Salt City Seven: Shots Not Falling, Clutch Offense, Mitchell & More

December 17th, 2018 | by Dan Clayton

Mitchell weaves his way through defenses. (Kyle Phillips via espn.com)

Every week here at SCH begins with the Salt City Seven: a regular feature for each day of the week as we 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.

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

Here we are, starting another week with a what’s-wrong-with-the-Jazz quote. This week, it comes courtesy of their offensive leader, sophomore guard Donovan Mitchell.

“We played defense. We played defense well. But at the end of the day, if you don’t make shots, it changes the game.”

-Mitchell, via the Salt Lake Tribune

Mitchell was talking about the club’s 96-89 loss to the Magic in Mexico City, but his comments pretty much sum up the current state of affairs in Jazzland. As the Trib’s Andy Larsen explained in that article, Utah is now responsible for two of the three worst games in the entire NBA season for team effective field goal percentage — one of them of course coming on Saturday across the southern border. 

But this problem goes beyond Saturday evening. Utah owns the worst fourth quarter offense in the entire league.

And here’s the awkward truth that probably needs to be acknowledged: the Jazz’s blossoming offensive star is, at least lately, more a part of the problem than the solution. 

Mitchell uses 35 percent of the team’s possessions when he’s on the floor in fourth quarters, even though his true shooting in those situations is 51.8%. In close games — margin of five or less in the final five minutes — his usage balloons to 41 percent while his TS drops to a dismal 38.8%. Every other Jazzman who has seen clutch minutes in three games or more has a TS in those situations of 53.8% or better. The team leader in clutch conversions, somewhat surprisingly, is Ricky Rubio, with 76.1% in 10 clutch games.

Those numbers may be an indication that Mitchell tries to do a bit too much in some late-game situations. As a result, the ball moves less and the Jazz become dependent on iso possessions to create their scoring. In general, 62.5% of Utah’s made buckets come from an assist, the sixth-highest figure in the league. In clutch situations, only 45.8% of their buckets are assisted, good for 22nd in the league.

That’s pretty strong evidence that their offensive identity completely changes at the end of tight games — and video backs that number up, too. The stuff they ran to put themselves in a position to be in a close game generally goes out the window, and they frequently settle for possessions with one, two, sometimes even zero passes.

From the sounds of it, Quin Snyder is aware of the impact that it’s having to live or die by the creation ability of a second-year player. When we caught up with the Jazz coach in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago, he made it clear that he’s deliberately giving the young star a long leash so that he can realize his best-case potential as quickly as possible.

“I think sometimes we forget Donovan’s in his second year,” Snyder said. “So any experience he has… it’s going to be a process for him.”

The Jazz are consciously giving Mitchell license to learn by making mistakes, and it’s a gamble that could very well pay off in a big way for the franchise. If the star guards emerges from this period of trial and error with a better sense of how to shrewdly attack and facilitate an efficient crunchtime offense, then it will have been worth weathering all of the experimentation.

That learning does come at a cost, but Snyder and the Jazz are betting that freedom (and everything that comes with it) will yield an offensive superstar. 

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

9.9%

That was Rudy Gobert’s usage in the Mexico City game. In his eight fourth-quarter minutes, his usage fell to just 4.2%. The Jazz simply need to get their star big man — one of the best pick-and-roll finishers in the game — more involved. Granted, you have to acknowledge Orlando’s defensive decision-making and schemes for not letting Gobert get to the paint with the ball, but Utah can’t settle for their MVP being so uninvolved.

13.6

A big who is feasting lately: Gobert’s frontcourt mate, Derrick Favors. Fav hit double figures in all three games this week, including his 21-point outing against the Magic. The Jazz outscored the Magic by 11 points in Favors’ 25 minutes, which means they lost by 18 in the 23 minutes he sat. For the month of December, the power forward is averaging 13.6 points and 7.0 rebounds on 65.5 percent shooting from the field.

2

Another nugget from Saturday: the Jazz became just the second NBA team this season to lose a game in which they had 12 fewer turnovers and eight more free throws than their opponent.

11.8%

In Utah’s other loss of the week, offense didn’t appear to be the problem, given the 110 points against OKC and the above-average effective field goal percentage for the game. But the Jazz made just two of 17 above-the-break threes. 

 

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

Ice Counters

It’s a pick-and-roll league, which means that nearly everything we highlight in these playbook sections comes down to how teams are deploying P&R offense, and countering all the ways defenses try to sap efficiency from them.

That’s the case again this week, as we’re going to look at how the Jazz combat “icing.”

Icing is what happens when the defender guarding the ball slides up in front of the screen to force the ball handler away from the pick. It’s not a total relic, but teams are icing quite a bit less than they did even a couple of seasons ago. Most of the league tends to either guard the P&R more conservatively (i.e. with a big back to contain) or employ some situational switching schemes. But teams with a lot of length and athleticism still ask their ball-hawkers to ice, which is why the Jazz have seen that tactic used against them in recent games against Miami, Orlando and especially OKC.

