Salt City Seven: Process vs. Results, Up-and-Down Jazz, Budgeting Wins & More

November 19th, 2018 | by Dan Clayton

Mitchell and the Jazz are focused on effort & energy, not outcomes. (Mitchell Leff via ESPN.com)

The Salt City Seven drops every Monday throughout the regular season, with seven regular features meant to relive the week in Jazzland from various angles. Check in every Monday for the quotes, stats, plays and performances that tell the stories from the last 168 hours in the world of the Jazz.

An important quote from Jazz players or personnel during the week.

In a week that included everything from impressive road wins against quality outfits to an embarrassingly lopsided loss to a lottery team, one quote just couldn’t possibly sum up the week. So here are two that do the trick:

“There was a point where we stopped competing. We all have to own that.”

-Jazz coach Quin Snyder to ESPN after Utah’s 50-point loss in Dallas.

“For us to come out as focused as we did, we showed a lot of character… I think we should be pleased with the effort.”

-Snyder again, this time as relayed by The Athletic’s Tony Jones after a 12-point win in Boston

In the last seven days, Utah dominated the Grizzlies defensively, failed to show up against the Mavericks, coughed up a late run to the Sixers, and then had maybe their most complete win of the season while visiting the Celtics. The week had such sharp highs and lows that Snyder and his players sounded completely different at varying points throughout the week.

But there’s one thing that’s consistent here about Snyder’s comments from Wednesday’s defeat to Saturday’s dismantling of Boston: in both quotes, he doesn’t talk about outcomes at all.

If you pay attention to Snyder’s postgame observations, he almost always directs his comments — whether good or bad — to the things his team can control. In the quotes above, he talks about effort, about focus, about competing. He doesn’t mention the fact that the Jazz had the worst effective field goal percentage of any team in any game this season against the Mavericks. Or the fact that they made 80 percent of their corner threes in Boston. It’s easier for fans and writers to talk about those things, but Snyder almost always prefers to talk about the game from the standpoint of whether the Jazz brought the right kind of energy to their performance and played the right way, outcomes aside.

That’s an important thing to remember when looking at player performances, too. Snyder wants Ricky Rubio to feel confident about taking a pull-up jumper when the defense drops back, encourages Jae Crowder to let fly on those pick-and-pop angle threes, and likes seeing Dante Exum put pressure on the defense by attacking the lane. Obviously he’d prefer that more of those behaviors resulted in points, but part of Snyder’s mindset as a coach appears to be that he’s never going to be upset when a player does the right thing but comes up with the wrong outcome.

Take for example the way he spoke to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon after burgeoning star Donovan Mitchell took 35 shots, went 1-for-11 from three, and failed to log an assist in Philadelphia on Friday. Once again, he didn’t talk about the missed shots or bad decisions, but instead chose to view Mitchell’s night in the context of somebody trying to do the right things and get better: “We know where his heart is as far as wanting to play the right way and being [selfless]. The biggest thing is just having him attack. If he’s not attacking, he’s not in situations where he can improve. I think that’s the most important thing, and then over time, you just become more efficient. That doesn’t happen overnight.”

Also on Friday, Rubio had back-to-back plays where he went out to the perimeter to apply pressure on Sixers sniper JJ Redick. On the first one, he pried the ball loose, got the steal and the Jazz went ahead 107-105 on the resulting Crowder layup. On the very next play, he went for the same steal in almost the exact spot on the floor, but calculated wrong and instead fouled Redick, a 94-percent free throw shooter, in the penalty.

This is classic process vs. results right here. Same exact set-up by Philly, same exact pressure from Rubio. You can’t be happy about the steal and fastbreak layup and simultaneously mad at the foul on Redick when the mindset and process were the same on both plays. Rubio was either right to go for it, or wrong to go for it — on both plays.

Snyder’s comments — this week and at almost every step along the way — are a good reminder that we should judge effort, mindset and focus way more than we pick apart the results.

 

Stats that tell the story of the week or highlight a timely topic.

OK now that I’ve done my aria about process versus results, let’s jump to the stats section… which is invariably about results.

29.7%

Utah remains second worst in the NBA in corner 3-point percentage, despite taking a tenth of their shots from there1. This is an important shot to the Jazz’s offense because it influences how much room the already spacing-challenged lineups involving multiple non-shooters have to operate. On a game-to-game basis, that shot goes a long way to determining the Jazz’s success, and that was true this week. Utah shot 40 and 80 percent from the corners in wins over Memphis and Boston, but didn’t make a single corner three against Dallas or Philly.

