Salt City Seven: Lauri’s Creation, Dog Days, Scoring Surge

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. 

Through December 20, Lauri Markkanen’s 367th career game, the Finnish forward had compiled a grand total of eight games with five or more assists — 2.2% of his games played.

Since December 23, he has had 5+ assists five times in 18 games (27.8%), including this week at Washington. His assist average over that span (2.7) is nearly twice his career average (1.4).

That’s important to the Jazz’s future and to the perception of Markkanen in a league where stars create. We’ll find out this week if the 2023 All-Star will earn a repeat selection, but one of the reasons he’s not a shoe-in despite impressive raw and advanced stats is because some of the frontcourt candidates he’s up against operate more often as the creation hub of their teams’ offenses.

Beyond that, it just makes sense for someone who touches the ball as often as Markkanen to rack up a certain amount of assists almost naturally. Very few players who log real minutes with a usage rate in Markkanen’s ballpark log fewer than 3.0 assists per 100 possessions.

Which is why a really interesting question right now is whether Markkanen’s recent surge in playmaking is an expanding feature in his game, or just a symptom of Utah’s spiking offense.

There’s some simple stuff at play here. For example, he’s been a little gutsier lately about pushing the ball ahead on long outlets.

There are also plays where he’s still technically playing away from the ball, but recognizing on (or even before) the catch that someone is open elsewhere. On each of these next ones, he possesses the ball for less than a second. That’s still not really what you’d call on-ball creation, but you don’t make these passes without being extremely plugged into what’s happening around you and smartly pre-reading defenses:

The more encouraging stuff is the uptick in ball-in-hands creation. That includes when the Jazz put him in the midpost or at the nail and let him read the doubles. This is the type of thing that makes bigs like Domantas Sabonis and Alperen Sengun offensive hubs for their teams.

The Jazz don’t necessarily need to play a whole bunch of slowed down, back-to-the-basket offense to enable this outside the flow of their system, but they can still deploy these easy reads when the opposing defense has hinted that they’ll throw extra bodies at Markkanen.

And then there’s the true on-ball, off-the-bounce stuff Markkanen has done more of lately. All of these are Lauri in the middle of the floor — either on the break, in pick-and-roll as the handler, or isolating against a closeout — putting the ball on the deck to force defenses to react, and then making the right play.

Those are the types of creation sequences that make you start to reimagine Markkanen’s potential to generate offense like most of the league’s superstars do.

It wouldn’t be terrible if Markkanen’s assist totals continued to trend up, but just to be clear: this isn’t just about the stats. The takeaway here is that he has an opportunity to be a more complete offensive force by continuing to play with his head on a swivel like he does in the plays highlighted here. And for what it’s worth, he still also averaged 25 and 9 on 50-40-90 shooting over that same 18-game span… so he can playmake like this and still feast on opportunities himself.

 

“It’s late January in the NBA.

“The initial part of the season has passed, everybody’s a little bit banged up. You know, rumors start to swirl in the media about what’s going to happen with the team and the trade deadline, and everyone’s names are being thrown around. Your mind can drift this time of year.”

-Will Hardy on the dog days of January

This perceptive quote came after a loss (Tuesday at New Orleans), but the insight is useful beyond any single game outcome.

There is a reason people joke about this being the arduous part of the season. It’s not hard to have plenty of physical and mental energy in October and November when you’re legs are still fresh. And people know to buckle down after the All-Star break for that final push. But in between are these, the grey days of January where you’re too far from where you entered or will exit the tunnel to see the light at either end.

“We’ve gotta find a way to crank up the gas,” Hardy also said. “You gotta just figure out a way to become a crazy person with your hair on fire for two and a half hours, and then you can go back to being tired.”

On top of the fatigue element, it’s interesting that Hardy offered up trade rumors as another challenge to this part of the calendar. The Jazz are quite obviously very involved in the rumor mill because of their collection of assets and talent. That Hardy went there voluntarily and proactively likely tells you that he knows it’s affecting at least some guys on the team, as the trade deadline is now just 10 days away.

