Salt City Seven: Scoring Small, New Guys & More

January 10th, 2022 | by Dan Clayton

Both Mitchell and Bogdanovic had stellar weeks for the Jazz amid other trials. (Rick Egan, Salt Lake Tribune)

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.

As the Jazz continute to acclimate to life without Rudy Gobert — the big man is now four days into an absence due to health & safety protocols — they’re being forced to take an extended look at their centerless lineups.

We talked last week about the Jazz’s early explorations with smallball, mostly focusing on the defensive woes. And look, it has been pretty woeful: they have allowed 123.2 points per 100 possessions in non-garbage minutes without Gobert or Hassan Whiteside on the court, per Cleaning the Glass. That defensive performance puts such groups in the 2nd percentile of all NBA lineups this season.

But it seems like we — the collective Jazz online community — are glossing over just how much the offense has struggled in smallball minutes, too. Without either of their bigs on the hardwood, they manage just a 103.9 efficiency rating on offense, good for the 15th percentile.

On the surface, it feels surprising. Teams choose 5-out lineups ostensibly because they open up better spacing and unleash five guys who can all shoot, pass and put the ball on the deck. Those combinations are supposed to be a veritable smorgasbord of offensive talent and versatility.

But when you consider just how conditioned the Jazz are to playing in an offense anchored around a pick-and-roll big, it shouldn’t really be surprising that they have yet to really uncork the 5-out offense. They often look unsure of what to run or how to run it. Too often, the smallball offense consists of running a single screening action and then hoping someone can break the defense by himself. 

There have just been too many dead ends where the Jazz have been unable to crack the floor open without relying on a P&R setup involving Gobert or Whiteside.

It’s a potent reminder that Gobert is so much more than “just” the world’s best anchor big on defense. People around the league like to chuckle about Utah’s passion for mentioning things like screen assists and roll gravity, but at this point it should be pretty obvious that those things matter. The Jazz score 119.4 per 100 possessions when either of the big dudes are on the court — comfortably better than the best offense ever — and just 103.9 with them off.

From a historically elite offense to a bottom-5 slogfest. Maybe screeners really do matter after all.

It’s also worth noting that Joe Ingles hasn’t played in the Jazz’s last three games, where they’ve been force to play small with Gobert also out. Any smallball configurations the Jazz use in the postseason are likely to include the playmaking Aussie as one of the weapons, floor-spacers and defense-solvers. (Not that he has been good in smallball yet either. Lineups with Jingles and no Gobert/Whiteside have been roughly as bad, albeit in only 80 possessions thus far. I just mean that as the Jazz try to solve this puzzle before the postseason arrives, Ingles’ passing, shooting and smarts will likely be part of the solution.)

Maybe this won’t matter that much. Maybe the Jazz will recognize that their identity on both ends is compromised when the bigs sit and they’ll avoid going small as soon as Gobert is out of protocols. They are so freaking good on both ends when he plays (+13.9) — and frankly, plenty good when Whiteside is on court, too (+7.5) — that maybe all of this smallball experimentation will go down as a footnote to history when the Jazz slide back into what they’re best at and make (theoretically) a deep playoff run.

But still, it would be nice to know that, when circumstances dictate something outside the norm, the results won’t be disastrous. It would be nice to see them start to solve the smallball puzzle — on both ends.

So how can they make it work?

Ironically, this week featured both some of the roughest evidence yet about how the Jazz struggle to score small — see above — and some of their most encouraging moments yet. In the lone game of the year in which neither big was available, the Jazz scored a 115-109 win in Denver because they tapped into a few specific things that would help their 5-out offense avoid those dead ends. (They also managed a 133.3 ORtg in the Gobert-less minutes in New Orleans on Monday.)

For starters, they had some success using Royce O’Neale as the screener and short-roll decision maker. That mostly works against hedging defenses where O’Neale can slip to the nail with a 4-on-3 advantage and make a simple read of the helping scheme.

By contrast, when the screener’s man drops (or slides to the outside to contain), the Jazz can punish that with a pick-and-pop, like Rudy Gay did here.

Bojan Bogdanovic was especially excellent in Denver. Some of that was just catch-and-shoots and post-ups over smaller guys. But also, Bogey seems to understand that going small doesn’t mean you have to be afraid of the paint. He moved well without the ball and made smart shoot-pass-or-go decisions.

The Jazz actually outscored Denver in the paint AND got to the line more despite being the “small” team. Playing small doesn’t have to mean avoiding the rim.

So if all of that was available to them in Denver, why did they succumb to more bad smallball offense in Indiana? It wasn’t any one thing. Gay got caught second-guessing. Jordan Clarkson sat on the ball a bit too much. Mike Conley Jr. was less assertive.

The building blocks are there. With Gobert likely to miss at least a couple more games, the Jazz will have chance to work on it. And now they have plenty of examples of both bad and good 5-out execution.

 

In their own words

“We’ve got to do it every (bleeping) night.”

