Salt City Seven: Rotation Options Sans Mitchell, Welcome Wade, Playoff Race & More

A rough landing vs. Indiana will keep Mitchell out for “several games,” per reports. (Ron Hoskins via ESPN.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.

Bullet dodged… sort of.

It appears from the latest intel that Donovan Mitchell’s ankle sprain isn’t as bad as it could have been. For a few scary moments on Friday afternoon, the Jazz had to contemplate what an extended period without their prolific scorer might look like, but the All-Star guard will be reevaluated next weekend.

Still, for at least a few games, that leaves the Jazz searching for ways to fill a void that goes well beyond replacing Mitchell’s nearly 27 points per game. They also have to reimagine a rotation, starting Monday night in Los Angeles. Several other key players rested during Saturday’s Jazz-Lakers matchup, preserving some mystery around how Utah might reconstruct its various lineup units. Now, with a Lakers rematch and upcoming games against Houston and Minnesota, we’ll finally get to see what Quin Snyder has in mind for a Mitchell-free rotation.

The Jazz have used a unique sub pattern this season, bringing Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley out for an early rest so they can return for a short run against opposing benches. The hybrid bench unit led by that duo has been one of the Jazz’s key competitive advantages all year, smashing opponent reserves to the tune of a +14.4 net rating. The potency of that group has helped Gobert to the best plus-minus in the entire league, and bolstered Conley’s All-Star case to boot.

But that rotation works precisely because Mitchell is Mitchell. The dynamic scorer is good enough that the Jazz can trust him to carry the in-between minutes with the team’s third main group: another hybrid crew where starters Royce O’Neale and Bojan Bogdanovic stay out with Mitchell and are joined by Jordan Clarkson and Derrick Favors. That lineup is +8.5 for the season, but are fairly Mitchell-dependent. Those same four guys have only played 50 possessions without Mitchell. (The majority of those — 40 — were with Joe Ingles as de facto point guard.)

So with no Mitchell, can they sustain this pattern, built primarily around those three main groups? Here are the primary options.

Option 1: Ingles in Mitchell’s role

The last time the Jazz played without Mitchell, they solved this puzzle by having Ingles both start in his spot and captain that first hybrid unit. That’s an option for this next stretch, too. Ingles doesn’t have anywhere near Mitchell’s prowess in terms of creating his own shot, but he is a capable facilitator whose great pick-and-roll chemistry with Favors gives the bench offense another staple to work with, along with Clarkson’s isolation scoring. The same lineup that has performed at +8.5 with Mitchell at the helm is +3.1 with Ingles and the same remaining four — a decent approximation.

The drawback is that it keeps Ingles away from from that other Conely and Gobert-led group, but that group has actually been great — in very limited opportunities — when Miye Oni replaced Ingles. The Conley-Clarkson-Oni-Georges Niang-Gobert fivesome is +43.2, on just 90 possessions.

It’s also worth mentioning that Ingles has been really aggressive, efficient and fun as a starter this season: 17.5 point and 5.5 assists on 53-52-88 shooting splits, compared to 9.9 points, 3.9 assists and 51-47-85 as a sub.

Option 2: Go back to a traditional rotation for a few games

Another way they could approach the challenge is to temporarily abandon the 3-unit pattern and go back to a traditional starters-and-bench design, staggering some of their best guys in what would still likely be an 8- or 9-man rotation.

Conley and Gobert on their own still sport net ratings of +20.2 and +14.8, respectively, when they are on the court without Mitchell and without each other, which is a pretty good sign that they could split their two remainined All-Stars in a staggered rotation and still play winning basketball.

The drawback here is that it would require longer stretches of players who have been accustomed to playing in short spurts all season. Gobert, Conley and especially Favors generally only play a few minutes at a time.

Option 3: Have Conley slide into Mitchell’s role

Last season, it was Conley who ran the three separate stints per half, so he does have experience as the central piece on a hybrid unit. One way they could manage these next few games is to have the veteran guard stay on with the subs while Ingles and Gobert sit.

Again, this year the Jazz play winning ball (+20.2) when Conley is the lone All-Star in Utah’s lineup. He hasn’t really played yet with the other four guys from that main Mitchell-led unit (just five minutes across four games for that group), but his solo net rating suggests he can keep that group afloat.

And that would leave a group of Ingles-Clarkson-Oni-Niang-Gobert to man the other hybrid group that checks back in later. That quintet has actually played a substantial amount together — 172 possessions — and was wildly successful at +34.9.

Whatever they do, basketball isn’t purely about math. The net ratings we’ve shared here¹ are not necessarily predictive, so there’s no guarantee that they’ll hold up in this new, unique scenario.

