The Mess in the West: Utah Jazz

A few weeks ago, we used this space to begin an examination of what I referred to at the time as the most interesting group of teams in the league. At the time, there were five Western Conference teams separated in the standings by a total of three games, and that group of teams was all at least three games behind the fourth-place Timberwolves and four games ahead of the 10th-place Jazz. The plan was to dig into what each of the five teams does and does not do well over the course of a couple weeks during the lead-up to the trade deadline.

After the first two installments on the Thunder (link) and Nuggets (link), however, the league decided to blow those plans to smithereens. The Pelicans were the next team up, but DeMarcus Cousins tore his Achilles, so it seemed impossible to write about what the team does and does not do well, given that it was about to dramatically change for the rest of the year. The Clippers were up after that, but then they went and traded Blake Griffin to the Pistons. Then Kristaps Porzingis tore his ACL, then we had the trade deadline, and then we had the All-Star break. So we pushed things back.

We started things up again by digging into the Blazers last week (link), and since then things have become even more bunched up. The eight teams currently occupying the third through 10th seeds in the West are now separated by a total of 5.5 games. All of them are at least 10.5 games back of the Warriors and at least 4.5 games ahead of the 11th-seeded Lakers.

It seems entirely reasonable to predict any one of these teams will make or miss the playoffs. Today, though, we’re going to dig into the team that surprisingly reinserted itself into the mix with an 11-game winning streak that seemingly came out of nowhere: the Utah Jazz.

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Prior to winning 11 in a row, the Jazz were 19-28 and five games back of a playoff spot. Their best player, Rudy Gobert, had been in and out of the lineup. Derrick Favors made much more sense playing solo than next to Gobert. Ricky Rubio was not really fitting in. After starting the season hot, Alec Burks went ice cold. Joe Johnson regressed — badly. To that point, just about the only things going well for the Jazz were Joe Ingles’ shooting stroke and Donovan Mitchell’s rapid development into a surefire future star.

Everything started innocently enough when they beat the pre-trade Pistons in overtime, but then they topped the Raptors in Toronto—where the Raps were 17-3 coming into the game—and whooped the Warriors by 30 back home in Utah. All of a sudden, they couldn’t lose. The streak included four straight wins on the road, two games against the Spurs, and a 13.5-point average margin of victory. They’ve lost two of three games since returning from the break, but there’s no shame in losing to the Blazers and Rockets. The Jazz still have a real shot at things.

Still, it’s striking how much Utah’s performance changed once the streak starter.

Utah turning up the defense was not all that surprising. The Jazz finished last season with the third-best defense in the NBA. They ranked eighth the year before and they had by far the NBA’s best defense after trading Enes Kanter in February 2015. Considering Gobert played in only 21 of their 47 games prior to the streak and that he’s the foundation of their defense, rapid improvement once he got back on the floor full-time was likely to be expected.

Gobert has indeed been a monster since returning from his second injury, averaging 13.9 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per game while the Jazz have outscored opponents by 10.2 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor. He’s played a big role in Utah most heavily-used lineup since the start of the streak (Rubio, Mitchell, Ingles, Favors, Gobert), which has demolished opponents by a Death Lineup-esque 55 points across 120 total minutes.

The Jazz’s offensive jump, while not massive, is considerably more interesting. The sustainability of it is somewhat questionable due to concerns about how the personnel on hand fits together and the Jazz having traded two rotation players without getting any immediate help in return, but the fact that it’s been fueled not by a massive uptick in any one area but slight improvement in multiple areas, makes it seem more legit.

Check out their performance in each of the four factors.

Their turnover rate hasn’t changed at all. They’re not really on an incredible shooting streak, just connecting at a slightly higher rate. They’re not suddenly shooting a metric ton of free-throws, just a few more. And they’re not suddenly grabbing every offensive board in sight, just a couple more per 100 possessions. Again, this is a slight uptick pretty much across the board, and that’s good enough to create an extra 3.4 points per 100 possessions. That’s the difference between what would be the NBA’s 17th-ranked offense and one that would check in eighth in the league.

Early in the season, we used this space to check in with Utah’s offense and how it had been adjusting to the loss of Gordon Hayward. To that point, the Jazz had been scoring at a better-than-expected rate, largely because they were playing quite a bit quicker in an effort to get into their sets before the defense had girded itself up for the possession:

"One thing they’re already doing to goose what is sure to be a comparatively strained half-court attack (they’re throwing 20 more passes per game this year than they did a year ago, per SportVU data on NBA.com, and it’s not just because they feel like it) is making a greater effort to get into the offense earlier in the shot clock. Every team comes into the season saying they want to push the ball up the floor more often and get into their sets quicker, but at least through the early part of the season, the Jazz have noticeably followed through on that desire.The average Utah possession following a defensive rebound lasted 14.1 seconds last season, the second-highest average in the league, per Inpredictable. They were able to wring 1.08 points per possession (eighth-best in the NBA) out of those plays through sheer talent and a diligent devotion to Quin Snyder’s system, but without Hayward, that number was sure to drop if they kept up the same pace. So this year, they’re pushing. The average Utah possession after a defensive rebound has lasted only 11.9 seconds so far, and the Jazz have accordingly been able to push up to 1.10 points per possession on those plays. They’re still slow as molasses after made baskets, but that’s their game. They’re never going to be a run-and-gun outfit, but targeted transition attacks and a concerted effort to simply get into the flow of the half-court offense sooner can, over the course of a full season, be the difference between a below-average offense and an above-average one."

All of that has played out about as expected. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Jazz rank 20th in half-court points per possession. They’re sixth in transition, but they don’t get out on the break often enough. Inpredictable’s tracking has them at 14.1 seconds per possession after defensive rebounds, second-to-last in the league. They do get 1.08 points per possession on those plays, so they’ve stayed efficient, but too many slow-developing possessions and not enough quick ones will drag any offense down a bit.

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Will the Jazz keep scoring at a top-10 rate? Probably not; but if they can be slightly above-average instead of slightly below. that should be good enough to keep winning, so long as they continue playing top five(-ish) defense.