50

The Jazz became just the 12th team since the start of the 2000-01 season to lose by 50 or more when they suffered a 118-68 defeat in Dallas on Wednesday. Of the previous 11, only the 2002-03 Celtics and the 2015-16 Grizzlies went on to make the playoffs. And yet… don’t worry too much about it. The margin was 27 (I know, I know, still not great) when Snyder made his garbage time subs in the early fourth. At that point, usually the team ahead settles down a little, but that didn’t happen. The thirsty Mavs stayed after it, and the Jazz “stopped competing,” per their coach. The fourth quarter different of 34-9 helped make a bad loss look like a foundation-rocking loss.

70.5%

Rudy Gobert’s effective field goal percentage is the second highest in the league. He trails only Damian Jones, who has played a little more than half of Gobert’s minutes. Gobert also has defenses scheming specifically against how to stop him on the P&R, and still has managed to score a career-high 15.4 points per outing on just flat ridiculous efficiency.

 

Breaking down the Xs and Os behind a Jazz score from the week.

Hammer wrinkle

The Jazz and other teams use “hammer” action quite a bit to free up their corner shooters. The basic hammer play is a play where a weakside player makes a cut from the angle down to the corner, mirroring the movement of a driver with the ball on the strong side. Sometimes the play even involves a backscreen for the guy making the hammer cut.

You can click here for a couple examples of hammer cuts resulting in threes for Joe Ingles. In both plays, watch Ingles cut to the right corner just as the driver moves toward the rim. That’s hammer action.

But for this week’s X-and-O breakdown, a play caught my eye that was actually a clever wrinkle. As with most basketball actions, there are things that well-prepared teams can try to prevent an offense from scoring off of a hammer cut. But as with any defensive adjustment, there are counters. That’s what happens here, as the Jazz turn the Sixers’ defensive strategy against them. Philly tries to stop the hammer play, so Utah instead gets a layup.

As Rubio drives baseline, Ingles begins to move to the corner, getting help from a Crowder hammer screen. Crowder’s guy recognizes that this is hammer action, and he immediately switches out to the shooter, a smart way teams are defusing that hammer action lately. But Ingles’ original man is now sealed on Crowder’s back — more so because, in this case, Ben Simmons momentarily lost his focus and didn’t see the hammer screen coming. Simmons has basically no chance of stopping Crowder, who essentially slips the hammer screen. He sets just enough of a pick to get his guy concerned about the switch onto Ingles, but then drops to the hoop.

(Want more? While hunting for this one on Sunday evening, I also tweeted about some other things Utah employed frequently this week to score. Utah’s not running anything too complicated these days, but when they find something that works in their regular “flow,” they’ll keep going back to it — like a DHO curl out front that they ran for back-to-back Derrick Favors dunks or a two-man game with a pindown-and-roll into empty space. Enjoy.)

 

After each Jazz win, Twitter helps us decide who was that game’s MVP or most memorable performer.

Jazz 96, Grizzlies 88: Rudy Gobert

Ingles almost stole this one, and truth be told, his night is probably what we’ll remember most about that game a month from now. After fashioning a makeshift headband out of medical tape to stop the bleeding from his brow, Ingles checked back in and set up a Gobert layup, drained the dagger three, and sank a couple of free throws. But Gobert was a monster in the second half. Favors did a great job on Marc Gasol while Rudy dealt with early foul trouble, but then the reigning Defensive Player of the Year appeared after intermission and just dominated. The Jazz had struggled with their pick-and-pop coverage on Gasol in two previous losses to Memphis, but not this time. Gobert was great, challenging the ball handler and then recovering to the big Spaniard. He was also unstoppable on the roll, scoring 15 (to go with 16 boards) on 5-for-7 shooting. The Jazz were plus-24.8 per 100 possessions when Gobert played, and that’s after he didn’t even attempt a shot in the first half. For his part, Ingles had a team-high 19, Favors gets credit for an efficient 12-and-8, and Exum provided pesky pressure of Memphis’ guards.

