Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 128-117 loss to the Denver Nuggets from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. 3-point shooting variance kills the Jazz in this one
One of the most interesting findings of the last decade or so of basketball statistical analysis is how little control teams have over their opponent’s 3-point percentages.
Basically, if you look at the teams that are among the top 10 in terms of opposing 3-point percentage one year, and then look at that same list for the next year, you’ll find very little overlap. If you do that for other stats — 2-point shooting percentage, free-throw percentage, rebounding, turnovers, whatever, you’ll see a lot more of a correlation.
Of course, teams change every season, but you can do this for 10-game stretches too. From one 10-game stretch to the next, you’ll see teams make wild swings in terms of how well their opponents shoot threes. There’s just clearly more randomness at play here than skill.
It’s not that you can’t defend the arc — you can. But really, the key to good 3-point defense is allowing your opponent to take fewer threes, rather than trying to force a poor percentage on them.
Sunday afternoon, the Nuggets shot 18-28 from three, or 64%. That’s pretty crazy on its own, but in the first half, the Nuggets were on super hyper fire, making 15 of 17 for 88%.
NBA.com
They typically shoot 37% from three, so they probably “should” have made six threes in the first half and 10 in the game. That’s more than enough to make the difference in the ball game.
But they also typically take 34 threes per game. In other words, even with guided-missile shooting, the Nuggets still ended up taking about as many threes as normal in the first half, and fewer than they do for the game.
I think you can stand to be somewhat disappointed in the Jazz’s overall defense in the first half. They absolutely should have closed out better on some of the threes, and could have protected the paint better too. But it wasn’t the catastrophe that the scoreboard made it out to be.
In fairness, I also want to point out times where the Jazz got lucky in terms of their opponent missing too many threes. The Pistons shot just 23% from deep, and had they shot their usual 36%, the Jazz would have lost that game, the second in this 11-game winning streak. The two games, the Cavs and Hawks shot a combined 21% — though the Jazz would have won both games even with hotter opponent shooting. The Pelicans shot just 23% in their first matchup with the Jazz, and Dallas shot only 27%. The opposite has happened.
This time, the opponent got lucky. The Nuggets just made nearly every shot they took, like their team turned immediately into 10 Jordan Clarksons on fire. It’s okay.
2. Defense on Nikola Jokic
That being said, I think you can be reasonably disappointed with the Jazz’s defense on Nikola Jokic. For Jokic to score 47, with 26 of those points coming from inside the paint, is too many for the Jazz to allow.
Because Jokic is such a good passer, you don’t want to double team him too much: he has the third most assists in the NBA over the course of the season so far. But without double teaming him, you need stronger one-on-one defense from Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors in the paint. Those guys should be equipped with the tools to make his life tougher, but let Jokic score too easily in the first half.
We’ll start with this one from Favors. He’s in a good spot originally with Jokic 13 feet away from the basket, but just gives up too much room, and the result is an easy 4-footer in the end.
But here’s worse from Gobert: he has Jokic 23 feet out, and lets Jokic end up with a spinning uncontested push shot. Gobert can take this approach with guards who isolate on him, luring them inside then blocking the shot there. With Jokic, you have to be tougher, sooner.
Both players were more effective in the second half guarding Jokic one-on-one; again, the key is doing your work early.
I also wonder, quite frankly, if there was some combination of fatigue, injury, and complacency at play here. It was Utah’s fourth game in 6 nights — except that it wasn’t, because this was a day game. Maybe it’s better to say it’s their fourth game in 5.5 days. Favors wasn’t fatigued, but he did miss the last couple of games with lower back soreness, soreness that might put you at less than your defensive best against bruising centers.
And of course, the Jazz did just win 11 games in a row. They had good reason to believe they were great, and honestly showed it in the second half. Even giving up 47 to Jokic, they would have won this game if it weren’t for the 3-point shooting referenced above. This is a definite point of improvement needed from this game, but again, an MVP candidate killing you in these circumstances isn’t huge cause for concern yet.
3. Rivalry with Denver
Do you know what’s fun? The Jazz have a legitimate rivalry with the Denver Nuggets!
They’ve always been good candidates for rivals — they’re the closest team to one another. Short flights typically mean regional rivalries in the NBA. But the Nuggets were terrible during the peak Stockton and Malone years, and were perennial first round exits in the Deron Williams/Carlos Boozer years: from 2003-2013, the Nuggets made the playoffs for 10 years in a row, and lost in the first round nine of the 10 years.
The one Nuggets/Jazz series in 2010 was contentious, to be sure. There was Carmelo Anthony’s “Fesenko??” disbelief, the odd ‘Melo fans of Utah commercial campaign, the emergence of C.J. Miles and Wesley Matthews, and more.
There were even some fights in the stands between Nuggets and Jazz fans in that series. I remember in the Jazz’s Game 6 win, a fight broke out in the upper bowl corner in the section next to mine. Both Jazz and Nuggets fans tumbled down the stairs as they grabbed and shoved each other, probably 15 people were involved. The poor octogenarian usher was out of his depth as he tried to break the fight up.
But after that, there was a full decade of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Until last season’s playoff series, the Jazz and Nuggets didn’t have hugely memorable matchups, as both teams just worked their way from poor to the fringe of contention.
Now that we’re here, though, it’s phenomenal. You can make a case that last season’s Jazz/Nuggets series was the best first-round series in the history of the sport. A seven game series, decided at the final buzzer, with two never-before-seen scoring performances from opposing star guards? Plus a matchup of two top-5 centers in Gobert and Jokic? It was a treat.
Even this blowout was a fascinating, physical contest. As Jokic said after the Jazz’s win earlier in the season, “To be honest, against Utah, it’s always interesting game, it’s always intense game.” Now, the season slate is at 1-1, with a couple more matchups to come in the second half of the season. It’s unlikely we’ll see these teams play in the first round again, given the Jazz’s performance so far, but a second-round matchup seems very likely.
If it happens, I’ll be looking forward to it immensely. These two teams are fun to watch play.
