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Al Jefferson slows down Jazz offense

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SGJazz

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Don't mean to Jefferson-bash here but just an observation. I have watched almost every game this season and it seems that everytime Big Al gets the ball down low, the Jazz offense just grinds to a halt. He slows the game down so much, as the other players just seem to wait for him to do his post moves which usually ends with a (missed) push shot.

This does not suit the Jazz offense which has so many moving parts and is usually high tempo. The main point of this is that it seems right now is that Jazz coaches are making the offense adapt to Jefferson rather than have Jefferson adapt to it. This would be less glaring if he actually made more shots and is more aggressive in attacking the basket. But he usually just does his push shot or settle for weak lay ups. I can see him as one of the main reasons why D-Will's assists stats are down from the past few seasons. D Will has made great plays for Al only for him to waste.

Also, he does not play the pick and roll well with D-Will. Early in the season people were saying he needed time to adjust. But I think he has been given due time and I just think based on what we have seen this season, he is not a good fit for the Jazz offense. Any thoughts?
 
Whatever reasons you can come up with to discount Al Jefferson I'd still take Al over Boozer any day of the week.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, .. A-N-Y D-A-Y
 
Your high tempo jazz offense sure has won us a lot of championships...maybe we should change things up a bit. Stop bit**ing...we are 3rd in the west.
 
Really don't get the Al Jeff hating. It is like we just need to find SOMEONE to hate, and because AK had a good night and Hayward only played 5 minutes, he's gotta be the scapegoat.

The dude shot over 50% from the field, in double digits; had 8 rebounds; second highest +/- of the starters; not to mention 3 blocks.

Haters keep hating. Sure, his stats are down; but look at who the hell he is playing with this year.
 
I agree with your observation and this does not mean that I hate or dislike AJ. I think the Jazz's biggest problem is not the game pace, it is slow starts and inconsistency in offense. Second one has lots to do with off-ball movement which is essential for the efficient execution of Jazz offense. The ball movement and overall offensive efficiency has gotten better and better as new players continue to adjust to the system and I'm hopeful about the ongoing process. I, like you, sometimes tend to think like "Ok. He has had his time to adjust and it has been 30+ games, so let see the results". I hope the Jazz, who -despite some struggles and inconsistencies- are currently 24-11, will become content with their record and start to think like they are done learning and progressing this system. This current team is clearly not as good as the past years' teams in terms of offensive execution and efficiency. Booz had a great finishing ability and PnR connection with Deron and the Jazz have become even more predictable and offensively stagnant with two inside scorers instead of a offensively balanced Okur-Boozer duo. You can add some other factors and reasons to analyze the struggles on offensive end but it's not time to compare those teams with this year's team, yet. Not only this new roster, including 6 new players, still is a work-in-progress but also this roster have been able to attain a 24-11 record.

Talking about BigAl's game, slow starts have a lot to do with BigAl's horrific performances to start the games and the Jazz' tendency to back down a little bit and settle for outside shots instead of taking advantage of offensive arsenal of frontcourt against opponent defenses and dominate in painted area. Via Locke's twitter; The Jazz have been outscored in 1st quarters by 118 points with BigAl on the floor, and this does not include yesterday's unconcinving win against Detroit. BigAl's shooting performances by quarters; %41 in 1st, %44 in 2nd, %53 in 3rd, %54 in 4th. I have not witnessed this kind of an interesting stat yet. The Jazz have not done even an average job executing the offense in 1st halves. That might catch up with them as we move forward. The Jazz cannot afford to come from behind or play in close games all year long. BigAl is a big reason of slow starts of the team, and in my opinion this stemms from the bad execution and poor effort and intensity to start games, which is a mental problem.
 
SGJazz said:
Don't mean to Jefferson-bash here but just an observation. I have watched almost every game this season and it seems that everytime Big Al gets the ball down low, the Jazz offense just grinds to a halt. He slows the game down so much, as the other players just seem to wait for him to do his post moves which usually ends with a (missed) push shot.