Jazz 98, Celtics 86: Donovan Mitchell

A fairly easy one. After castigating himself a night earlier for slinging 35 shots without registering a single assist in Philly, Mitchell was superb in Boston. He had 28 points on 48-42-75 shooting, and also logged six dimes, three steals and three rebounds. And even if he hadn’t done all of that, he would still be many fans’ choice after turning away former Jazz forward Gordon Hayward at the rim. The Jazz were already up big at that point, but that play — and the ensuing Favors dunk at the other end — just completely took the air out of the Celtics and their crowd. Nice games by Rubio and Exum, too.

 

A quick look at the Jazz’s next seven nights of action.

No rest for the weary. The Jazz have another 4-game slate this week, and once again they’re all in different cities.

Monday: Utah at Indiana, 5:00 p.m. MT

  • State of the Pacers: Indiana is really good this year. They’re 10-6 overall, and have an elite defense. They grind a little bit, too, with one of the slower paces in the league.
  • Jazz-Pacers: Each team won their road game in last season’s 2-game series. This year, they’ll get each other out of the way early, with a Salt Lake rematch just seven days after this one.
  • Key for the Jazz: Utah will have to execute with force against a defense that’s good at forcing the wrong kinds of shots. But things just got easier on both ends since Victor Oladipo, Indiana’s leading scorer and a solid perimeter defender, won’t play.

Wednesday: Sacramento at Utah, 7:00 p.m. MT

  • State of the Kings: DeAaron Fox (19.0 ppg and 7.0 apg) is ahead of schedule, and therefore so are the Kings. They’re starting to cool down with five losses in their last seven games, but they’re still a .500 team heading into the week.
  • Jazz-Kings: Utah’s season opening 123-117 win in Sacramento looks better now that people know the Kings are competent. Overall, the Jazz have won six straight in the rivalry.
  • Key for the Jazz: Take care of the ball. Sacramento forces the fourth highest turnover rate in the league.

Friday: Utah at L.A. Lakers, 8:30 p.m. MT

  • State of the Lakers: The LeBron-era Lakers are still finding their way. They’re 9-7 overall, although they’ve won seven of their last nine.
  • Jazz-Lakers: Utah has won seven straight since Kobe Bryant dropped 60 on them in his farewell game. But that streak is pretty moot now; it’s the Jazz’s first look at the Lakers since LeBron James signed there as a free agent.
  • Key for the Jazz: No team in the league gets more of its shots at the rim than L.A., which means this is a game in which Gobert’s (and even Favors’) rim defense is going to be key.

Saturday: Utah at Sacramento, 6:00 p.m. MT

  • State of the Kings: See above: the Kings are competent, especially at home where they’re 4-3.
  • Jazz-Kings: After playing twice in a 5-day span, these teams will be done with each other until April.
  • Key for the Jazz: The Kings are a good outside shooting team (sixth in the league in non-garbage time 3pt%), and they’re better at home. They also have good 3-point defense.

Tracking the wild Western Conference postseason race and the Jazz’s place in it.

It’s still a bit too early to watch standings, so let’s instead look at how fans should engage with predictive models.

When people see, for example, that the Jazz are 69% likely to win in Dallas, they treat that as a game they are “supposed” to win. That makes sense, since they are more than twice as likely to win as they are to lose. Since winning and losing is binary, we tend to treat these odds as binary, too. The model says that Utah should win and Dallas should lose, and that’s how we approach that game going in.

But that’s not actually what the model is saying. What it’s saying is that for every three games like that one that the Jazz play, if they’re as good as the model thinks, they can be expected to win two. The same goes the other way, though. If Utah is 40% to win a game, they shouldn’t treat that as a should-lose game; they should treat it as they type of game where they need to win two out of every five to stay on course.

Let’s rethink Utah’s first 16 games through that lens and see where they are. All of the percentages below come from FiveThirtyEight’s game-by-game forecasts.

Rethinking the binary “should win” mentality

So outside of the Memphis games, Utah is roughly winning about the right number of games in each bucket. The Jazz have left some wins on the table so far, but mostly it’s just the Grizzlies — who models probably underestimated based on their injury-deflated performance from last year — that the Jazz need to make up for.

 

Because after all, we’re here to have fun.

We touched on this in the Game Ball section, but nothing was more fun this week than Headband Joe. And specifically, the Discount Double Check he did after nailing a three to put the Jazz up 94-84 in the game’s final minute.

Had the Jazz been home for the week, there’s no way this wouldn’t have become a major thing. Even on the road, fans tried hard to keep the momentum going for #HeadbandJoe… as did Ricky Rubio.

That’s it for this week. Another seven bits of Jazz fun coming next Monday.

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