Rudy Gobert and Kawhi Leonard lead elite teams into battle. (via clippers.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.
The Jazz have lost just twice since January 8, and it just so happens that the opponents to inflict those defeats are two of the teams Utah is mostly likely to encounter if they make a deep playoff run. Should Jazz fans be concerned about what those two losses mean to their postseason hopes?
Not really. First of all, the Jazz have been obliterating everybody else in their path. Their overall quality — 24-6, best Net Rating in the league, top-3 offense and defense — screams much louder than those particular two games of sample. But also, to the degree that we should extrapolate anything from their head-to-head matchups with Denver and the Clippers so far, they’ve shown that, at worst, they’re on equal footing with those teams.
Let’s not forget, they are still 3-2 against Denver and the Clippers. In fact, no matter how you slice their record, they are performing strongly against the league’s best teams, even after Friday night’s loss.
The only likely playoff teams against whom the Jazz have a losing record are Phoenix and Brooklyn — two teams they’ve faced just once each, and in both cases before they flipped the switch on this torrid 20-2 stretch. They’ve smashed the Bucks twice. They won in Denver. They beat the Clippers, first at full strength and then in Wednesday’s blowout while the stars sat. They blew out Boston and Portland and Miami, as well as a hobbled Sixer team.
So far, there’s little reason to believe they can’t hang with anybody. (They’ll get their first look at the Lakers this week, albeit without All-NBA big man Anthony Davis or starting guard Dennis Schroder.)
Friday’s game in particular wasn’t a huge letdown, either. This third and final Jazz-Clips matchup of the regular season was a phenomenal defensive showing by both teams. Both teams are disciplined outfits with great individual defenders and smart schemes. Both were determined to keep the other team off of the rim, and both largely succeeded. After some adjusting, Utah manufactured good looks against the Clippers’ defense, and also was able to dictate to some degree the shots their hosts took. The outcome really just came down to shot luck: LAC made a few more of those midrange pull-ups than they normally make, and Utah missed a few extra threes.
Because the Clippers’ tried to limit how much they helped off of shooters, Jazz ball handlers had to make a 1-on-1 play more often. That meant that to get threes off, the Jazz would have to settle for some pull-ups, generally a harder shot. But remarkably, they canned a really high percentage on their 19 pull-up threes (47%). Instead, it was on the catch-and-shoot opportunities they were able to generate that guys just didn’t have it.
Those are all good shooters taking open shots off the catch. Utah shoots 39% on their 26 catch-and-shoot threes that they get in an average game. Against the Clippers, they were just 3-for-15 (20%). If they shoot their average just on this one shot type, they get nine extra points in what was ultimately a 4-point loss. Even if they make just one more of these open catch-and-shoot looks, it’s a very different game coming down the stretch.
And that’s just on offense. Defensively, they did a great job of denying LA the rim and running shooters off the line, just to watch the Clips enjoy one of their best shooting nights of the season in the long midrange.
Here’s an example. The Jazz do a great job blowing up the initial play here, a tricky multiple-screening action involving only guards and wings. The Jazz seamlessly execute a switch and Lou Williams hits a dead end. So he runs one more action, and the Jazz guard it well. The ball never touches the paint. He just makes the very shot their whole defense is trying to force.
Williams makes 35% of his 2-point shots from at least 15 feet out this season. Marcus Morris, who drilled a pull-up elbow jumper later on, shoots 38% there. Those are the shots Utah wants its opponents taking. They just fell on this particular night.
Then there’s Kawhi Leonard. The superstar forward makes 47% of his long twos. That’s elite, but still a far better outcome for the defense than allowing someone to get all the way to the rim or allowing even an average 3-point shooter to get off an open look. But then he did silly stuff like this.
That’s not even the only time the Jazz saw Kawhi drain a long pull-up two at the end of a solid defensive possession. That’s the shot the Jazz were willing to live with — and the math says that’s the smart choice! The Clippers were just unusally good from that range.
