Salt City Seven: Pure Joy, Pick Watch & Context Behind an 8-3 Start

November 7th, 2022 | by Dan Clayton

The Jazz keep surprising. (Marcio Jose Sanchez via sltrib.com)

Every Monday during the regular season here at SCH begins with the Salt City Seven, with 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.

A quick dissection of a big-picture topic or burning question relevant to the week in Jazzland.

The Nuggets, Clippers, Pelicans, Timberwolves and Grizzlies were all considered virtual playoff locks before the 2022-23 NBA season began. The plucky, surprising Utah Jazz have already beaten all of them.

Utah heads into the week as the Western Conference’s win leader after sweeping a 2-game trip in L.A. At this point, the only Western Conference powers they haven’t bested are the Warriors and Suns whom they haven’t face yet, along with the Mavericks who edged them on Wednesday by a single-possession margin (100-103).

NBA thinkers are still grapping with the question of just how real the 8-3 Jazz are, and one way to figure that out is to look at who they’ve been beating. And while the Jazz’s early list of victim looks pretty impressive through the lens of preseason expectations, there are… umm… caveats. If you pay attention to how the seven vanquished Jazz foes (they beat the Grizzlies twice) have looked in their other games and who was/wasn’t playing, some of those impressive wins do lose at least a little of their lustre.

  • The Clippers have looked mostly pretty pedestrian thus far, with a 5-4 record in their non-Jazz games. Kawhi Leonard has only taken the court twice this season, and they entered Sunday with the worst ORtg in the league.
  • The Lakers have been a total mess, at 2-6 even outside their loss to Utah. 
  • The two Grizzlies wins look more real considering that Memphis is 7-1 against everybody else. But the Jazz didn’t have deal with Ja Morant in the first game, and in the sequel Desmond Bane was out and Morant looked fatigued coming off an illness. (Jaren Jackson Jr., of course, has not played at all this season.)
  • The Jazz won and lost to the Rockets, who are 0-8 in all other games. Third-leading Houston scorer Alperen Sengun didn’t play in either game.
  • The Pels had a healthy rotation when their home tilt with the Jazz got underway, but star wing Brandon Ingram only made it 11 minutes in before a concussion ended his evening, and Zion Williamson left early, too. The game took 53 full minutes to decide, but the Pels are a respectable 5-3 outside of that game. 
  • The Wolves were healthy when they fell — also in overtime — to the Jazz, but they are 5-4 in all other games and their stars are still figuring out how to play together: Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards are -5.1 per 100 possessions as a trio.
  • The Denver win is the closest to a caveat-free victory: the Nuggets are 5-2 against non-Jazz opponents and had all their main guys available when Utah surprised them in the season opener. But it also was Jamal Murray’s first basketball game in more than 18 months, and Michael Porter Jr.’s first in nearly a year.

The sum total of all that is that the Jazz have played a below-average schedule overall (20th hardest per Basketball-Reference,) despite all of the supposed contenders on their schedule.

None of that is the Jazz’s fault. They can’t do anything except play the team in front of them on a given night. The fact that their early opponents have mostly underperformed on the whole can’t really be used against them. Being 8-3 at this point is impressive, full stop.

There aren’t a ton of very stiff tests in their immediate future, either. The Lakers, Wiz and Knicks all project to the play-in range or below (per 538) and Philadelphia will be without James Harden. Atlanta might wind up being good. The bigger tests come later this month: they’ll face Phoenix twice, visit Golden State, and their next visit to Clipperlandia might come after Leonard’s return. 

In the meantime, they keep smoking the teams on their schedule with good passing, annoying defense, and smart shots.

In the words of Jazz players/people

“It’s just us having fun, man. It’s just pure joy. The passion of the game is being let out by each guy. We’re going out there and competing. We’ve got a lot to prove, noboby’s really giving a chance and we know how good we can be. If we work and outwork the team across from us, we know we can be as good as we want to be.”

-Mike Conley Jr., in the walk-off interview after Friday’s win

The Jazz continue to be Team Good Vibes, and nobody put it better than the elder statesman did.

“We’re excited every night we come out. We love the game.”

Key stats that tell the story of the Jazz’s week

53.6%

Let’s start with an absolutely weird stat: Lauri Markkanen is one of just 13 NBA players who have guarded at least 60 shots at the rim this season, his opponents’ percentage on such shots (.536) is lower than everybody in that group except 3-time DPOY Rudy Gobert (.516) past all-defense winner Brook Lopez (.529). That is wild from a player who has never been even remotely considered a rim protector. No clue how long that will hold up, but it’s worth noting that he could get absolutely yammed on in his next 20 rim challenges and he’d still be holding opponents below league average on rim attempts.

75+

On Friday in Crytpo.com Arena, the Jazz became the only team in the league the have more than one 75-point first half this season. (They also scored 75 before intermission in the season opener against Denver.)

.607

Collin Sexton is having the most efficient season of his pro career, with .607 true shooting through Sunday. He is maximizing his shot profile: a career-high 34.5% of his shots are threes (which he’s hitting at a 39.5% clip), and he has attempted just one long two all season. 

31.1%

The Jazz are allowing teams to rebound 31.1% of their misses, the third worst figure in the league. They also allow 24.4 plays per 100 reboundable opponent miss, the highest figure in the league.