It helps that this week’s slate for Utah presents a wounded Lakers squad followed by two sure lottery teams. Mitchell’s absence could certainly stretch beyond those three games, but the Jazz’s remaining schedule includes mostly teams with losing records.

Either way, they’ll miss Mitchell. But they have several options to craft a temporary rotation around successful core lineups.

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

Let’s check in on the Western Conference playoff race.

With four weeks left, the Jazz and Mavs still have the easiest remaining opponent slates. Phoenix and Portland have the hardest schedules by opponent record.

After the Jazz face the Lakers on Monday night — still no LeBron James or Anthony Davis for the Lake Show — they will play just three of their final 14 games against teams with a winning record as of today: a visit to Phoenix followed by home dates with Portland and Denver.

Meanwhile, the Suns still have some serious work cut out for them, including a whopping nine games against teams with a top-10 winning percentage. It’s why most models still see the Jazz comfortably hanging onto the No. 1 seed.

We’ve also talked here about Dallas’ chances of catching L.A. and consigning the Lakers to the 2-3-6-7 bracket, but the odds are looking more doubtful there after a 2-5 stretch for the Mavs. They still could leverage their two head-to-head matchups and their much easier schedule to catch the Lakers, but so far they haven’t really looked ready to take advantage of the easier slate, with losses to three sub-.500 teams in the past two weeks.

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

76-48

The Jazz dominated the first few minutes of Monday’s game against Washington, and then stormed back to make it interesting in the final 8-plus minutes. They won those two stretches by a combined 73-49 score, but lost to the tune of 76-48 in the middle 27:40. Both Clarkson and Conley missed that game, but the Jazz were obviously not very well connected on either end in the second, third and early fourth quarters.

-75.2

The sample size here is laughably small (15 total minutes), but Utah’s overtime Net Rating in three extra sessions to date is -75.2, the worst in the league by far. And sure, Saturday’s game might be less meaningful given who wasn’t playing for the Jazz, but even their -55.8 OT differential going into the L.A. game would still rank decimal points worse than Minnesota for the worst overtime production in the league. For whatever reason, the Jazz do seem to run out of steam past minute 48, which will be something watch.

37+

Mitchell’s 42 on Monday marked the fourth straight game where he dropped at least 37 points. The only players in league history who had longer streaks of 37+ were Kobe Bryant (five times), Michael Jordan (three times), James Harden (three times) and Allen Iverson (once).

14

Conley (vs. OKC) and Ingles (@ LAL) each had 14-assist games this week. That’s the first time since 2012 that the Jazz have had two games in the same week where a player notched 14 or more. Jamaal Tinsley and Mo Williams had 14 in consecutive games back in November 2012.

86.0, 80.8

The Jazz had consecutive dominant second halves in their two wins this week: OKC only managed an 86.0 offense after intermissiong against Utah, and Indy was held to 80.8. In both games, they had problems with transition defense which allowed those teams to take double-digit leads, but ultimately they brought the defensive hammer down in halfcourt (82.4 halfcourt DRtg vs. OKC, 78.5 vs. Indy) to win those games.

In their own words

“Every city in every state is looking at leaders in their community to help… That’s the work Dwyane (Wade) and our group are talking about. We’re in a world where basketball is uniting this state when everything else in the world is trying to divide us. If we can take that platform and do good and lead and write change for the future, we can look back and say, ‘Wow, that’s what legacy is about.'”

-Jazz majority owner Ryan Smith to ESPN

The news of Wade purchasing a stake in the Jazz is undeniably cool. It lends more cachet and clout to the organization and proves that Smith is a big-time player capable of expanding the franchise’s relationships into new places. The Miller family has done so much for the Jazz and the state, and Smith appears to be building on that in a way that the Millers — for all their largesse on a local level — might not have had the relationships to do. Dwyane Wade chose to be a part of the ownership group with this franchise, and that’s a big deal.

As others have pointed out, Wade may help legitimize the Jazz as an option for more free agents around the league. His involvement may even be one more reason for Utah’s own guys to want to stick around. In particular, he has a great relationship with Mitchell, whose skills have often been compared to the likely first-ballot Hall of Famer. (“We’ve got a big brother-little brother relationship,” Wade said of Mitchell in that same article.)

Wade and Smith also look forward to partnering on other business ventures and important issues, such as finding ways to invite more productive dialogue in Utah and the broader fan community around race, social and LGBTQ+ issues, a conversation that Wade says they are “not running away from.”

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

Time to dole out some leather.