The Clips have made 42% of their long twos this season; on Friday night they shot 65%.
So it’s fair to say that Utah won the shot selection battle, on both ends. Neither team could get to the rim, but the Jazz were still able to find 3-point shots in their offense, while forcing LA into more midrange shots. The Clips just made an unusual amount of theirs, while Utah missed an unusal number from deep. That’s how it goes sometimes. That’s basketball. But the point is, Utah did have success at dictating the shot diet on both ends, even against a hungry and well-rested Clipper team.
That doesn’t mean the Clippers’ win was flukey or that it somehow counts any less. Basketball is played on the court, not the calculator. Playoff-style games especially tend to come down to which team can defy the other’s game plan by making big plays. The Clips made more plays than the Jazz in this one, hitting impressive shot after impressive shot against (mostly) solid defense.
That’s the real takeaway from Friday, a great showdown between two mature, elite teams. If a 7-game Jazz-Clippers (or Jazz-Nuggets) series started tomorrow, I have no idea how it would go. And that’s equal parts stressful and exhiliarating.
In their own words.
“The man never sleeps.”
-Donovan Mitchell, on Jazz coach Quin Snyder
When Mitchell learned that Snyder would be named coach of next month’s All-Star game, by virtue of Utah owning the best record in the conference, he pointed to the thing he really believes sets his coach apart: his work ethic.
“The amount of effort he puts into his craft is truly incredible.”
We used this space last week to highlight the way Snyder’s mind works, and this milestone definitely calls for more adulation of the 7-year bench boss. At some point in March, Snyder will win his 300th game as Jazz head coach. He has a higher career winning percentage as head coach than Rick Carlisle, Frank Vogel, Brad Stevens or either Van Gundy brother, which is especially impressive since the team he took over in 2014 was a rebuilding outfit coming coming off the second-worst win percentage season in Utah Jazz history.
The Jazz didn’t stay in rebuilding mode for long, partially because Snyder just couldn’t help himself. He identified the unique ability of a gangly 22-year-old and decided to reimagine his team’s whole identity as a function of this raw youngster who his predecessor had mostly left on the shelf.
As Utah quickly returned to relevance behind this unconventional superstar, Snyder would show again and again an ability to mine meaningful impact from unlikely places. He helped mold an ineffieicnt scoring wing into an NBA All-Star. He turned an aging overseas project, cut by a competitor, into a central part of Utah’s culture and basketball identity. Later, he’d hand over the keys of the offense to a late lotto rookie and watch while said newby blossomed into one of the game’s most precocious scoring talents in three decades.
Snyder now has at his disposal his most talented roster yet, but even that group includes a guy many thought was washed, another overseas reclamation project he morphed into a difference maker, and a second-leading scorer most internet blowhards1 incorrectly assumed would top out as a low-efficiency bench chucker. That group is posting the second best efficiency differential of any NBA team in the past 20 seasons.
“He’s the best coach in the league in my opinion,” Mitchell added.
Stats that tell the story of the Jazz’s week.
OK, let’s do something a little different this week. Instead of focusing on stats about last week’s games, let’s use this space to make the All-Star cases for the Jazz’s three main candidates. Western Conference coaches have their ballots right now, and they will vote on the seven reserves by tonight.
Here is a stat for each of Conley, Gobert and Mitchell, related to the core argument that should get each one selected.
Conley makes the Jazz elite.
The case for Conley is this: he makes the best team in the league a better version of itself. In other words, it’s about the impact of his minutes on how the team plays. Per 538’s RAPTOR metric, he has been the third most impactful player in the NBA this season in his minutes. He’s also seventh in RAPTOR WAR, eighth in ESPN’s RPM, second in RAPM, to name a few all-in metrics that recognize the degree to which Utah plays its best basketball when Conley’s on the floor.
