Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell, 45, leads Luguentz Dort, 5, against the Oklahoma City Thunder guard during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Oklahoma City on Monday December 28, 2020. (Photo AP / Sue Ogrocki)
1. Donovan Mitchell finally discovers Lu Dort’s game in the final six minutes
It was one of the worst games of Donovan Mitchell’s career. Well, for three-and-a-half quarters.
After a 3-15 start from the field, Mitchell made five of his next eight shots to lead the Jazz to victory. In fact, those baskets, and a couple of free throws, were the only 12 points the Jazz scored in the final six minutes of play, keeping them on the offensive surface of the ground.
Throughout, he was largely defended by Lu Dort, a second-year Thunder man already considered one of the NBA’s top defenders. And Dort really shut him down, no matter how much we’d seen some defender contain Mitchell. I mean, that’s beautiful: Mitchell ends up getting under his head for a primary disposition, but he’s far enough away from the basket that it’s really hard.
I think the turning point came when Dort started to get a little tired. Check out this play: Mitchell is just running down the track, but Dort is too. It is never completely put in front and the imbalance means Mitchell ends up opening easily.
Dort was also a bit sloppy with the game winner. Conley drives in and Dort pulls his body away from Mitchell, opening up some separation. Mitchell gets the kick from Conley and Dort has to jump a lot on the perimeter to try to stay tied. Just as Dort advances, Mitchell takes advantage of the lost balance by driving toward the painting.
It was a compelling thing, with things to learn for both players. Clearly, Mitchell tried to do too many things in Dort prematurely, even letting some open glances pass to get some controversial ones. But Dort’s blur in the final six minutes ended up costing the game to his team, even with 42 minutes left.
2. Mike Conley, saving the Jazz
Mike Conley scored 20 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists Monday night, one of Jazz’s best chances to finally get a triple-double of the regular season.
Remember Jazz hasn’t had any since Carlos Boozer he did it to 2008 against the Seattle Supersonics, which remains my current favorite state of Jazz. I mean the NBA has now seen an average of triple doubles players and some really terrible players have picked one up. Somehow, he still eludes a Jazzman in regular season action.
Anyway, Conley seemed the only one who wasn’t baffled at first, as Mitchell and Bojan Bogdanovic fought powerfully to open the game. With the ball in their hands, the Jazz got good possessions, like this Gobert alley-oop:
You can see Conley establishing rookie keeper Theo Maledon with ease. Move to the baseline, lose it on the screen, you know it will be late for rotation, and, bam, an alley.
I think Conley will have a lot of situations like this during the season. The truth is, it’s really hard to protect all of Mitchell, Bogdanovic, and Conley with good defenders; and Conley is likely to get several clashes against a team’s third-best perimeter defense. (Royce O’Neale is likely to get the fourth-best defender.) If Conley can win these clashes consistently, the Jazz will always have an answer to attack offensively.
On Monday, Conley’s game was the difference between holding the rope and losing it completely, which gave his teammates time to get on with it. In the end, the result was another result every ten years: the first win of the regular season of Jazz in Oklahoma City since 2010.
3. Risk against reward in defense of aid
One of the reasons Jazz had a real risk of losing this game was poor perimeter defense. At times, it was considered that it could be a strategic option: the Jazz are not the only team that has chosen to try to ignore Lu Dort to help combat the Thunder’s drives, and no doubt other teams will try as well.
But I think it’s a calculation that the Jazz were a little too anxious about, giving them three open blows to the Thunder repeatedly. Yes, the Thunder have some weak perimeter shooters, but giving up three open ones even dubious shooters could be worse mathematically compared to some disputed inside stuff.
The Thunder took advantage in their first play of the game. Darius Bazley sets a very low screen on Mitchell for his teammate Dort, and while it would be much easier to get over it and continue on to Dort, Mitchell passes anyway. The result is an open three.
Or this play, where all Mitchell, Rudy Gobert and Royce O’Neale collapse on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. In the end, O’Neale and Mitchell end up colliding, but Mitchell was probably too far from the corner of the strong side to get strong competition. At Horford he is also open to play and even Jordan Clarkson takes a step towards SGA in response to unity.
Now heck, maybe I’m overreacting to a night of 5-7 point shots from Dort; it may not happen again. But last year he was a 35-point shooter of 35.7% on open shots, which means 107 points for every 100 possessions, pretty good for half a court. The additional rotations he has left seem counterproductive.
I once had an NBA coach tell me that the name of the defensive game in the league was to minimize rotations – obviously open units on the edge are bad, but if you can reduce the number of times you need to help from outside, you will be in better shape throughout the possession.
The main advantage of having Gobert on your list is the paint protector, so the boys on the perimeter don’t necessarily have to leave their man. Gobert was doing his job inside, but I think too often the Thunder found space outside because of Jazz’s decisions.