The Triple Team: Jazz youth shows their inexperience on defense vs. Anthony Edwards and Minnesota

Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 128-102 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. The youth has so far to go defensively

Yes, this is a tanking team. It must be difficult to try to play at 100% effort given the circumstances.

But for the Jazz’s youth, these last 15 games have to be considered critical. After all, they count towards their NBA futures to a really significant degree. The Jazz have four picks next year — if the Jazz don’t think the current rookies and sophomores will contribute on both ends, they’ll give a new set of rookies a chance to show what they’re capable of.

Right now, the youth is nowhere close on the defensive end. You just see players dying on screens, giving up midway through possessions. Players rotating late, or not at all. Players just getting bullied, and looking too accepting of it.

Cody Williams and Isaiah Collier involved in a switch — one pass and it’s an easy layup.

Kyle Filipowski actually does well here through the screens, but there’s one rule when it comes to Julius Randle: don’t let him get left. He got left.

And then there’s just a lack of defensive court vision from Brice Sensabaugh and Collier here. Somebody has to be guarded.

Rookies are bad defensively, that’s nearly universal in NBA history. But I really hope much of the offseason for these players is dedicated to defensive improvement as much as anything, because if they don’t improve on that end of the floor, they won’t be able to play when it matters.

2. Breaking down 41 points from Anthony Edwards

Last week, I got access to a new statistical toy — the NBA’s next-generation Courtside app. Basically, Courtside is the application that feeds real time data from the scorer’s table to teams and media, with no delay.

Thanks to developments in the tracking system the NBA uses, though, some data from the cameras in the ceilings of NBA arenas is fed into the system live, too. One such example: the system now quickly tells us about defensive matchups throughout the game.

Let me show you an example: Anthony Edwards scored a quick and efficient 41 points in 31 minutes tonight. Who defended him during those baskets?

Sexton matched up against Anthony Edwards for the longest amount of time, but Sexton did an okay job, forcing two missed. Kessler forced three misses, as did Juzang. But Edwards had a lot of success against Williams (going 4-4 with 11 points), Sensabaugh (2-2, seven points), Collier (1-1, five points).

Edwards is one of the toughest guards in the NBA, so it’s not necessarily surprising that those players would struggle to stop him. Of course, defense is a team construct, so to blame just one player for any given Edwards points likely isn’t fully correct — but it might help tell a story.

3. Watching AJ Dybantsa up close

The two best high school basketball players in the nation — AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson — played at Highland High School this afternoon.

They were there playing in one of those goofy high school showcase tournaments, this one called “The Grind Session World Championships.” Both Dybantsa and Peterson’s teams advanced to the Semifinals and Finals of the tournament that’ll take place next weekend.

Dybantsa, who will play for BYU next year, looked absolutely ridiculous. The most eye-popping play actually ended up being called a goaltend, but he had a monster rotational help block where his hand was well above the top of the backboard square. It was an incredible play — proof that whenever he enters the NBA, he’ll already be one of the league’s best athletes.

But that play was just one of many highlight-reel moments. Stepback threes. Huge dunks in both half court and transition. There were times when he used his length to steal the ball from the opposition’s hapless smaller guards out on the perimeter. And I was impressed how frequently he found cutting teammates — his vision meant that he saw those players cutting to the rim faster than I did from the stands.

Oh, and he had 15 rebounds to go along with his 31 points. If you’re so inclined, you can watch the full game here.

He’s already just insanely good. In college and in the NBA, he’ll have to gamble less defensively and be more solid, but the length and strength should mean he’ll be a plus anyway. He really cares on that end already, and that’s nice to see. And then on offense... whoo, boy.

The comp I’ve seen that works best for Dybantsa is Tracy McGrady. Yes, McGrady never did much in the playoffs, but he led the league in scoring twice and was a top-10 MVP candidate in seven different seasons. But honestly, Dybantsa is significantly ahead of where McGrady was at the same age.

In the interest of space, we’ll leave the Peterson impressions until tomorrow’s Triple Team.

Note to readers • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.