Another way to visualize his impact is the chart on the right: no matter which of Utah’s two main stars are sitting or playing, the Jazz get significantly better as soon as Conley steps into the 94-by-50 rectangle. He truly is the piece that has elevated the Jazz team to contender status.
He’ll also get some legacy-related love, and the raw stats (17-4-6 on 45-41-83 shooting splits) aren’t bad, either. But Mike will make it if enough coaches realize that the Jazz go from very good to fearsome with the veteran guard deployed.
Gobert’s selection is probably the most secure, and the reasons why have very little to do with the number above. The coaches who select Western All-Stars are the ones who have to build game plans to deal with Gobert’s ridiculous impact at both ends of the court. The way that Utah’s entire defense is structured around his game-changing ability to guard multiple people on the same play, to deter, to scare the crap out of people. But also the way Utah’s offense is predicated on Gobert’s roll gravity. His rim-finishing ability and sheer, unblockable size open up a ton of Utah’s league-leading 3-point attempts.
But there’s no one number that says all of that, and the WC coaches likely don’t need to be convinced anyway. So what is 97 then? Instead, it’s our attempt to convince everybody else how much fun it will be for everybody if Gobert is in the game. Gobert leads the NBA this season with 97 dunks (going into Sunday’s games), which is 24% higher than the second most frequent dunker (Giannis Antetokounmpo).
So to all of the people who will respond to his All-Star selection this week with the very rote joke about “I don’t watch the All-Star game to see screen assists!” we ask you: do you watch the All-Star game to see dunks? Because Gobert freaking dunks. More than anybody.
Those are Mitchell’s per-36 numbers for points, rebounds and assists. They’re all career highs, as is his 38.9% 3-point percentage, his usage, and his net rating.
Mitchell, an All-Star last season, is subtly better at just about everything today. He’s also doing it in fewer minutes, since his 24-6 Jazz are kicking everybody’s butts and earning him some early rest in most games. Mitchell was third in the NBA in clutch field goals last season, but this year has barely had to play clutch minutes at all — only 20 total minutes all season where the margin has been withing five points coming down the stretch.
He generally sees the opposing team’s best defender, and is usually the focus of defensive schemes. And yet he just keeps getting better.
Recognizing the best (or most memorable) performances from each Jazz win.
Jazz 134, Sixers 123: Jordan Clarkson. Every now and then, a player just makes it easy on me. Clarkson’s 40 changed the trajectory of the game. The Jazz trailed 24-10 before Clarkson took his first shot, then he rattled off four threes in 1:59 of game clock. And he was just getting started. He tied the franchise record for threes in a game, and had the NBA season high from a bench player. Royce O’Neale got himself in the conversation with a trifecta of dagger threes, a game-sealing alley-oop assist to Gobert, and plenty of awesome late defense after switching onto the red hot Ben Simmons. Ingles also had it going (20-3-5 on 8-for-12 shooting) and Mitchell had 24 despite great Philly defense.
Jazz 114, Clippers 96 Rudy Gobert. In nearly every Jazz win, Gobert is a co-MVP at least, even though he doesn’t always have the stat line that just jumps off the page. In this one, he had both. His 23-and-20 night got him headlines, but really this has just as much to do with how he defied LA’s game plan and with what he did defensively, possession after possession. The Clippers scored just 79.7 points per 100 possessions when Gobert was on the floor, and overall it was one of the Jazz’s five best halfcourt defensive performances of the year. And because the Clippers tried to guard pick-and-roll actions without bringing much help, they were essentially daring Gobert to beat them on the offensive end of the floor as well — which he did. Mitchell was superb too (24-8-7), and Joe Ingles and Royce O’Neale both had strong games.
Strong in Defeat:
Keeping track of the Jazz’s place in the wild, wild West.
OK, so we’ve been using this space all season to track Utah’s path up the standings and talk about the likelihood of hanging onto a top-3 seed.
