Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 117-114 win over the Sacramento Kings from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. That was more or less a real game!
Across sports, we all know what to expect from preseason action at this point. You’re going to see far more substitutions than you normally would. You’re unlikely to see most of the team’s best players play for most of the game. 100% effort is up and down, sometimes simply depending on whether competitive juices slip in or if players are treating it as cardio.
The other Jazz preseason games have been pretty traditional preseason low-energy affairs. Tonight, though?
• The Kings played four starters for 36 minutes or more: De’Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis, Keegan Murray, and DeMar DeRozan. Those players didn’t average playing 36 minutes a night playing in the regular season last year, let alone the preseason.
• The Jazz, meanwhile, were a little bit more conservative. But Lauri Markkanen still played 32.5 minutes, and Keyonte George nearly played 30. Both teams used 10-man rotations.
• The level of effort and physicality was pretty high. A lot of handchecking occurred and was allowed by the officials. The defensive glass was extremely physical. In transition plays, both teams tried to get back and contest some could-have-been-gimmes.
The result was a real treat for the fans that came out tonight. I’ve always found it a bit lame that teams charge regular-season rates for preseason games in season ticket packages, but this game was well worth the price of admission.
We also learned a few items about the Jazz’s planned rotation for the regular season. Out are Kyle Filipowski, Drew Eubanks, Svi Mykhailiuk, and Johnny Juzang. Patty Mills played backup point guard, but likely just because Isaiah Collier is injured.
Walker Kessler played 28 minutes, while John Collins played 20, a win for the Jazz’s youth. On the other hand, Jordan Clarkson played 24 minutes while Brice Sensabaugh played 16, a win for the veterans.
And very notably, while Taylor Hendricks started the game (and played reasonably well), Cody Williams was chosen to finish it. I could see the same happening throughout the regular season.
2. Finishing defensive plays with a block
I think one of the Jazz’s biggest defensive problems last year was in finishing their defensive possessions — I just don’t think they did a great job last year in defending the shots taken. Simply based on the kind of shots they allowed last season, the Jazz should have finished 9th in the league in opponent effective field goal percentage, per CleaningTheGlass; unfortunately, they finished 28th.
So for them to pick up 12 blocks in just one game tonight was, I think, an encouraging sign.
George didn’t have a good rookie season defensively. Here, he gets beat, but works really hard to get back into the play and ends up blocking the shot.
Same with Clarkson here: he’s beaten back door, but look at the tremendous effort given to get back in and disrupt this alley-oop.
And then individually, this is pretty tremendous defense from Markkanen: backpedaling in transition, he stays in front of an elite scorer and then finishes the play with the block at the rim.
I think there have been some encouraging signs for the Jazz’s defense in this preseason. Remember, they were ranked either last or second-to-last in the league defensively a season ago, depending on which stat you look at. In meaningless preseason, they’ve been 16th so far. Visually, it also simply hasn’t been as much of a tire fire.
3. Markkanen unable to consistently take advantage of mismatches
The Kings’ defensive strategy largely meant switching pick and rolls involving Markkanen, which meant that there were a lot of possessions in which he was matched up against someone smaller: 6-0 Jordan McLaughlin, 6-3 De’Aaron Fox, or 6-6 Keon Ellis.
There was some good there: Markkanen shot 10 free throws on these opportunities, nailing all 10. But he also turned the ball over five times, which is probably more impactful in the aggregate. Here they all are, for the video-interested:
To be sure, the defense is being allowed to be physical here, with often both arms into Markkanen’s body. This is technically a foul. But the truth is that often, NBA officials aren’t going to call that contact, and Markkanen can and should do more to keep control of the ball during those opportunities.
Markkanen is very, very obviously the Jazz’s best player, and being able to turn these opportunities into points regularly is the next big stage of his development. It also will be a big factor in how good the Jazz are in clutch situations, because they’ll be looking to him frequently down the stretch of games.
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