(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Atlanta Hawks goalie Trae Young (11 years old) goes for a loose ball along with Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell (45), in NBA action between the Utah Jazz and the Atlanta Hawks at the Vivint Arena on Friday, January 15, 2021.
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1. Jazz blocks Trae Young in an impressive way
Jazz’s main problem in their losses over the last year or so of the young season has been the defense of the guard. So when Trae Young came to town, there were real reasons to worry: Young averaged 30 points per game last year, and while this year he’s handing out the ball a little more, he still has one. average of 25. So what happens when an irresistible force collides with the soft defense?
Apparently, it’s not what you’d expect.
The Jazz were phenomenal against Young defensively on Friday night, allowing him to score just four points on a shot at 11. He is tied in the game with the fewest goals in Young’s career: the only other time he scored four points was the second month of his rookie season, playing the Warriors’ famous defense.
So what did Jazz do so well to turn the script around? The first was the staff, usually the Jazz have put Royce O’Neale as the first choice as scoring guards, but tonight they have used Mike Conley directly; Which Snyder put O’Neale on the much bigger John Collins.
Conley protected Young vigorously throughout the game, denying him the ball on almost every opportunity, and protected him 94 feet for much of the game. Conley’s movement patterns, even at the age of 33, are closest to jazz in Young’s water bed movement; he plays similarly to Steph Curry sometimes with the ball in his hands.
What Young doesn’t have to do Curry is the off-ball movement gene. The Hawks don’t have too many things off the ball in their playbook because they’re very responsible for everything their offense does: it’s their creative juice. So when you take the ball out of his hands to this point, he can’t kill you by running away from the screens and usually wreaking havoc like Steph can.
Of course, Young has defended himself against the denial of the ball, but I’m not sure it’s happened so far in the NBA. The Jazz gave him different looks, but had he just been on a double team 80 yards from the basket? It was all in the Jazz playbook.
The other thing Conley did brilliantly on Friday night was defending Young without fail. He averages almost 10 free throws per game, and often causes huge frustration on the part of opponents just because he gets so many easy points. Conley sent him to the line once.
“It helps to have played for 14 years,” Conley joked. “After playing for so long, there are guys like Trae who are so cunning and can easily get on the line. For me, it was kind of guessing those times I would try to do it, and I got it right. tonight “.
Finally, putting O’Neale on Collins meant that both men defending Young’s great projection teammates were capable defensively. If Collins examined Young, O’Neale could help in situations like this:
And if Clint Capela was looking for him, Rudy Gobert could help like this:
It’s really nice all the way. The Hawks only scored 91 points for every 100 possessions tonight, despite averaging 113 points for every 100 possessions, which means it was probably Jazz’s best defensive game of the season.
2. Donovan Mitchell shooting
Donovan Mitchell has been really good in the streak of four Jazz wins:
Noteworthy are his three-point numbers there, a combined 19-34 for 55%. This is obviously really good, probably too good to keep up.
But it’s worth noting what a fantastic kind of catch and shooting Mitchell has had throughout his career. Arriving tonight, he has been firing 51% on capture shots and shots. But last season he was at 43% in catches and shots, still fantastic, and in his first two seasons he shot exactly 40%.
Here’s an idea of how it compares to other shooters in the league.
Mitchell is legitimately fantastic at shooting these shots. I think it’s reasonable to expect a regression this year – throwing over 50% from the catch and shooting would be ridiculous, but he’s a big asset in his game.
Another thing to keep in mind when deciding Mitchell’s future position with Jazz: Is he also better on or off the ball? No doubt he is developing as a huge ball threat and at the end of closed games he will definitely have it in his hands. But it’s also great to have a strut that can feed Mitchell with these types of shots as well, because he’s very efficient at them.
3. The last sign that it is not your night
To be clear, the Jazz deserve their win tonight. They were fantastic at both ends, working together as a five-man unit to step on all the Hawks, leading the entire game. It was, in my opinion, his best performance of the season.
But man, I also felt the Hawks had reason to hear a little snake. First, there is this ugly 3-point percentage: 5-28? The Hawks are full of pretty good shooters who just passed 0 points tonight: Young, DeAndre Hunter, John Collins, Kevin Huerter; i mean jazz defended them well, of course, but i would still expect you to make these guys at least one of their 14 looks.
Still, there was nothing more deflating than this work. The Hawks were still doing their best at this point in the fourth quarter, with a drop of 16 but in the middle of an extremely good defensive possession. They let Miye Oni out of the three-point line and forced that kind of unbalanced look, which crashed against the edge.
Except it hit the edge so hard it stayed there. A safe Hawks rebound turned into a jump ball on the center court. Rudy Gobert won it, got one and a half seconds later, and even made the free kick this time.
On average, there are about 40-50 “helmets” like this in the 1230 games we normally play in a regular season, but many of them are from narrower angles or closer shots below the edge. This one came from far away and turned a Hawks transition opportunity into three points for Utah.
Surely there are more deflating moments in a game, and of course, if you get a little unlucky, you’d like to be in a 16-point game instead of a close game. But it’s a little unfortunate that the NBA has tried to reduce unnecessary player contact during the pandemic, because after that play, the Hawks would have been justified in needing a hug.