But it’s probably OK to begin, at the very least, entertaining bigger aspirations. Because nearly every predictive model out there now gives the Jazz a respectable shot at not just remaining in the contender tier, but at actually hanging a banner at the end of this season.
Here are a few:
Of course, those numbers only mean what they mean. There are roughly five teams with a real shot this year, and Utah is one of them. It’s no longer crazy to say the words out loud, but there is clearly a lot of road left in front of all five of these teams — and their 25 other peers who may still have something to say about it.
Looking ahead to the next seven nights of Jazz action.
Utah has six games in 10 nights before the All-Star break, starting with four this week.
Monday 2/22, Jazz vs. Hornets: The Jazz were red hot the last time they saw Gordon Hayward’s squad, including 75% at the rim as a team, and 53% on non-garbage time threes. They might not get that lucky again, but Charlotte does let its opponents shoot high-percentage shots. They rank dead last in defensive “location eFG,” or the expected eFG of their opponents’ shots based solely on shot location. At the other end, Charlotte remains one of the four worst rim-finishing teams in the league. Mitchell and Bogey combined for 61 in Charlotte, and that was also the game where Conley’s hamstring problems first took him off the court.
Wednesday 2/24, Jazz vs. Lakers: The Jazz finally get a look (sort of) at the team that has to be considered their biggest obstacle on the path to contention. They were 0-3 against LeBron James’ squad last season, and a lot of their offseason retooling had to do with preparing themselves to see the supersized Lake Show sooner or later in the postseason. Davis (Achilles strain) and Schroder (health & safety) will both miss Wedensday’s game, and they’re two of LAL’s three top scorers and minute-getters. Not that it’s much consolation, though, as Utah will still have to deal with the MVP frontrunner. The Lakers have lost three of four, and three of the four before that included at least one overtime — making their regulation record 2-3-3 in the last two weeks and change.
Friday 2/26, Jazz @ Heat: The Heat are — pardon the pun — warming up. They’ve won six of nine since a 7-14 start. One of those recent losses, though, came in Salt Lake, on a night when Jimmy Butler shot just 3-for-10 from the field. Miami may get Goran Dragic back by Friday. He has missed eight straight, but is listed as day-to-day. Miami leads the league in rim accuracy, but they also allow a ton of threes on the other end. Utah took a whopping 46 of them in the last matchup, and even though they had their worst shooting night of the year that night (26%), the sheer number of attempts bodes well for Utah in this one.
Saturday 2/27, Jazz @ Magic: Orlando has been just decimated by injuries. Three of their best five players are out long term, plus prize rookie Cole Anthony will be out at least until the All-Star break. That has left Nikola Vucevic to carry the load, and he has been great: 24, 12 and 4 (rounded), and 40% from deep. Evan Fournier (who has also been in and out of the lineup) and Terrence Ross have even given him decent scoring help. But with suspect depth to begin with, all those major injuries were bound to affect the overall product: They especially lack offensive juice beyond those three (fourth worst offense), and their Net Rating (-5.1) suggests they may be even worse than their 13-18 record says they are. That said, they have won three in a row, and this will be the Jazz’s fourth game in six nights. No easy ones.
Random stuff from the Jazz community.
It appears that the Jazz’s fifth and final jersey kit of the 2020-21 season is finally getting unveiled. Our own @JazzUniTracker shared this tweet on Monday morning.
And here it is… https://t.co/bFIJwucbqR
— Jazz Uniform Tracker (@JazzUniTracker) February 22, 2021
A familiar look, with the colors brightened a little to an almost Sonicsesque combo of kelly green and gold. Utah will debut this new combo sometime after the All-Star break.
That’s another week of Jazz stats, storylines and trends. Thanks for hanging out with us!
Every week during the regular season begins here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring features that let us...Read More
Every week during the regular season begins here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring features that let us...Read More
Every week during the regular season begins here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring features that let us...Read More
Every week during the regular season begins here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring features that let us...Read More
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