+1.38

Per forecasting site inpredictable.com, Kelly Olynyk has impacted his team’s chances of winning more than any player other than Steph Curry. His “win probability added” of 1.38 gives him credit for plays that impact the Jazz’s win odds at a given point in the game based on time, score and outcome. It makes sense: he (104.2%) and Sexton (84.2%) have just flat ridiculous clutch true shooting figures thus far.

Projecting the Jazz’s place in the bigger picture

When the Jazz offloaded stars and started collecting future picks, nobody would have guessed that the least favorable of their 2023 owned picks would be their own. But 11 games in, that’s where things stand.

Pick watching Utah’s three 2023 first rounders.

It’s still ridiculously early for this, of course. But with Minnesota teetering, the drama in Brooklyn and a lengthy injury to a Sixers star, this is worth keeping an eye on.

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

There’s already a runaway Game Ball leader, as Markkanen collects his third and fourth imaginary orbs this week, and Sexton nabs his first.

Jazz 121, Grizzlies 105: Lauri Markkanen. Somehwere in the fine print of the official Game Ball bylaws, it says that if someone piles up 31 points, 11 rebounds and 4 blocks, then they definitely get the fake Wilson unless something truly historic also happened in that game. The Finnisher was one of three Jazz players this century to finish with those numbers. Jordan Clarkson and Conley were superb table-setters once again, and Malik Beasley had his best Jazz game yet, but let’s not overcomplicate this one.

Jazz 130, Lakers 116: Lauri Markkanen. A lot of guys can make a case for this one, but 27-12-4 is big, and even bigger is how Markkanen responded whenever it got close. The Lakers cut it to eight in the mid third quarter, and Markkanen canned a big three and then stole a pass in the Laker paint. When it got to five in the fourth, Markkanen buried another three, then shut down a baseline drive. Hardy called him a “stabilizing force” after the game. Conley was my second choice after a masterful 10-assist game and an 8-point fourth, but Clarkson (20-7-3 and +11), Olynyk (18-4-3 and +17) have solid cases. Sexton couldn’t miss early (7 for  his first 8) but when he lost his touch, Hardy went to Nickeil Alexander-Walker for an important momentum shift.

Jazz 110, Clippers 102: Collin Sexton. Clarkson’s first half (17 points, four threes, +10, mostly while being guarded by Paul George) was just silly, and Conley was superb. But Sexton’s close decided this game. It was 96-all after Kelly Olynyk and Malik Beasley had each sunk a pair of freebies. That’s when Sexton became a wrecking ball just smashing the Clipper defense open. He  drove to earn free throws, then obliterated George with his killer first step on the way to an and-one. Then he boarded a PG-13 miss and slashed through the lane to get George his fifth foul. In the final minute, he cut through for a dunk and then drew two to set up Markkanen for the game-sealing layup. He finished with a season-high 22, but the how and when of it all were the bigger factors.

Strong in Defeat:

  • Jazz 100, Mavs 103: Jordan Clarkson. Some of Clarkon’s eight assists (the third most in his Jazz career) were just silly passes. He also started out red hot (7-for-11) and while he did cool off with a 1-for-8 finish, his overall 22-5-8 line made this one an easy one.

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of Jazz action

The Jazz make a quick stop at home to walk the dog and water the plants, then head out for their first Eastern Conference encounters of the season.

Monday 11/7, Jazz vs. Lakers: As mentioned above, the Lakers season has been a miss, but they have split their last four since moving to their new configuration of LeBron James and Anthony Davis starting with Russell Westbrook coming off the bench. The much-maligned former MVP is shooting 55-50-93 in those four games, with 8.3 assists per contest. The problem: LeBron is hitting just 14% from three over that same stretch. Overall, the Lakers are the worst offense in the league by ORtg, TS% and eFG%.

Wednesday 11/9, Jazz @ Hawks: The new Hawks backcourt of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray combines for a cool 50 a game, and Young hasn’t even really been shooting that well yet. His TS% through nine games is more than five full percentage points below his career norm, largely because he’s struggling to make threes. Eventually he’ll get back to his combustible self and we’ll learn more about the Hawks, who so far have been pretty average on offense (12th) and defense (16th) despite an easy opponent slate. They have the worst shot profile in the league, according to Cleaning the Glass’ “location eFG%.”

Saturday 11/12, Jazz @ Wizards: The Jazz go from facing the worst shot selection in the NBA to the second worst, but one thing the Wizards have going for them is that they at least also encourage their opponents to take less valuable shots. They’re second in defensive location eFG%, largely because they only let opponents take 29.2% of their shots at the rim. That will be interesting for Utah, since the Jazz aren’t exactly a rim-heavy offense anyway. The Wizards sit at 4-6 after dropping five of their last six. Former Utah Ute Delon Wright is injured, but fellow alum Kyle Kuzma is Washington’s third leading score. Former Jazz assistant Zach Guthrie is also now on the Wizards’ staff.

Sunday 11/13, Jazz @ Sixers: Throw out whatever scouting report you have on the Sixers: without James Harden, they are going to be a very different team from whatever the stats say. The former MVP will miss at least a month with a foot sprain, which means the Sixers will be depending more on the creation of Tyrese Maxey and the all-league play of Joel Embiid. Former Jazzman Georges Niang is shooting better but seeing the ball less than in his first Philly season, and Danuel House Jr. plays a similar low-minute role off the bench.

Random stuff from the Jazz community

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Three weeks in the books!

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