Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 118-101 loss to the Sacramento Kings from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. ‘Just kind of weird’
That’s what Will Hardy called tonight’s loss — he said it was “hard to put a finger” on exactly what happened to cause the Jazz to lose. There was one item he identified: the Jazz did a rough job at guarding the Kings' 3-point shooters, which, confirmed. But the Kings shot 41% from deep, pretty good but nothing crazy.
It was the offensive end where stuff got goofy. In particular, Jordan Clarkson had the weirdest shooting night of his career. Not only did shoot just 1-14 from the floor, but those misses were as ugly as they get: airballs, stuff way off the front rim, getting stuffed three times. It frankly looked like just about what it would look like if I was out there on an NBA court.
Online, there were a fair segment of fans wondering why Clarkson played 31 minutes anyway. I think that’s fair, though will note that there have been plenty of times where Clarkson has started the game shooting poorly before heating up in the fourth.
Also, the Jazz are trying to lose.
On the upside, Walker Kessler remains really good. KSL’s Ben Anderson had a very good stat about his 10-10 FG, 25-point, 14 rebound, five assist performance tonight: only three players in the history of the NBA have put up numbers at least that good on a night. That’s Wilt Chamberlain, Nikola Jokic, and now Walker Kessler.
Kessler: very good. Probably not Chamberlain and Jokic good. But very good nonetheless.
2. Cody Williams is skinny. It hurts him a lot.
After a couple of really good games, Cody Williams was quite poor on Wednesday night: three points on 1-7 shooting, two rebounds, two assists, and a game low -21. He looked outclassed again.
Here are three of his four misses inside the arc. Notice any similarities?
There’s contact on all of these drives — and he’s simply unable to deal with it. The defender is in legal guarding position, and when the contact is made, Williams bounces off of it, losing form and finishing short.
It also hurts him on the defensive end. These are both subtle fouls, where Williams doesn’t do a lot wrong, but his lack of strength really hurts him. On the first, he has to step towards DeMar DeRozan in order to stop the drive, which is a foul. On the second, he gets blown through by Malik Monk coming at the rim.
These are the kinds of plays that could improve with more strength. The good news is that the team reports that he has been working hard in the weight room in order to gain that strength, especially in his core and his lower body. But he’s nowhere near close yet, and I think given how far away he is, it is reasonable to wonder if he can improve enough at it to get to a point where he strength is a plus at the NBA level.
Theoretically, added strength should help in another way: simply getting his hands on balls more often on the defensive end. Williams is frequently there, but not there on defense. Put another way, he’s in the right spots, but right when a better player would complete the play and get a block, steal, or even just his hand on the ball to force a tough shot, Williams chooses not to. But given how often those actions simply get blown through right now with that lack of strength, I sort of understand Williams' reluctance.
If all of that gets fixed, the path to him being a useful player is there. I still don’t see star flashes kind of regardless, but he can be valuable. This offseason is really big for him.
3. Should teams layer decoys over their actions?
One of the best parts of this job comes 90 minutes before tip time. That’s when, every game, we in the media get the chance to talk to opposing coaches. It’s sometimes truly fascinating to learn about the differences in how they see the game.
For example, when the Thunder came to town, we got the chance to learn about how their offense has found so much success through Shai Gilgeous-Alexander isolation plays. Their head coach, Mark Daigneault, said that a big key to that was the fact that the Thunder run various decoy actions off the ball while SGA isolates. That way, the help doesn’t come because they’re distracted by that stuff, and SGA can get to the rim or get fouled in simple one-on-one.
Tonight, though Kings coach Doug Christie had a different philosophy. He was asked about how his team used to run a lot of intricate handoff plays, but had really simplified their offense since he became head coach after Mike Brown was fired. Was that intentional?
“I like to get to the business. Like, if we’re going to hand off to get to a pick and roll, sometimes I’m like, just get to the pick and roll,” Christie said. “There’s more time on the shot clock if the play breaks down.”
I can see it both ways. Former Jazz head coach Quin Snyder was one of the first coaches to really do the intricate stuff on offense. Remember how the Jazz used to just swing the ball side to side before every play, just to get into sets? Snyder felt like it allowed them to get the defense on the move, and allowed opportunity for mistakes, which the Jazz’s offense could take advantage of. And there a couple of years there where he led a top-3 NBA offense.
On the other hand, that ball movement really felt like wasted time much of the time, and there were so many possessions where it just pushed the Jazz late in the shot clock for really no reason. Especially near the end of this policy, it seemed like the Jazz were going through the motions on that decoy stuff, and offense and defense alike knew it wasn’t going anywhere.
I think the Jazz, as currently constructed, probably need the decoy stuff. Their players just aren’t talented enough to beat a set defense that knows what’s coming — but they’re certainly capable of catching a sleeping D unawares.
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