This does not suit the Jazz offense which has so many moving parts and is usually high tempo. The main point of this is that it seems right now is that Jazz coaches are making the offense adapt to Jefferson rather than have Jefferson adapt to it. This would be less glaring if he actually made more shots and is more aggressive in attacking the basket. But he usually just does his push shot or settle for weak lay ups. I can see him as one of the main reasons why D-Will's assists stats are down from the past few seasons. D Will has made great plays for Al only for him to waste.

Also, he does not play the pick and roll well with D-Will. Early in the season people were saying he needed time to adjust. But I think he has been given due time and I just think based on what we have seen this season, he is not a good fit for the Jazz offense. Any thoughts?
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The offense is supposed to prepare to play defense when the ball goes to the low post. This stagnation is Sloan's system and has nothing to do with AL other than him playing the role he's assigned. Offense-Defense is a balancing act. If you want to see more movement then ask for less post-up. Asking for more post-up + more movement is leak out suicide. You would pull your hair out watching teams run on the Jazz and shoot 80%.
 
franklin said:
The offense is supposed to prepare to play defense when the ball goes to the low post. This stagnation is Sloan's system and has nothing to do with AL other than him playing the role he's assigned. Offense-Defense is a balancing act. If you want to see more movement then ask for less post-up. Asking for more post-up + more movement is leak out suicide. You would pull your hair out watching teams run on the Jazz and shoot 80%.
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Posting up does not essentially mean slowing the offensive tempo. Lakers, during Gasol's tenure, have used Gasol, Bynum and even Kobe in post up situations but still they managed a high passing ratio, game pace and offensive efficiency. THe difference between Laker bigs post-ups and BigAl post-ups is passing from high and low posts and playing in rhythm. BigAl still has long ways to go to become the ideal focal point bigman in Jazz system. He has shown flashes and improvement, I do not see any reason why he cannot become more efficient and make his teammates more efficient and attain those by not hampering the offensive flow.
 
franklin said:
The offense is supposed to prepare to play defense when the ball goes to the low post. This stagnation is Sloan's system and has nothing to do with AL other than him playing the role he's assigned. Offense-Defense is a balancing act. If you want to see more movement then ask for less post-up. Asking for more post-up + more movement is leak out suicide. You would pull your hair out watching teams run on the Jazz and shoot 80%.
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Yeah I guess that does explain why everyone suddenly seems to just stand around and watch Big Al go to work on the low post. But like what memo is money mentioned, other teams which have low post focal offense such as Magic with Howard, Lakers with Gasol and formerly Shaq, Spurs with Duncan the sudden halt in pace isn't as obvious. Maybe it has to do with Big Al's style which is a slower, more methodical and perhaps "softer" approach than the guys mentioned above.

The fact of the matter is that the pace of the offense isn't an issue as long as they are able to score on the play. However, his shooting percentage is low for his position and Big Al currently does not get others involved when he gets the ball and only looks to post up and score. And this would be good if he really went hard to the rim or is more aggressive going to the basket to make sure the ball goes into that rim.

Having said that however, I am loving him on defense. I mean when was the last time our starting center or any of our bigs (I don't consider AK a "big") average close to 2 blocks per game? The only name that comes to mind is Mark Eaton. Al's gotta be close to top 10 in NBA right now in BPG.

And this is not comparing him to Carlos Boozer by any means. They don't even play the same position for the most part and therefore is not his replacement. Jazz have never had a player with the style of Al Jefferson which is why we are analysing his impact on the Jazz offense, not simply trashing him.
 
