Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 134-125 win over the Sacramento Kings from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. Jordan Clarkson, en fuego
Watch the highlights of Jordan Clarkson’s 45-point night.
I have to be honest... I think these are mostly just the same shots Clarkson always takes! I do like that he got 13 threes off, but he usually does take a majority of his shots from deep, so I’m not sure it was wildly different than he usually shoots in that respect, either. He said as much in his postgame press conference — he approached tonight’s game in largely the same way, has been practicing the same way, has been doing the same stuff at home... and the shots went in on March 12, for some reason.
That’s kind of been the bummer about Clarkson’s season so far: he’s been taking basically the same shots as last season, in basically the same distribution. The 2-point shots have gone in at about the same rate, he’s drawing free-throws at even higher rates... and it’s just the 3-point shot that’s let him down. When the 3′s going in, he’s a weapon, when he’s not, it’s a little bit inefficient.
But a night like tonight, when he goes 7-13 for deep, shows that he still can make those shots at high rates. Maybe that gives him confidence to do it more moving forward? I’m not a big “momentum” guy, but Clarkson was so down on himself in the doldrums of this season, that maybe just not being in his head will be an improvement.
Can I show you the play that stood out to me most? It was at the end of the game, when he already had 45 points, and the Jazz basically were in control. He kind of messes up here defensively — mostly, in not communicating a switch.
I’m not that mad about it. What I am is impressed, that Clarkson still cared about defense even in a game where he had scored 45 points and were trying to go for 50. I’m not sure that an early-career Clarkson cares about anything other than the scoring... Clarkson did, there.
I’m rooting for the guy; obviously, with the Jazz’s bench in its depleted state, he becomes even more important to the fate of the Jazz in the playoffs. If he can have a couple of months like he did at the beginning of last year, it’d be hugely beneficial.
2. Going under on Fox’s pick and rolls
De’Aaron Fox scored 20 points in the first quarter, 12 of those points were just on simple pull-up threes as the Jazz went way under his screens. He shot 7-10 from the field, and 4-5 from three.
You can understand why Quin Snyder was choosing to do this. Here are the Synergy stats, of how efficient Fox is when a defender goes over vs. under a screen.
De'Aaron Fox pick-and-roll efficiency depending on what the defender does on the screen. (Synergy Sports)
But when a player scores 20 whole points in the first quarter, it can be easy to react to that. I certainly did:
And, heck, maybe the right call is to react! For example, in Game 6 of the Clippers series, I don’t think the Jazz ever reacted to Terence Mann’s ability to hit an open corner 3-point shot. It killed them.
Tonight, though, the Jazz stayed true to the game plan... and Fox started missing on exactly those same shots.
Fox finished the game in the final three quarters by shooting 8-22 from the field, including 1-6 from three.
I truly think that’s the hardest decision a coach has to make: when to change the game plan and when to stick with it. And I don’t have an answer here, either. But I do think it’s worth pointing out when the “stay the course” strategy works, especially if I’m going to criticize when it doesn’t work.
3. Getting out and running
The Jazz have the best offense in the league, as you guys know. When you break it down by what situations the Jazz get their shots in, there’s an interesting disparity: the Jazz are 1st in the league in half-court offense by scoring 100.5 points per 100 plays, but just 16th in the league in offense in transition, where they score 124.5 points per 100.
16th is obviously worse than first, and yet it still just as obviously behooves the Jazz to get out in transition as much as possible. The Jazz did that tonight, and were actually hyper-efficient when doing so: they scored a whopping 176 points per 100 plays when in the transition phase of play.
Even though this shot didn’t go in, I love this play by Danuel House: he clearly sees Hassan Whiteside sprinting down the court, sees that Dante DiVincenzo is sprinting over to help, and adjusts at the last moment by making the right pass to Bogdanovic in the corner, one of the best shots in basketball. There just aren’t many 10-day guys capable of a read and a play like that, but House pulled it off.
You can also just take advantage of the slightest bit of unset feet when you attack early. See this play here: Mitchell is able to just find a seam thanks to the Kings being only a little off-balance.
Now, the Kings are the Kings — very exploitable defensively. Can the Jazz do this against the league’s best defenses? So far, they still are just about as efficient against top 10 defenses in transition (123 points per 100 plays), but don’t get as many transition opportunities (ranking just 22nd in the league), according to CleaningTheGlass. Against the best and the worst, they need to push as often as possible.
