Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 117-105 win over the Detroit Pistons from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. Transition D is really good early, pretty lax late
The good news: the Jazz won! They won by double-digits, even. They never trailed the whole game.
The bad news: they let their 28-point lead slip all the way down to four. In fact, former Utah man Delon Wright had a wide-open three to cut the lead to 1, and missed it.
So what do you take from this game? The good news, or the bad news?
Of course, it’s not an either-or situation — you’re allowed to learn something from both. To try to figure out the difference, I thought I’d first look at the Pistons’ shot chart from the first half, when they had a 23-point deficit, and the second half, which they outscored the Jazz by 13.
Left chart is Pistons' 1st-half shooting chart, right chart is Pistons' 2nd-half shooting chart.
Hmm... looks like they still were taking a lot of midrangers in the second half, they just made way more of them. In particular, they got 4-6 from Jerami Grant and 2-3 from Josh Jackson, guys who have shot pretty mediocre percentages (or worse; Jackson shoots 22%) from mid-range this year.
Maybe something changed about how they got those shots? Let’s look at the box score. Here’s a list of stats at the bottom of the box score and how they changed for the Pistons.
Ah ha! We’ve found a difference! After giving up just two points off of their five turnovers in the first half, they gave up 8 points in the second half. And the fast break points jumped even more, from 7 to 15. In fact, the stats of the game show that the Pistons scored 158.8 points per 100 possessions in those transition chances — way too many, and way more than the Jazz typically let up.
And it’s easy to find an example. The Jazz had all five guys back in plenty of time, but they fail to match up. In particular, Donovan Mitchell gets back and takes Mason Plumlee, but Gobert wants to switch once he gets back down the floor. But he’s a little too casual about it all, and then doesn’t get Jerami Grant either. So then Royce O’Neale has to react, and it’s too late: a dunk, and an angry Quin timeout.
It’s pretty obvious: this is a lack of focus, mostly from Gobert, but also O’Neale.
2. Transition O is really good early, pretty lax late
It’s funny in the end that the transition defense is what made the difference on that end, because the Jazz also scored 21 points fewer in the second half — and I think the biggest reason was that they didn’t push the ball enough.
The Jazz were brilliant in their quick attack early on. This was the very first basket of the game.
This is essentially impossible to guard. Everyone sprints except for Mike Conley, because he knows he’s going to be the trailer. In fact, watch Rudy Gobert get down the court. His running makes the play, because the Pistons have to help on Gobert down low or he’ll just get a dunk. Conley’s man leaves him, and bang.
But in the third and fourth quarter, the Jazz started to walk the ball up the court. Mitchell — who was phenomenal tonight by the way, with 34 points on 17 shots — does have a tendency to grab the ball with the lead and walk it up the court with a late lead, playing prevent offense, essentially.
Prevent offense does take up more time, but it results in drastically different numbers of points. In fact, the Jazz score 99.9 points per 100 possessions this year in the half-court. In transition, though? 141.8 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning The Glass. The easiest way to win the game is not to run the clock down, but to score more points than your opponent.
What really sealed the game for the Jazz? Getting back out in transition. Here’s Bogdanovic’s three that was the dagger for the Pistons.
Running works.
Now here’s the rub: it’s really really difficult to run this hard for 48 minutes per game, in the course of a regular season, especially a compressed one. The Jazz have played five games in eight days. They came out roaring and running, but to start this game, but once you have a 28-point lead on a terrible opponent, it’s going to happen on both ends — you’ll naturally slow down.
I would be more concerned about the Pistons comeback tonight if the Jazz had a history of doing this this season. But in fact, they really haven’t: the third unit has lost some points off of margins, but mostly, they’re still winning by big margins.
That was the Jazz’s attitude about tonight’s win too.
“There are times where, you know, you get tired! You run it all the way down, and if we miss you go run back on defense, then run again. Like, it gets tiring after a while,” Mitchell said. “But the persistence behind it, finding it late ... Those are the energy plays. Those are the ones are going to take us over this hump.”
It wasn’t good that they lost their stamina, but it was great that they found it again.
3. Backdoor cuts
There’s some fun stuff you can do when you’re the best 3-point shooting team in the NBA, and everybody knows it. Tonight, the Jazz repeatedly beat the Pistons backdoor, maybe more than they have any team this season.
Take this play. It looks like lazy defense from Plumlee on Bogdanovic, and it kind of is. On the other hand, 99 times out of 100, doesn’t Bogdanovic come up top here? Indeed, it might make more sense to top-lock him, to prevent him from shooting. But here he cuts, and O’Neale throws a beautiful baseline pass.
How about this Conley backdoor? Again, 99% of the time, Conley comes back across Georges Niang here, and gets the ball on a pick and roll. This time, Conley just sprints to the basket for an easy layup.
Last one. Wayne Ellington tries to deflect this cross-court pass fake from Bogdanovic, but instead Mitchell cuts inside. It’s still a pass that requires some doing, though — Bogdanovic loops it perfectly to Mitchell in stride.
Earlier on in the season, the Jazz had a ton of trouble with the Minnesota Timberwolves because they played this kind of perimeter-focused defense. Tonight, the Jazz had their counters ready, and made the Pistons look bad with some easy layups from backdoor cuts.
Are the Jazz Warriors-esque in their cutting yet? Not even close. But it will need to be an important part of their toolbag as teams ramp up the scouting in the playoffs.