-Donovan Mitchell, after a 113-125 loss at Indiana

Jazz players were pretty upset with themselves after letting a 2-point fourth-quarter deficit ballon to 12 by the final buzzer. Utah was within a 2-possession margin for most of the second half, but could never quite turn the corner. And Mitchell wasn’t the only one who was disappointed at finishing the season series 0-2 against the middling Pacers.

“This is a bad loss for us,” Bogey echoed.

It wasn’t a great loss, but honestly, it was also a pretty tough set of circumstances. The COVID-19 mess that has been ravaging NBA rosters for the last month and a half finally caught up with the Jazz, and they spent most of the week not knowing who was going to be let on team planes or allowed to leave Canada, let alone actually play in games. And when the dust all settled and the ball went up in Indianapolis, they were still without two pretty dang important pieces.

Since the Jazz assembled their current core prior to the 2019-20 season, they have managed to go 17-9 (.654) without Mitchell and a similar 34-17 (.667) without Conley. They even went 10-3 last season when they had to play a stretch without either of them.

But they are 3-5 over that span without Gobert. He just defines so much of who they are. (They’re also 3-7 without Bogdanovic, which may be something to keep in mind as everybody constructs their fake trades leading up to the trade deadline.)

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

7

The three Jazz assistant coaches added to health and safety protocols on Sunday will join Gobert, Ingles, Gay and Elijah Hughes. That gives the Jazz seven total who are currently unable to perform due to this latest wave of COVID-19 illness that is sweeping through locker rooms and, you know, the nation. The Jazz said all along that their turn in the protocol version of musical rotation spots was “inevitable,” and it looks like they were right.

29.1

Mitchell’s streak of 20-plus scoring games was halted at 16 when the Nuggets held him to 17. But then he bounced right back with 36 in Indiana. Since November 29, he’s averaging 29.1 points on 49-37-89 shooting splits.

-18.6

The Clarkson thing is more nuanced than either side likes to admit. He is an important defense-cracker when he is at his best, and that helps the Jazz loosen the ground almost regardless of his individual outcomes. On the other hand, he gives back a lot of that value on defense, and there are times when he keeps the Jazz from playing any kind of advantage basketball on offense. Both extremes are real. But beyond that macro tug-of-war, here’s something else that’s real: this particular week, the Jazz were +5.7 per 100 when Clarkson sat, and -12.9 when he played. That’s a difference of 18.6 points. Whether or not you believe in Clarkson in the long term, that’s a pretty problematic number — especially when the Jazz have been down bodies and needing more, not less, out of their 6MOY winner.

Now a few quick stats about the three Jazzmen who signed 10-day contracts in the last week:

  • 37.3%: During a 3-year peak in Houston when he averaged 28 minutes per game, Danuel House Jr. shot 37.3% from deep while also being touted as a plus defender on the wings. He might actually make a case to stay beyond this hardship deal if he plays like the 3-and-D prototype he appeared to be for the Rockets. 
  • 96.3%: Last season in Chicago, Denzel Valentine was in the 96th percentile defensing isos at the end of the play (plays ending with a shot, free throw trip or TO by an iso scorer) and the 84th percentile guarding P&R ball handlers. The question with him has been whether he can shoot well enough to stay on the floor.
  • 7: That’s how many teams Norvel Pelle has been on since the start of last season’s training camp. This is a wild time in the NBA.

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

It was another big week for health news among the Western Conference contenders. Let’s just reset where each of the current top eight are terms of player health:

  • GSW (0 GB #1): Klay Thompson is back! The guard had 17 points in 20 minutes in his first game in more than two years. The Dubs are now just waiting on James Wiseman (knee) who has yet to play this season.
  • Phoenix (0 GB): Only one rotation player — Landry Shamet — is in COVID protocols, but stretch bigs Frank Kaminsky and Dario Saric are both still out indefinitely.
  • Utah (2.5 GB): Gobert, Ingles and Gay are all missing from the rotation due to health & safety, while other players have missed recent games due to nagging injuries and/or rest.
  • Memphis (3.5 GB): Dillon Brooks is out for 3-5 weeks with an ankle sprain, and Steven Adams entered H&S protocols on Friday.
  • Dallas (8.5 GB): Luka Doncic played through an ankle sprain Sunday and logged a triple-double, while Kristaps Porzingis has been in protocols for a week and could clear soon.
  • Denver (9.5 GB): Will Barton is the only Nugget currently in H&S, but Denver has a slew of long-term absences, most notably secondary stars Jamal Murray (ACL) and Michael Porter Jr. (back). The former may return this season; the latter is not expected to make it back this year.
  • LAL (10 GB): Anthony Davis (knee) has missed 10 straight and won’t be reevaluated until later in January, and Kendrick Nunn (knee) has yet to debut in purple and gold.
  • Minnesota (10.5 GB): Only the lightly used Leandro Bolmaro is in H&S, but Patrick Beverley (groin) is day-to-day and missed Sunday’s win in Houston.

