I was at the game last night. Besides being disappointed and confused that neither Mo Williams or Derrick Favors played and the Jazz loss, it was an exciting and competitive pre-season game. The 3rd quarter has often been a nemesis for the Jazz and it appears that this season may be know different. Kobe was having target practice in the 3rd quarter on Tuesday and the Clippers came back from a double-digit deficit to take the lead. With the exception of Foye, Evans and Carroll, the Jazz looked exhausted in the second half. Gordon, who had a strond 1st quarter, went weak in the second half and didn't close out on a big corner 3 from Matt Barnes. The guys were going soft to the rim, so the Clippers were getting blocks and rebounds. Kanter, who I think could lead the league in rebounding if he played 30+ minutes, missed a key rebound in the clutch. I found it interesting that the Jazz weren't running too many plays into Jefferson in the post. If he was getting the ball, it was often far from the basket. I am definitely excited by Utah's depth for this season, but I fear the starting line-up will leave little too surprise. Since it appears that Millsap will be again the starting 4, the defense will struggle and Utah is failing to take advantage of their size. If the Lakers can start Howard, Gasol, and MWP, than Utah can start Jefferson, Favors, and Millsap (or Marvin W.). Millsap and MWP are about the same size, but thankfully for the Jazz, Millsap doesn't just park himself in the corner and airball 3s.
October 17th - UTAH JAZZ vs. Los Angeles Clippers (8:30pm MST)
- Thread starter Dr. Jones
- Start date
candrew
Well-Known Member
That's how The Lakers did it in the 80's with Kareem.
My fear is once the regular season starts all this running stops and the rest of the team slows down to match Jefferson's pace/skill set.
Hopefully the coaching staff keeps telling them to run. It seems to be working fairly well so far, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't keep it up.
spycam1
Well-Known Member
Because they'll be tired.
They're building up their conditioning now so they can play like this all season.
candrew
Well-Known Member
I agree - but the difference is in the pre-season you don't need Jefferson to score 15-18 points each game to win. In the regular season things change. Slowing down is certainly not the right thing to do; but when you don't have strong leadership these are the types of bad habits a team will tend to fall back on.
That's a very good point. I think, however, the Jazz do have a strong leader in Mo Williams. If Coach Corbin wants the Jazz to push the ball, he'll make it happen. My other thought is that the Jazz aren't trying to be the D'Antoni Suns. The idea is to push the ball and take advantage of any opportunities that creates. If nothing's there, then they'll be in the offense earlier and can work in the half court.
EDIT: I tried to rep you for your post, but I must have rep'd you recently because I have to spread it around.
The D'Antoni Suns are the Gold Standard in terms of transition offense. Their problem wasn't their offense, it was that they couldn't stop a nosebleed defensively and never caught a break. If the Jazz could run like those teams (which they're short a transcendent PG), we should all be very excited. The Jazz defense wouldn't be as bad, especially if Jefferson's gone. The Jazz are athletic, deep (which allows to keep more players fresh), and have a substantial altitude advantage (which carries to all altitudes), so if they're committed, there's no reason for it to be anything but an advantage.
And on this point, a big reason the Suns were so successful in transition is because their bigs ran the floor. That's where you really set yourself apart in transition. Karl Malone is a case-study of this.
The Jazz are building a team where the obvious answer is transition. They need a real PG that can PnR so that Jefferson's game is no longer needed in the halfcourt, allow the young guys minutes and OPPORTUNITIES, and to allow Favors to shine. On top of all of this, if you have Kanter and whoever running the floor, you're going to beat at least one of the other team's bigs 90% of the time, and if you want to exploit a mismatch there early you're more able to. I also think Kanter will eventually be rich-man's Al eventually, but even if that doesn't happen, being able to PnR and spread the floor significantly improves your ability to execute a half-court set if the early offense isn't there.
The Suns were never an elite defensive team under D'Antoni, but in his four full seasons coaching the Suns they ranked between 13 and 17 in defensive rating. Unfortunately that was never quite good enough in the playoffs.
For a "contender", that's terrible. Their pace of play inflated total scores, but average defensive teams very, very rarely get it done. So "couldn't stop a nosebleed" was hyperbolic, but their problem was defense. Defense starts with your C, and Amare has never been a very good rebounder, and a simply atrocious defender. You're not going to be able to hide that problem defensively very well, even though D'Antoni tried to mask Amare and bad team defensive fundamentals with Bell, Marion, and Diaw. That's not going to get it done, though.
Also remember that good defense is the father of transition opportunities.
That's a very good way of putting it.
I believe the Jazz have a chance to be an elite defensive team. They have three above average defensive (and one emerging top-tier) bigs that all rebound well and that's where it all starts. There's enough defensive ability in the perimeter players to take advantage of that advantage, but the biggest determining factor in success is coaching. I believe Corbin wants it, I believe he knows what should work, the verdict is still out on whether he has the proper attention of the team. Hopefully that's improved in the last year. Getting rid of a big that is hopeless guarding in space would go a very long way as well.