the season, he’s basically back at his career levels for scoring, passing, and shooting, and just a notch or two below career norms on the glass and from the free-throw line.

Conley’s strong play allowed the Jazz to weather Mitchell’s mini-slump to start the year, and now that they’re both playing well, the Jazz have a lot of ways they can hurt teams.

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

1:34

That’s the total amount of time Utah trailed in its weekend wins over Milwaukee and Detroit. They were behind for exactly 94 seconds in Milwaukee, until O’Neale pulled them even at 5-5 by banging in a 3-pointer, and the victory in Detroit was a wire-to-wire win, even though they let Detroit cut into a 20-point margin and hang around late.

+36 (and -10)

The Jazz outscored the Bucks by a whopping 36 points from behind the arc on Friday night during their historic deluge from 3-point territory. They also lost by 10 in paint points, the natural byproduct of Milwaukee’s wall-off-the-paint defensive strategy mentioned above. 

58%

One thing the Jazz are still struggling with: accuracy at the rim. Per Cleaning the Glass, they’ve only had one game all season where they shot better than the league median from the restricted area, and in two games this week (Bkn and Det) they missed a staggering HALF of their rim attempts. For the season, they’re at 58% excluding garbage time (league average is 63%), a bottom-6 figure. The worst culprits so far have been Mitchell (46% at the rim) and Bogdanovic (45%), two guys who should figure it out sooner or later.

70.6%

Also per CTG, O’Neale is in the 98th percentile among the league’s wings with his 70.6% effective field goal percentage. That’s because 74% of his shots are coming from 3-point territory, and he’s converting half of those, not counting garbage time or heaves. (His raw 3pt% is 48.8%, by the way.)

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

Jazz 131, Bucks 118: Donovan Mitchell. The wink alone was a pretty good sign that he’s back. Mitchell had a pep in his step we haven’t seen all season as he picked apart the Bucks with elite moves and perhaps his best floor game of the season. At halftime, it felt pretty obvious that Clarkson was on his way to collecting his first game ball, with a 23-point half (he finished with 26). Then you all made a great case for O’Neale, who had a superb all-around game with 18-8-6 and also spent time guarding each of Milwaukee’s three stars. But ultimately, those storylines just aren’t as big as the development of getting THIS version of Mitchell back online: 32 points, five rebounds, seven assists, and a confidence and comfort level we just hadn’t seen yet. Conley was surgical once again with 17 points and 10 assists, and Bogey quietly got his 20-5-3 for the game. 

Jazz 96, Pistons 86: Mike Conley. Conley edged Mitchell by being slightly more efficient (22 points on 13 shots) and did enough other stuff (five rebounds six assists, two steals) to claim the fake Spalding. But both guys were superb again, despite the fact that they (and the rest of the team) went cold in the second half. Gobert’s late stops held off any last hope by Detroit, but it feels weird to give it to him in a game where he shot 1-for-5 and missed two thirds of his free throws. He (19 boards) and Favors (14) were both absolute glass-eaters, though, and Clarkson (18 poitns) once again did his thing off the bench..

Strong in Defeat:

  • Jazz 96, Nets 130: Mitchell. The first indication that Mitchell was coming alive came in the blowout loss, ironically enough. He had 31 points, 4 boards and 4 dimes in my old neighborhood. Nobody played particularly well in an all-around sense, but Mitchell’s scoring burst was notable, and a sign of things to come.
  • Jazz 100, Knicks 112: Clarkson. The starting unit really struggled in Manhattan. Conley, Bogey and Mitchell all had fewer points than shots. Gobert put up a double-double (14 and 11, with five blocks), but finished minus-18 for the game. Clarkson (19 on 12 shots) and Ingles (16 on 13) played well off the bench, though, and Clarkson 9-point fourth quarter is what kept the Jazz in the game at all after they blew an 18-point lead.

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

    Another week of data on the west’s best teams.

    We established in this space last week that the LA teams and Phoenix teams were projecting just ahead of the Jazz, with Denver and Dallas right behind. Let’s check in on what has happened since then.