“I’m always going to try to be very aware of the fact that these guys are human beings and those things are natural,” he said. “But it’s our job to fight our natural instinct.”

 

153

The 153 New Orleans hung on Utah on Tuesday night were the most surrendered by a Jazz defense in nearly 42 years. The franchise record for defensive futility was 158, by the New Orleans Jazz on 3/14/79, and the most a Utah Jazz team ever gave up was 154, on 3/16/82 to Denver, per B-Ref.

63

A ton of those points were scored in transition (35) or on second opportunities (28). Hardy was correct to point out that it’s unusual to surrender 35 fast break points when you only turn the ball over eight times. NOP added 12.6 points to its offensive rating just by attacking off of live Jazz misses. That figure is in the top 1% of all NBA games played this season.

13

Collin Sexton’s 13 dimes in Charlotte on Saturday were a career best.

82

Utah’s 82 first-half points in Charlotte were the most points scored in any half by a road team in the NBA this season. 

22.2%

Building on Hardy’s comments above, this is also generally the time of year when rookies start to feel the weight of an NBA season. The Jazz have now played about a college season and a half worth of games, which is why this is when you start to hear more talk about the feared “rookie wall.” Keyonte George is shooting 22.2% from the field (28.6% from three) over the last five games. However he’s getting to the line 7.6 times per 36 minutes over that stretch, and still has nearly twice as many assists as turnovers. Translation: George will be fine.

 

This week was very much about the bigs.

Jazz 123, Wizards 108: John Collins. Markkanen’s 29-7-5 (with three steals) was a pretty sweet line. So was Collins’ 22 & 16, with +22. Ultimately, what broke the tie for me was the stretch run. In the midst of Washington’s final push, Collins in the course of 90 seconds tips in a Jordan Clarkson miss, tip-dunks a George miss, steals the ball from Kyle Kuzma, boards the next Kuzma miss, and it’s basically curtains. Markkanen adds back-to-back threes to make it official, but at that point it’s cosmetic. You could go either guy, but I’m spreading the love since this might have been one of Collins’ three best Jazz games ever. Kelly Olynyk (19 on 11 shots) was my distant third.

Jazz 134, Hornets 122: Lauri Markkanen. Sexton might have been a slightly bigger reason the Jazz jumped out to their hot start; he scored 17 and assisted 14 of Utah’s points in a 47-27 first quarter drubbing. His second half was a bit more uneven, but mostly I’m going Lauri here because the laws of man, and God, and basketball, and righteousness state that if you get 33-12-3 then you had better be declared the game’s MVP unless someone else saved a baby koala from a falling jumbotron or something. Those two were a game-high +19 and were the clear-cut finalists, even though Collins was again solid with 20 and 10.

Strong in defeat:

• Jazz 124, Pelicans 153: Simone Fontecchio. Nobody played great, and the defense was hard to watch no matter who was on the floor. But the guys who came closest to offsetting those struggles at the other end were Sexton (22, 9/12, 7 assists) and Fontecchio (18, 6/9, made five of six threes to start). Sexton probably did a tad more overall to help Utah’s chances, but Tech’s nine points in three minutes came at a point when the Jazz put their best run together. It’s close, but I’ll spread the love and give it to the pride of Pescara.

 

Because the Jazz have been so hot offensively, there were a lot of choices on which play(s) to highlight. It made the most sense to include action from Utah’s record-setting first half (and Sexton’s career night as a playmaker) on Saturday. In fact, here’s a sequence where they use the exact same setup on consecutive plays, and get a three and a dunk out of it.

Both times, the setup is Sexton on the left wing, a staggered left-to-right screen with Olynyk and then Markkanen, with Clarkson and Collins spacing in the corners.