And they’ve been ready for it. 

Rubio in particular has seen a lot of “ice” lately. When people try to move him away from the pick, he gladly obliges — and just takes the baseline drive they’re giving him. This essentially has the same effect as running a side P&R toward the baseline, in that it gives Rubio the ball heading toward the hoop, with only the big man to beat.

Watch Rubio beat ice by simply taking the available baseline route, getting a couple of layups, a clean jumper1 and an assist to Favors.

That’s smart offense. It’s taking what the defense gives you, but in a way that’s far from settling. Rubio is finding ways to turn the Thunder’s defensive scheme into an advantage for the Jazz.

Mitchell beat ice a couple of times, too, with help from Gobert. As soon as Mitchell’s man starts to slide up to ice, Gobert simply changes the direction of the pick, locking the defender away from Mitchell, who can now go to work against a waiting big.

Props to Mitchell for making the play in both cases, and props to Gobert for recognizing the defensive tactic and smartly assessing how he could turn it against the opponent. 

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

Only one to give out this week, and it came down to defense vs. offense.

Jazz 111, Heat 84: Rudy Gobert

Mitchell paced the Jazz offensively, led all scorers with 21, had a couple of “wow” moves. But this was a game won on the defensive end, and the Heat players were absolutely terrified of Gobert all night. With good reason. Cleaning the Glass shows that Miami shot just 26 percent at the rim, literally in the worst 1% of all games by NBA teams this season. It’s more than the 10-and-11 stat line; rewatch the game and you’ll see dozens of examples of plays where a driver takes a U-turn to get away from Gobert. He and Favors — who also had an excellent game on both ends — held Miami to 2-of-11 shooting at the rim, per NBA tracking stats. Kyle Korver and Dante Exum piled up great stats off the bench, while Rubio and Joe Ingles were terrific defensively and dished six assists apiece.

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

The Jazz are back stateside, but that doesn’t mean they get to relax. They have four games in the next six nights, and all four are against 2018 playoff teams. 

Monday: Utah at Houston, 6:00 p.m. MT

  • State of the Rockets: Houston is in a little mini-renaissance. They have won three straight after dropping seven of their previous nine.
  • Jazz-Rox: Utah is already up 2-0 in the season series, beating the Rockets by 11 in Houston and then absolutely manhandling them in a nationally-televised, 27-point beatdown. 
  • Key for the Jazz: Harden is waking up. In the three consecutive wins, Harden has scored 32, 50 and 29 points. He is also averaging 8.3 assists over those three games.

Wednesday: Golden State at Utah, 7:00 p.m. MT

  • State of the Warriors: The Warriors have evidently put the drama behind them; they’ve won five of their last six and eight of their last eleven. They’ve also won four straight road games.
  • Jazz-Dubs: This will be the first matchup since the second game of the year, in which former Jazz forward Jonas Jerebko stole a win from his last club with a buzzer-beating tip-in.
  • Key for the Jazz: Box out Jerebko? In all seriousness, the Jazz will have their hands full against the league’s best offense and the only team with two 29-point scorers.

Friday: Utah at Portland, 8:00 p.m. MT

  • State of the Blazers: Like Utah, Portland is stuck in a bit of a funk, with just four wins in the last 12 outings..
  • Jazz-Blazers: Weirdly enough, this is the first time the division rivals will face off this season. They split last season’s four games, with each team winning once at home and once away.
  • Key for the Jazz: Portland’s conservative defense is beatable — they’re the second worst team in terms of 3-point defense AND defensive turnover rate.

Saturday: Oklahoma City at Utah, 7:00 p.m. MT

  • State of the Thunder: OKC’s swarming, athletic defender’s have made them the league’s toughest team to score on, even though they’ve lost three of their last five.
  • Jazz-Thunder: The Thunder dominated the Jazz in Oklahoma last week, taking a 1-0 edge in the division rivalry.
  • Key for the Jazz: They’ll need to execute with much more force than they did in the Thunder’s gym. But that won’t be easy; once again, Utah will face OKC on the second night of a back-to-back, this time with the dreaded West-to-East time zone loss.

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

Somehow, stats and forecasting site FiveThirtyEight still sees the Jazz are a fairly safe bet to make the playoffs. Both the 86 percent chance they give Utah and the 47 wins they project rank fifth among Western Conference teams.

But the Jazz are digging themselves a hole by losing several “should-win” games. Saturday marked the EIGHTH time the Jazz lost a game that 538 gave them a 60% chance or better to win2. By contrast, they only have two wins in games where they had less than a 40% chance.

It’s not the end of the world, but they need to steal a few wins back from the L column to even things out.

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

Jae’s turn.

After Mitchell and future Hall-of-Famer Dwyane Wade swapped jerseys after a game in Miami, the 12-time All-Star needed a trade partner in Salt Lake. Enter fellow Marquette product, Jae Crowder.

Now THAT’s an all-caps tweet if I’ve ever seen one.

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

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