    • Dallas (3-0 since last week’s SC7) and Denver (3-1, the only loss coming to Dallas) have leapfrogged the Jazz in Net Rating, Simple Rating and Cleaning the Glass’ non-garbage time efficiency differential.
    • LAC (2-2) has fallen back into the pack in a lot of projection systems and macro indicators. They are 5th, 6th and 6th (respectively) in the three measures mentioned above. But FiveThirtyEight and TeamRankings.com both still have them projected 2nd.
    • New Orleans (0-3) has slipped backward, while Portland (2-1) and Houston (1-2) both saw their chances upgraded.

    The result of all of that: two through nine is now somehow even closer than it was a week ago.

    Looking ahead to the next seven nights of Jazz action.

    The Jazz have another 4-in-6-nights stretch coming up — if the NBA doesn’t vote to somehow alter the course of this unprecedented season in a special Board of Governors meeting to be held Tuesday.

    Tuesday 1/12, Jazz @ Cavs: The Cavs got out to a nice 4-2 start behind their fun “Sexland” duo of Collin Sexton and Darius Garland. But injuries have caught up with them since then. Both young guards have shot-term injuries, but their medical report includes longer-term issues for the likes of veteran Kevin Love and former Jazz guard Dante Exum, who had been playing well on the defensive end for them. They’ve now lost six of their last eight, and their offense ranks dead last in the league. 

    Wednesday 1/13, Jazz @ Wizards: A few short hours ago, the Wiz were 2-8 and facing a week without Westbrook (and a season without Thomas Bryant, who tore his ACL). Then they came out and surprised the Phoenix Suns with a blowout, a solid reminder that sometimes absences change the complexion of a team just enough that they’re almost impossible to plan for. Bradley Beal is averaging 35 for the young season, and will be playing an even bigger role as Russ sits with a calf problem.

    Friday 1/15, Jazz vs. Hawks: Add Atlanta to the list of teams that looks far more flawed after an encouraging start. The capped a 4-1 start by beating the Nets, but then lost four straight before correcting course with a Monday win over the 76trs. Trae Young’s numbers are down to start his third season, and now offseason acquisitions Bogdan Bogdanovic and Danilo Gallinari are both out for a while. All told, five Hawks are currently listed as out, and four more are day-to-day. So at this point it’s hard to foresee which guys will even take the court on Friday in Salt Lake.

    Sunday 1/17, Jazz @ Nuggets: Michael Porter Jr. hasn’t played in the new year, and just entered health and safety protocols on Sunday, making it unclear if he’ll available for this first rematch between 2020 first-round opponents Utah and Denver. Unsurprisingly, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray have been playing well for the Nuggets, but role players Gary Harris and Will Barton have started the year in shooting slumps, and that has left them without a lot of weapons. They have won four out of five, but the wins were against Minny (twice), New York and a Philly team that was decimated by quarantine protocols. In other words, the Nuggets are a hard team to get a read on right now. Jokic, though, is average career highs in points, rebounds, assists, field goal percentage and 3-point percentage.

    Random stuff from the Jazz community.

    There were actually a few different candidates for this section this week.

    • After Gobert played in his 481st Jazz game last Tuesday, our Ken Clayton pointed out, the Jazz have three current players on the franchise top 15 list for games played. Favors is 10th and Ingles is 14th, and with Mitchell under contract for 4.5 to 5.5 more seasons, it seems likely that he’ll join that list as well before it’s all said and done. That makes this a fun time to follow the Jazz; more than any group in Jazz history outside of the Stockton-to-Malone era, we’re currently watching a group of guys that will define the modern Jazz. 
    • Ingles’ streak of regular season games played ended at 384 when he sat out versus Milwaukee on Friday. The last time the Jazz played a game without the Australian playmaking forward was December 16, 2015. For a bit of context on that, Adele’s “Hello” topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, The Force Awakes was still days away from its theatrical release, and Jeb Bush had just made news in the GOP primary debate by telling Donald Trump, “You’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency.” Stephen Colbert was just weeks into his tenure as the host of The Late Show, and Donovan Mitchell was a freshman averaging 7.7 points off the bench for Louisville. 
    • This was fun.

    But ultimately, the winner this week was this snippet from Adrian Wojnarowski’s conversation with new Jazz owner Ryan Smith, where the latter shared just how accidentally he stumbled into the offer process with longtime Jazz owner Gail Miller.

    That’s not how most offer processes play out for billion-dollar assets, but it worked.

    Week three of the Jazz’s regular season is in the books. Join us for more next Monday (and for more analysis & reactions along the way).

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