The Triple Team: Jazz allow 132 points from the Nuggets in 4th straight loss

Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 132-121 loss to the Denver Nuggets from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Transition defense

The Jazz allowed 132 points tonight despite the Nuggets shooting only 30% from three, which is pretty difficult to do. But the Jazz did it by allowing just an absurd number of fast break (34) and second chance points (23).

That first figure is the biggest one, but the Jazz weren’t particularly turnover-prone tonight, they had 16, which is above average for them and wholly reasonable of a number overall. But more worryingly, the Nuggets were able to get fast breaks even on simple missed shots by the Jazz.

Cleaning The Glass has the number: fully 50% of the time the Nuggets rebounded a shot, their next possession was a transition one. That’s an insane number — and what it takes to get 34 fast-break points.

What’s going wrong? For the Jazz, it depends. Transition defense requires you to match up and identify your man — while also being ready to help if need be. If you lose track of your man, this happens:

And if you only focus on your man instead of helping, this happens. As the low man, Cody Williams should probably be helping here, but he’s just not watching Russell Westbrook in transition. (He also later lets his man get around him for the rebound, but hey:

I understand that this is hard — it is asking Jazz players to do two things at once. That’s NBA defense, though: you simply have to be able to guard your man and recover to help, and swap between the two responsibilities at an appropriate time.

I’ll also note what Will Hardy did when I asked him about this postgame: Denver’s pretty remarkably good at running out in transition.

“They’re not dribbling the ball across half court very much. They throw the ball across the half court line, as much or more than anybody I’ve seen lately,” Hardy said. “They’re committed to running as a team, and they do it over and over and over and over again. Anytime that you slip up, they capitalize.”

Exactly what happened tonight.

2. I did not like the Jazz’s defense on Jokic, actually

Well, okay — I thought Walker Kessler did a good job when defending one on one. I also thought Lauri Markkanen, when he came over and helped on defense or on the glass made an impact.

I did not like this:

Or this:

Or this:

This is so soft and so easy. I get that these are short NBA people playing defense and trying to help on a tall person. But, like, do something!

Soft doubling is a legitimate strategy which basically hopes to force Jokic to pass while still being able to help after the pass. But at some point, when the opponent can get to the rim that easily... well, it’s the worst of both worlds.

I think Hardy’s tried to get his defense to be more aggressive by employing more aggressive defensive strategies, and it has worked a little bit sometimes. But mostly, the Nuggets scored a lot of uncontested baskets tonight: 76 points in the paint.

3. Lakers fans covet Walker Kessler and Collin Sexton. Does it make sense?

One of the hardest things about being an NBA player would probably be just randomly seeing your name pop up in trade conversations — not because your team wants to trade you, necessarily, but because fans of another team want you. All of a sudden, you’re seeing your name mentioned and receiving DMs for no real reason at all.

That’s happened in the last 24-48 hours with Walker Kessler and Collin Sexton, and because it comes from the vociferous and trade-hungry Lakers fanbase, the conversation was relatively loud. It makes sense that the Lakers would be interested in acquiring the Jazz’s players, though: they just got Dorian Finney-Smith for a relative song, and Lakers fans are trying to put one last quality team around LeBron James.

Anthony Irwin, who I consider to be a good reporter, wrote this about the Lakers' chase of Kessler:

And you know what? That’s a good point Danny Ainge brings up. If the major thing you’re receiving in return in a trade is draft capital, it doesn’t make sense to trade the Lakers a talented young player that makes them better not only now, but in 2027, when the Jazz already own their pick. Heck, Kessler still might be making the Lakers better in 2029 or 2031, when the Lakers could trade future picks. On the other hand: Kessler and Sexton together aren’t exactly making the Jazz a winning team now, either. They alone wouldn’t necessarily turn a horrible Lakers team into a good one.

One Laker fan suggested this trade:

Two unprotected picks would be big for the Jazz, though I think the Rui Hachimura for Collin Sexton swap basically just unbalances the Jazz positionally further. In the end, it’s mostly about whether or not you like Kessler or two unprotected picks more.

I can see the argument for the latter, and I’m famously a pretty significant Walker Kessler fan. Kessler is very very good, but you do have to pay him his market value in a year and a half. I don’t think that’ll be a max or anything, but, IDK, $20-$25 million per year feels right? And how excited are you to have Kessler on that deal? Do two lottery tickets at a superstar become more valuable?

On the other hand... what the heck is the point of drafting good young players if you just trade them for picks over and over again? How long are the Jazz going to be bad, exactly? How much rope do they have?

I’m torn. I’m curious what you all think.

Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.