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The Jazz is a hyper-efficient machine that shows no signs of slowing down. They have won 22 of their last 24 games and possess the best record (26-6) and net rating (plus-9.9) in the league, both by significant margins. Most of the teams are drawing against them even before the game starts. Utah has cracked the code for regular-season basketball. Nobody is better defending the pick-and-roll with a traditional big man, or attacking the traditional big men on the pick-and-roll.
The Lakers found out the hard way in a 114-89 loss on Wednesday. The game itself doesn’t mean much, as LA didn’t have Anthony Davis or Dennis Schröder, but it was a perfect example of how difficult life is for the Jazz for opponents who can’t change the rules of engagement.
Everything in Utah is based on Rudy Gobert. He’s the best in the NBA playing drop defense on pick-and-rolls, the standard coverage for crosses on those plays. Rather than spreading to the perimeter, where lack of speed can be attacked, the centers lag behind in the paint and play a complicated game of cat and mouse with the ball handler. The goal is to lure the ball handler into taking a mid-range jump shot by cutting off thrusts to the rim and passing to the shooter. Gobert could write a textbook about him. There’s no one that big (7-foot-1, 258 pounds, with a 7-foot-9 wingspan) and smart in the league. It is almost impossible to attack it in the painting:
His ability to seal the lane on his own allows Utah to keep his other defenders on his men. They don’t have to send aid and award open triples.
But that style of defense doesn’t work against the Jazz. No team is better equipped to attack fall covers. Once again, it begins with Gobert. He’s one of the best screen editors and men in the league. And the Jazz have the personnel to extend the defense and create open lanes to the rim for him. Utah has three guards (Donovan Mitchell, Mike Conley and Joe Ingles) who can hit 3-pointers on the dribble and pass out of the pick-and-roll, and 3-pointers at any other position. As complicated as coach Quin Snyder’s offense may seem, it is ultimately based on fairly simple principles. If the defense puts two men on the ball, or sends a third man to help, the Jazz will create a 3. The two Lakers centers (Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell) never had a chance:
Utah is the no. 1 in the NBA in 3-point attempts (42.6 per game) and no. 3 in a percentage of 3 points (39.9). No other team is in the top five in both categories. With the exception of Gobert and backup center Derrick Favors, every player in the Jazz’s regular rotation is hitting at least 36 percent from deep in at least three attempts per game. There’s no one defenses can help when one of those two is on the pick-and-roll.
All his pieces fit together very well. The Jazz can afford to play with more shooters than most teams because they have a two-time Defensive Player of the Year who can protect players on the other side of the ball. Those shooters, in turn, make life easier for Gobert on offense. Everyone has a clearly defined role. No one is asked to do things they cannot.
The result is a team with an almost perfect statistical profile. Look at Utah’s offensive and defensive efficiency on the top three plays in the modern NBA:
Jazz efficiency ranges
| Game type | Offense | Defending |
|---|---|---|
| Game type | Offense | Defending |
| P / R ball manipulator | 1 | 6 |
| Roll Man P / R | two | 4 |
| Spot up | 4 | 3 |
It’s fitting that the franchise that made pick-and-roll famous with John Stockton and Karl Malone has found the upper hand again now that the game has taken over the league. That advantage allows the Jazz to pressure opponents until they break. Take your 132-110 win over the Hornets on Monday. Charlotte led through the first three quarters until Utah hit a 20-2 streak early in the quarter. They only need a few minutes to change the game.
Jazz are essentially card counting. They are almost always the most efficient team in attack and defense. All they have to do is play enough hands for that advantage to develop. The Lakers were 8-of-33-for-3 (24.2 percent) on Monday. The Jazz were 22 of 48 correct (45.8 percent). It’s almost impossible to overcome that kind of disparity behind the arc.
The only way opponents can change those odds is to change the way the game is played. That means stepping away from the drop covers at both ends of the floor. The key on defense is playing with smaller, mobile defenders up front who can switch screens and stay in front of Utah guards. That would allow everyone else to stay home and eliminate the 3 openings that Jazz normally creates. The game would go from being who can move the ball better to who can play better one on one.
The key on offense is playing five 3-point shooters at the same time. That kind of alignment would force Gobert out of the paint. It’s not enough to have a 5 stretch because Utah can move its star center to any shooter, regardless of position. That’s what happened when they faced Dallas. Gobert protected Dorian Finney-Smith, a defensive specialist with a decent outside shot that Utah will live with him taking, in place of Kristaps Porzingis.
The Clippers laid out the plan for the rest of the league in a 116-112 win over the Jazz on Friday. They won the game with a 13-2 run in the fourth quarter when they played Marcus Morris in the fifth with four shooters (Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Nicolas Batum and Patrick Beverley) around them. Morris changed whatever screen Gobert put up and forced him out of the paint on defense. The Jazz couldn’t transfer Gobert to someone else without the same thing happening. All five players shoot at least 39 percent of 3 in at least four attempts per game this season.
Utah’s Achilles heel is that Gobert can’t punish offensive teams for downsizing. He’s not a post-up threat like Joel Embiid or Nikola Jokic. The best you can do is attack the smaller players in the offensive glass and catch balloons on top of them. Those are the kinds of probabilities defenses can live with.
It’s the same dynamic with the rest of his team. The Jazz have improved their firepower on the perimeter in recent seasons to attack changing defenses. But opponents would rather have Mitchell, Conley, Jordan Clarkson and Bojan Bogdanovic take turns one-on-one rather than fitting neatly like gears in a pick-and-roll machine.
The good news for the Jazz is that most teams can’t follow the Clippers’ model. LA is no. 1 in the NBA in 3-point percentage and has waves of long, interchangeable defenders. The only other team with that type of staff is the Nets, who are not. 2 in percentage of 3 points. They can play a lineup with Kevin Durant in fifth and four shooters around him. The bad news for the Jazz is that they may have to beat both teams to win an NBA title.
The regular season is all about efficiency and who can generate the most advantages over time. Utah knows it always has the upper hand if enough hands are played. But the playoffs are about matchups and who can dictate the style of play and force your opponent to adapt to them.
The best historical comparison for the Jazz might be that of the Bucks, who similarly swept the regular season in the previous two years. They surrounded an elite 7-footer with 3-point shooters and had a more efficient shot distribution than anyone else in the league. Giannis Antetokounmpo made the comparison himself. Not bad to be the next Milwaukee. The Bucks came very close to winning a title, but the matchups just didn’t go their way. That is what remains to be seen with Utah. They have mastered a style of basketball. The question is whether any of their opponents can force them to play against a different one.
