Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 121-100 win over the New Orleans Pelicans from Salt Lake Tribune beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. Baiting the Pelicans into shots you want them to take
Man, the Jazz’s defense was awesome tonight. Jazz had a 96 defensive rating, which is their second-best performance of the season — their first was a 95 defensive rating against the woeful Rockets, so I think it’s fair to say that this is actually the better performance.
What did they do well? Watching the tape, I think that the biggest thing was their drop-big defense was great at baiting the Pelicans into taking a lot of bad mid-range shots. Take a look at the shot chart:
Pelicans shot chart. (NBA.com)
That’s a lot of Xs in the modern NBA in that middle zone.
That being said, theoretically, the Pelicans have dangerous mid-range shooters, like C.J. McCollum. And we’ve seen many times in the Quin Snyder era that just giving up mid range shots is not enough, you have to contest them. But the Jazz did both: baited them into those shots and then defended them well.
Here’s a Trey Murphy pullup that is defended so well that he has to loft the shot higher to avoid the block — I don’t think it’s blocked in the end, but it’s a bad airball:
There, Kelly Olynyk comes up from the big position to bother him most. But the guard can get back in front and make life tough, too. Here’s Mike Conley doing exactly that.
Here’s the key stat: no team in the NBA allows fewer 3-point attempts than the Utah Jazz. Now, some of that is because they’ve been bad enough on the inside that teams can just get joy through there. Some of it has been because they give up so many offensive rebound putbacks that that takes up a good deal of shots. But some of it is because the Jazz are legitimately good at pushing opponents away from that.
Tonight, the Pelicans shot 4-27 from deep. Now, the Jazz aren’t going to get that good of a performance every game, and the Pelicans missed a lot of easy shots. But even just allowing 27 threes is a win, and the Jazz won big in general.
2. Offensive glass goodness
The Jazz cooked the Pelicans on the offensive boards tonight. Overall, they got 19 offensive rebounds, a terrific number.
How? Well, factor number one: Jarred Vanderbilt just out-hustled Jonas Valanciunas over and over again. I’m sorry, there’s no reason Jazz JV should be getting this board before Pelicans JV... but that’s exactly what happened.
Vanderbilt had eight offensive rebounds tonight, while Valanciunas only had one defensive rebound. Yikes.
That matchup also meant Walker Kessler had a lot of chances against Larry Nance in a smaller Pelicans bench lineup... where he could also get rebounds. The thing that was most impressive to me on these Kessler rebounds were his hands. I’m sorry, how does he catch this one?
That’s a wide receiver catch. Does he use stick ‘em too? Kessler had six offensive rebounds today, while Nance had 4.
The Jazz get the second-most second-chance opportunities per miss in the NBA, per Cleaning The Glass, and it’s a big part of why their offense has been top five this season.
3. “The Eclipse”
There aren’t a lot of new ways to do things in the NBA. Over the course of 75 years, a whole lot has been tried.
So when something new is invented, it is pretty darn neat. Honestly, Jose Alvarado’s sneaky backcourt steals are a good one that got a lot of attention last year — obviously, he’s not the first guy who has tried to get sneaky backcourt steals, but maybe the first person to literally try to hide while he’s doing it.
Now, enter in Luke Kornet’s “The Eclipse.” This week, the Sporting News’ Steph Noh wrote about how the Celtics Luke Kornet is defending jump shots from 10 or more feet away. Watch how he does it:
In short, he jumps as high as he can with his hands raised to block the shooter’s sight of the rim, even if he’s not within a prayer of blocking the shot. It looks insane.
But it seems to work! There’s not a huge sample size here, but Kornet’s defense has, so far, reduced the number of makes that Kornet’s shooters have made, certainly when compared to how often they make other kinds of wide open shots. So far, by Noh’s math, they’ve shot 28%.
Jazz coach Will Hardy was a part of the Celtics staff last year with Kornet, so I asked him about the play. Did he have anything to do with it?
“I had nothing to do with that defense, other than being a massive proponent of it once I saw it. That’s all Luke. He started doing it on his own. Myself and a lot of other coaches on staff loved it, because of how unique it was. Then we started to see the value in that it was impacting people shooting the ball. ... Really cool to see Luke get some recognition for maybe one of the most unique plays we have going in the NBA right now.”
Will Hardy tell his big men to do it too?
“Luke did text me and told me if I don’t have Walker Kessler doing The Eclipse by the end of the season, I’m a terrible coach. So I’m going to try my best to make Luke happy on that.”
Hurray! A perfect answer. Watch for The Eclipse coming to a Jazz game soon.
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