The first time, Markkanen slips out of the backscreen early, but he doesn’t do it by flaring directly to the left wing; instead, he goes behind the defender. This brings Nick Richards in from the corner, so he’s no longer in a position to zone-cover the weakside. Because Olynyk does stay and set a solid ball screen for Sexton (and because the Hornets were terrified of Sexton’s drives by that point in the game), two Hornets stay in front of the ball, and Markkanen sets up for a three. PJ Washington even recovers OK, but it doesn’t matter because that’s a 7-footer shooting.

Then interestingly, on the very next trip, you see Sexton signaling to the guys to run it back. His little finger motion before the inbound is him saying, “Same play.”

The fellas oblige, and once again it’s Sexton going to work with a double screen to his right (he loves driving right) with Collins and Clarkson spacing. This time both Olynyk and Markkanen set ghost screens, so their guys have to follow them to the perimeter. That leaves Sexton with just one guy to beat, and he gets by Ish Smith easily with an inside spin move at the elbow, so Richard has to come in now. Collins cuts in behind him and gets the dunk, but just in case that gets shut down, you also see Olynyk rush to fill Collins’ empty corner, which is just smart basketball.

Everybody on the court for the Jazz is a threat here, which is why this play works — twice! It’s also why this fivesome has a +14.6 net rating, albeit in low minutes.

 

The Jazz are in this writer’s old stomping grounds to wrap a 6-game road trip, then head home for two of the East’s best. Here are a couple sentences about each game this week.

• Monday 1/29: Jazz @ Nets. All indications are that Ben Simmons will return on Monday after missing 38 straight games. The Nets are 5-17 after topping out at 13-10, even though Mikal Bridges and Cam Thomas are both averaging 21 a night, and Nic Claxton continues to play well.
• Tuesday 1/30: Jazz @ Knicks. New York is 12-2 since adding OG Anunoby via trade, but Julius Randle’s dislocated shoulder changes their reality. That said, Cleaning the Glass has them at a silly +45.7 per 100 in all lineups with Anunoby and star guard Jalen Brunson but no Randle, so maybe they’ll be fine.
• Thursday, 2/1: Jazz vs. Sixers. Embiid didn’t play when the Jazz beat the Sixers by 11 in Philly, and recent injury concerns make it seem not all that certain he’ll appear in the SLC sequel, either. Tyrese Maxey — a solid bet to make his first All-Star team at 25.7 ppg — has also been slumping a bit, at 18% on threes over his last three games before a DNP in Denver.
• Sunday 2/4: Jazz vs. Bucks. The Jazz also got to face a Damian Lillard-less version of the Bucks in Milwaukee earlier this month. The Bucks were also a team in open revolt of their then-coach, so we’ll see if Doc Rivers’ arrival stabilizes this quiet contender. 

Surely you’ve heard by now about Utah’s streak of 11 straight games with 120-plus points, but I don’t think enough has been made of how crazy this streak actually is. Only four such streaks exist in league history, and the most recent was nearly 41 years ago:

How long has it been? Well, that’s Wilt Chamberlain during the season that saw him score 100 in a game, when his Philadelphia Warriors had a logo that looked like it had been scrawled on a cocktail napkin. Then there’s Rick Barry shooting free throws granny-style. And no current Jazz player was alive for Denver’s two 1980s streaks — even Olynyk was years away from being a twinkle in his parents’ eyes. So yeah, these are old-as-hell streaks.

If the Jazz manage to put up 120 in Brooklyn on Monday, they’ll tie for the longest streak of 120-plus games in NBA history. The only teams to come close since the mid-1980s have been last year’s Kings (10 straight) and Celtics (9). Nobody else has put together even eight such games since Karl Malone was at Louisiana Tech and John Stockton was a low-minute NBA rookie.

What’s wilder about this is that the Jazz aren’t even a top offensive team! They’re 15th in offensive rating this year.

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All-Star reserves announced this week!