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

Two more wins means two more Wilsons to mete out.

Jazz 115, Pelicans 104: Mike Conley. This one came down to Conley and Mitchell, although Bogdanovic took his turn carrying the offense during a 12-point third quarter, and Gobert was awesome throughout. Conley took it by a nose, largely because of his complete 22-8-7 line, his masterful control of the game, and his defense. Plus-minus can lie sometimes, but when someone is +24 in 29.8 minutes, you know they were just on in a special way. Pelican shooters went 3-for-11 when matched up to Conley, who had the Jazz’s best DRtg at an insane 88.9. But this was a tough one: Mitchell’s 15-point fourth was brilliant, including 10 straight Jazz points during an 18-6 spurt they used to build a cushion. Overall, Mitchell had 29-3-5. Like I said, not an easy choice.

Jazz 115, Nuggets 109: Bojan Bogdanovic. This one, on the other hand, was pretty obvious. Royce O’Neale (13-11-5) had an excellent night as a rebounder, opportunistic scorer and short-roll decision maker. Rudy Gay (18 & 7) deserves credit for filling in for the bigs. But Bogey was just unstoppable. On a night when the lack of an obvious pick-and-roll partner sapped efficiency from both of Utah’s star guards, Bogey carried the load: 36 points on 20 shots, plus 14 (!!) rebounds and four assists. 

Strong in Defeat:

  • Jazz 108, Raptors 122: Elijah Hughes. It had to be either Hughes (26-8-4) or Eric Paschall (29-3-2), and the former gets the edge here based on a night that was both more complete and more efficient. Paschall’s 17-point first quarter might have been slightly more memorable in terms of the way it set up the narrative of the game: Utah’s third-teamers forcing Toronto to sweat one out. But Hughes did more over the course of 48, including by finishing one triple away from tying the franchise record for threes in a game.
  • Jazz 113, Pacers 125: Donovan Mitchell. Pretty easy here: Mitchell had 36 points and nine assists, making him the runaway choice here. It was even a pretty efficient 36 (27 shots). Bogdanovic was probably the closest thing to a contender with his 21 points, but he had some weird moments, too. Conley (just six shots) was a bit too passive, due largely to the absence of his P&R partner and Indy’s schemes, and that caused some other folks to reach just a bit. (Conley was still +9.)

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of Jazz action.

The Jazz have already logged 4,477 miles on their current trip, zigzagging the continent to wind up in Detroit. But they’re hardly done. After tonight, they fly home for a quick stop — practically another stop on an 8-game road trip — before heading back out.

Monday 1/10, Jazz @ Pistons: The Pistons are coming off a win and are 3-2 in the new year, but overall they’ve had a rocky year as the league’s worst offense. Veterans Jerami Grant (14 games) and Kelly Olynyk (28) have both missed huge chunks of the season, and rookie Cade Cunningham (15.2 points per game, .482 true shooting) isn’t at the point where he can carry an offense. Former Jazz lottery pick Trey Lyles is averaging 16 and 8 over his last six games, and second-year wing Saddiq Bey has his moments. Bey powered an upset win in Milwaukee last week with 34 points, eight rebounds and five assists.

Wednesday 1/12, Jazz vs. Cavaliers: Another 1,481 miles brings the Jazz back home for a single game. So yeah, they’ll get to sleep in their own beds and play in front of their own fans, but in a way the quick layover at Vivint Arena is little more than another stop on a long road trip. It’s a huge bummer that the still-beloved Ricky Rubio will miss this homecoming at an arena he called home for two seasons — the Spanish guard tore his ACL and is done for the year. Since he went down, the surprising Cavs are 2-4 with a bottom-10 defense. But the Cavs may still correct course behind their young trio of Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley. Those three have a +9.8 Net Rating when they appear together. Although Rubio drove a lot of that, too — that trio is +23.6 outside of garbage time with Rubio joining them, +4.1 without him.

Sunday 1/16, Jazz @ Nuggets: The Jazz do at least get a couple days of rest (at home even) before flying another 391 miles to Denver and then 861 across to Los Angeles the next night. We haven’t seen Gobert and reigning MVP Nikola Jokic make it through an entire game yet this season, so maybe we’ll finally get the matchup of yin-and-yang bigs, provided Gobert clears protocols this week and Jokic stays healthy. The Nuggets have won five of seven, but they have a tough week ahead and will face the rested Jazz on a back-to-back and at the end of a 4-in-6-nights stretch.

All told, the Jazz will have traveled 7,800 total flight miles and played eight games in eight cities by the time they come home for consecutive home games on January 19 and 21.

Random stuff from the Jazz community.

Ingles’ quarantine might be keeping him from the court, but he’s still been lighting up Twitter.

The lovefest that resulted from that exchange led to this one.

And then of course there was this, in case you were curious:

Another week in the books. 

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