1. Playing with Purpose Fueled The Jazz’ First Half Lead
Sometimes things click for a team, and sometimes they don’t. What I felt was unique about this game is that we got to see a bit of both. The Jazz jumped out to a 66-46 lead just before halftime and then fell flat the rest of the game, losing the final 25 minutes 80-52.
What stood out to me was what I believe to be the most fundamental intangible: purpose.
The Jazz weren’t shooting particularly well through the first half, and they weren’t grabbing rebounds any more than they normally do. Yet Utah’s ball pressure felt intentional, and defensively players were locked into the schemes the Jazz were playing. When John Collins helps at the basket, Johnny Juzang instinctively fills the corner. Meanwhile, Keyonte George mans up Zach Collins underneath the hoop as a desperation floater is thrown up. There were some great team efforts.
I was excited coming into the season to see if, and when, Will Hardy would deploy the team’s zone defense. While we only saw a few possessions of it, the youth impressed me in managing to force San Antonio into difficult shot attempts while staying connected and communicating switches.s
Defense led to offense, and the ball was moving. In the first half, the Jazz tallied 16 assists and a season-low 3 turnovers. There’s something so special about effort in basketball and things were clicking for the Jazz in the first half because of it. Players were actively trying to move the ball to one another and it was generating high-value shot attempts. It was fun to watch! It was also the polar opposite of how the second half would unfold.
2. A Lack of Purpose Caused The Jazz’s Second Half Collapse
Hardy touched on the discipline the Jazz need to show in future games saying, “There’s not enough time outs in the game to, at every 6-0 run, stop the game. … We have to find ways to steady ourselves”.
Remember how quickly the corner was filled for John Collins in the first clip? Here’s how it looked once the momentum of the game had been lost. Markkanen helps at the rim, and… nobody fills in.
Both George and Collins could make the effort to get out to the corner, and even Sensabaugh could’ve blitzed to try to contest the shot. But nobody helped, and Barnes sealed the game with an open three. I really believe that besides the lack of effort, it comes down to a lack of court awareness. Really, none of those players “felt” Markkanen’s displacement and it came back to bite them. Mixing a sense of direction with effort is how I define purpose - and it didn’t feel like the Jazz had either once the game ran away from them. This is why I brought up the earlier example of Collins, where it seemed instantaneous and logical for Juzang to fill in.
Meanwhile, after a turnover, there’s no effort anywhere to stop the transition offense:
I get that things tend to fall on George, but really it’s the whole team. There are four Jazzmen standing flat footed behind the opponent’s free throw line as the steal is being saved by San Antonio. Overall, the run felt a bit similar to how the 2021-22 Jazz dealt with adversity — it was not only like the wind was taken out of their sails, but that in a moment’s notice the wind would be totally reversing course.
3. Timing Your Superstars
Here’s something that I think the Jazz may be able to learn from the Spurs’ year and a half with Victor Wembanyama: It’s important to always be ready for the next superstar.
In this game, we saw a San Antonio team without Jeremy Sochan and Devin Vassell, who are admittedly two of the better Spurs youngsters, and Victor Wembanyama. Otherwise,third-worst the Spurs’ roster was healthy. The rest of the team’s youth showed. Going down by 20 at home is never okay, it’s even worse to do so against a team with the third-worst record in the league.
This isn’t without managerial effort either! During the offseason, the Spurs recognized where they were at, and did what they could. They made a “sizable” offer to the Jazz for Lauri Markkannen, they convinced a 20th-year Chris Paul to end his career there, and they made a trade to acquire another win-now piece in Harrison Barnes. Markkanen would instantly be the second-best player on Wemby’s Spurs, and maybe that’s a luxury that’s worth holding onto.
Now, I’m sitting and looking at a player who is one of the most impactful 21-year-olds that the league has ever seen, and I’m seeing him try to lift what seems to be a bottom-dweller to a fringe playoff spot. I find that to be a bit of a waste of two of the precious years that are guaranteed to San Antonio.
Victor is the second generational talent that the Spurs have nabbed in the last 12 years, with Kawhi Leonard being the other in 2011. I have to say that introducing a player like Kawhi to a team that is already competitive is what I believe to be the best strategy for a team looking to win a championship. Those Spurs weren’t an ordinary competitive team – they’d already won four championships and finished the previous year with 61 wins – however they were likely past their window. Kawhi, the 15th pick, clearly opened that window back up.
I’d argue the Spurs have nailed two other generational talents in David Robinson and Tim Duncan. The former was another victim to being the right talent at the wrong time - and in today’s NBA would’ve likely moved to a new opportunity before his 12th year championship run. The latter walked into a team waiting for the final piece to punch through the ceiling.
Spurs’ vet Chris Paul serves as a final example. Four years into his career, he’d lifted the New Orleans Hornets from 18 to 56 wins. But New Orleans never accrued enough additional talent, and by 2010 they’d lost the luxury of time.
I’m not ignoring the fact that it takes an extreme amount of luck to land one of these guys. Yet time and time again I feel that we’re reminded of how quickly a superstar grows through, and subsequently out, of their drafted situation. Personally, I think there’s real danger to the Jazz once again becoming a “feeder” team, and finding superstar talent while never providing the surrounding pieces for true championship competition. In the meantime, it may prove useful for the Jazz to attempt to be foundationally competitive as quickly as possible with the belief that their additional assets will mature to define the ceiling of their competitive window rather than the base.