Tired of tards making these lame *** threads. How about this, and more importantly "Al Jefferson improves the Jazz defense, dramatically."
 
memo is money said:
Posting up does not essentially mean slowing the offensive tempo. Lakers, during Gasol's tenure, have used Gasol, Bynum and even Kobe in post up situations but still they managed a high passing ratio, game pace and offensive efficiency. THe difference between Laker bigs post-ups and BigAl post-ups is passing from high and low posts and playing in rhythm. BigAl still has long ways to go to become the ideal focal point bigman in Jazz system. He has shown flashes and improvement, I do not see any reason why he cannot become more efficient and make his teammates more efficient and attain those by not hampering the offensive flow.
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Triangle Offense is different. Lakers are more talented than the Jazz. Lakers are better at running their offense than the Jazz are. Jazz are running similar cuts. The Jazz aren't timing cuts correctly or spreading the floor properly to make cuts effective. Some post up plays are isolations for AJ. I agree on the focal point point.

SGJazz said:
Yeah I guess that does explain why everyone suddenly seems to just stand around and watch Big Al go to work on the low post. But like what memo is money mentioned, other teams which have low post focal offense such as Magic with Howard, Lakers with Gasol and formerly Shaq, Spurs with Duncan the sudden halt in pace isn't as obvious. Maybe it has to do with Big Al's style which is a slower, more methodical and perhaps "softer" approach than the guys mentioned above.
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Howard doesn't have a good back to the basket game. They don't isolate him to get specific shots for him. They've coached more fluidity into the system. Jazz could choose to do the same, and should IMO. AJ isn't dominant enough to run so many plays through. I'd like to see more of a Gasol model developed.

All of your examples minus Howard include dominant post players. Jazz don't have that in AJ.
 
I wish Sloan would move Jefferson to the 4 and see what kind of effect that would have...but then of course, Millstat would prolly get butt hurt.
 
VINYLONE said:
I wish Sloan would move Jefferson to the 4 and see what kind of effect that would have...but then of course, Millstat would prolly get butt hurt.
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I'd rather have Millsap at the 4. He's better on both ends of the court. Changing positions isn't magically going to make Big Al play differently.
 
Chad Feldheimer said:
Can we please just give Al a season before legitimately comparing him with Boozer?
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Hear hear. I mean it took Boozer 3 seasons to rack up one seasons worth of games, and after that he was pretty solid for his 30-40 games per season. The least we can do is give Al the same time to work into things.
 
GVC said:
I'd rather have Millsap at the 4. He's better on both ends of the court. Changing positions isn't magically going to make Big Al play differently.
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NUMBERICA said:
And Al will get burned by most 4s.
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Depends on who we play though, right? Milsap on Gasol (who plays a 4 when Bynum is playing) would be a massacre. Al on Gasol would be great. Of course there are examples where you guys are right too. Milsap on Jamison or Boozer (i.e., smaller PFs) works better.
 
chemdude1232 said:
Depends on who we play though, right? Milsap on Gasol (who plays a 4 when Bynum is playing) would be a massacre. Al on Gasol would be great. Of course there are examples where you guys are right too. Milsap on Jamison or Boozer (i.e., smaller PFs) works better.
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I'd rather see Okur on Gasol and Jefferson on Bynum, but generally agree with your point.
 
One Brow said:
I'd rather see Okur on Gasol and Jefferson on Bynum, but generally agree with your point.
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Yep. For big 4s, you have to play Jefferson as a 4. But the NBA has consistently been moving towards a more perimeter-oriented game and I would contest that a lot of 4s in today's league would be 3s in the 80's. But yeah, we all agree. The only problem is that I don't see Sloan being that much of a strategist to modify the starting lineup to compensate. And if we have to choose one player to play the 4 in the starting lineup for every situation, I think Millsap is more suited.
 
LogGrad98 said:
Hear hear. I mean it took Boozer 3 seasons to rack up one seasons worth of games, and after that he was pretty solid for his 30-40 games per season. The least we can do is give Al the same time to work into things.
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This post is too sensible. What is your agenda here?
 
BOX said:
Tired of tards making these lame *** threads. How about this, and more importantly "Al Jefferson improves the Jazz defense, dramatically."
Click to expand...

I think this thread is good one to invoke some normal, analytical chat on a subject. I think a thread on Big Al's impact on defense would be as well.

I encourage SGJazz to post more.
 
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