The Triple Team: Jordan Clarkson enters a flow state; Jazz’s centers stop the Hawks’ pick and roll

Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 116-98 win against the Atlanta Hawks from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz’s offense, led by Jordan Clarkson, comes alive

It was an absolutely abysmal first half from the Utah Jazz — one they were incredibly lucky to come out of only trailing by one point. There were defensive snafus leading to open shots, missed by the Hawks. There was some really rough offense, characterized by forced shots late in the clock that had no prayer. Of the nine players to play in the first half, only Joe Ingles could be said to be having a good go at it.

And then the second half happened, and the floodgates opened.

After scoring just 39 in the first, the Jazz came just shy of outright doubling that total in the second half, scoring 77. And Jordan Clarkson was the main man in the turnaround, going from scoring five in the first half to 25 in the second.

When Clarkson has a half like that, it is an experience. The word Clarkson uses for it is “flow,” and I think it’s an apt choice.

You see, psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi — say that five times fast — first named the concept of being in the zone as the “flow state.” As Wikipedia describes it, flow “is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.”

This is some flow state stuff right here:

The drive, the pass, the immediate relocation, the running back on defense before the shot’s even on its way downward... Clarkson is as engaged and focused as could possibly be.

Or on the defining play of the game, the five-dribble sequence between the legs to a stepback three — that’s flow! That’s Clarkson feeling the game and just executing his craft. Heck, look at his face as he runs down the court.

By all means, Clarkson isn’t always in this place: he was clearly frustrated in the first half, and pointed at the heavens when the first three finally went down and broke his unlucky streak. But when he is, it’s scintillating to watch. He’s just a man who knows his place in the universe, executing his mission with style, skill, and grace.

2. One man, blowing up the pick and roll

The Jazz were also terrific at blowing up pick-and-rolls tonight, which meant that the Hawks never really got it going offensively.

Obviously, Trae Young is a unique shooting threat, but he’s also one of the best lob passers in the game. So what did the Jazz do? They tried to show to Young to make him pass the lob, but recovered in time to prevent it.

Rudy Gobert’s quite close to Young: if he shoots it, I bet that shot gets blocked. Perfect time for the lob, right? Nope! Gobert backpedals and blows it up so quickly.

Or here, Cam Reddish is doing the same thing. Here, Gobert even swipes down on the ball to try to get the traditional steal. Reddish reads it correctly, and throws the lob. Except, whoops! Gobert is there, two steps back, with the easy, easy interception. (And somehow successful leading of the fast break afterwards.)

Here’s Hassan Whiteside doing it. Funnily enough, this one counted as a block, rather than a steal, because the scorers didn’t know what Young was going for. Heck, neither do I.

There just aren’t many big men in the world who can make that play; it requires a pretty unique combination of length, athleticism, and timing. Gobert’s always had it, but has somehow even been better at that so far this year.

More surprising, though, is Whiteside picking it up so quickly. He’s always struggled at the timing aspect of things, but this year, from the moment the regular season started, his timing has been absolutely exquisite.

3. The Jazz’s 3-point luck will run out at some point

The wording on this graph took me a second to understand at first, but once I did, it revealed some valuable information.

So the Jazz are in the bottom right corner. As you can see, their opponents so far this year are shooting the ball abysmally from deep; just 26% from there over the course of the eight games so far. Usually, their opponents have a shooting percentage around league average.

There are two conclusions you can draw from this:

1. The Jazz have a good 3-point shooting defense, or

2. The Jazz have gotten lucky that the opposition didn’t make more shots.

How can we tell which it is? Well, we can use the tracking data, to see if the shots that the Jazz give up are contested or open ones.

Right now, the Jazz are allowing the opponent to shoot 15.7 wide-open threes per game — that’s defined as any three where a defender is at least six feet away. That ranks 10th in the league, so pretty good, but not great.

But on those wide-open threes, the other team is shooting just 24.5%. That’s extraordinary lucky; no team finished under 34% last season. At some point, the shooting percentage of the Jazz’s opponents will go up.

That will have a few effects:

• The Jazz’s shooting defense will look more beatable.

• Gobert and Whiteside will have fewer rebounding chances

• The Jazz will have fewer fast-break opportunities, because they’ll be taking the ball from out of bounds rather than gathering long rebounds.

Anyway, just know that they’ve been a little lucky so far. When the other team has a hot streak and you feel aggrieved, know they’ve already faced the other side of the coin.