Jazz 106, Thunder 96: Mike Conley. This is as wide open as game ball discussions get: Bogdanovic and Mitchell carried the scoring load, Gobert was dominant defensively and on the glass (and near perfect from the field), and Niang was superb as a fill-in starter while O’Neale rested. But I’m going Conley. After the Jazz got down 31-14, they responded with a 13-0 run where every single point was scored or assisted by Mike. He’d come back later in the second quarter to assist Gobert’s tying layup at 47-all and then score Utah’s go-ahead 3-pointer. He then added 9-assist second half to ensure the Jazz wouldn’t trail again, landing his overall numbers at 15 points, 14 assists, and +17. He wasn’t the only architect of Utah’s 42-point swing in that game, but he was the primary one.

Jazz 119, Pacers 111: Rudy Gobert. It was Gobert’s second straight 6-for-7 shooting performance, and this time he added 23 boards, four blocks and just otherworldly defensive impact. Indiana just simply could not get good shots against the Jazz after the break, largely because of the work Gobert did against All-Star Domantas Sabonis and his fellow Pacers. He contested a ridiculous 39 shots in that game, to say nothing of the many Gobert-inspired U-turns away from the paint. Overall, the Pacers shot 38.5% when Gobert was the nearest defender, and even that only begins to describe the defensive impact that was on display. Mitchell was also unstoppable for a stretch before exiting, and Bogey had an efficient 24.

Strong in Defeat:

• Jazz 121, Wizards 125: Bojan Bogdanovic. Mitchell was unstoppable and spectacular early, with 17 first-quarter points on 7-of-10 shooting, and he made things interesting late on his way to 42. The problem: his 1-for-13 stretch in the middle of the game was absolutely representative of his team’s mid-game malaise that ultimately dug them too deep a hole. Meanwhile, Bogdanovic had an efficient 33 and was good throughout, so we’ll give this consolation prize to Bogey instead. Joe Ingles (18-4-6) was also really good on the whole, but he too had a weird stretch full of errors, such as leaving Davis Bertans wide open and then passing the ball right to Russell Westbrook.
• Jazz 115, Lakers 127 (OT): Joe Ingles. Ersan Ilyasoava and Bogdanovic were red hot to start the game, and Clarkson bookended their strong starts with a 10-point fourth. But throughout the game, Ingles was perhaps the most important Jazz piece with his 20 points and 14 assists. I probably wouldn’t have gone Ilyasova just because his 20-point outburst was farthest from the norm, but he wasn’t heard from (scoring-wise) over the game’s final 20 minutes. His defense was better than expected as Utah’s starting center, and Clarkson (27-5-4) and O’Neale (14, big shots late) both have arguments as well. 

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of Jazz action.

The Jazz enter a lighter week than most. This Thursday and Friday mark the final time of the regular season where they’ll have consecutive days off.

Monday 4/19, Jazz @ Lakers: The Athletic reports that Davis will still be unavailable for what should otherwise be a very different rematch of Jazz-Lakers on Monday. The Jazz should have Conley and Gobert back, but keep in mind that the Lakers have been a fairly solid defensive team all season, regardless of who has played. Even since the LeBron injury, LAL has a top-4 DRtg. Their ability to score has come and gone, but they still have enough defensive talent (and discipline) to make things tough on opposing teams. Dennis Schroder has been the bellwether for them offensively: since LeBron got hurt, they are 4-2 when Schroder shoots 50% or better from the field, 3-6 when he doesn’t.

Wednesday 4/21, Jazz @ Rockets: Hard to believe there was a point this season when Houston was 11-10. Obviously this is a roster in transition as they’ve traded multiple former MVPs and All-Stars this season, but the 4-32 record since February 6 points to a team that’s pretty much a mess. Their best player most nights is Christian Wood, a stretchy combo big. Other nights John Wall taps into his all-league pedigree, or Kelly Olynyk benefits from the greenest of green lights. They also have a whole host of guys out for an extended period, including former Jazz lottery pick Dante Exum. Houston is one of just two teams currently in the bottom five for both overall offense and defense. The other one being…

Saturday 4/24, Jazz vs. Timberwolves: …these guys. That’s right, the Jazz get two straight games against teams that are among the worst at both ends of the court. The Wolves have lost 12 of 17 overall, but randomly have nights where they can beat competent teams (like New York, Miami and even the Suns in Phoenix last month). Karl-Anthony Towns is averaging 28 and 11 on 49-38-90 shooting splits in April, and electric rookie Anthony Edwards’ 3-point shooting is much improved over that same span (37%).

Random stuff from the Jazz community.

The ducks already got a lot of play this week, so we’ll leave that storyline alone. But if you missed it… make sure you catch up on the tales Rusky and Dusky.

So instead, let’s use this space to welcome a legend

warm welcome @vivintarena ❤️ pic.twitter.com/fZC8VNeykj

— utahjazz (@utahjazz) April 16, 2021

Four more Salt City Sevens to go before 2020-21 is wrapped. Enjoy!