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Tag Archive - Utah Jazz

NBA Playoffs: Manu Enters the Hot Tub Tim Machine

April 30, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

The excitement of the start of the playoffs was dampened considerably yesterday by Derrick Rose’s devastating ACL tear. The crushing loss of the reigning MVP from one of the two teams in the east with a legitimate shot at winning a title hung like a black cloud over the rest of the day’s games, and probably won’t quite disappear from the backs of our minds for the rest of the postseason and beyond. But Sunday’s opening contest between the Jazz and the Spurs played host to something as wonderfully life-affirming as the Rose injury was soul-crushing: Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili found the fountain of youth.

The aging Duncan and injury-plagued Ginobili, both of whom sat out the final stretch of regular season to preserve their legs, lent credence to the theory that maybe, just maybe, the teams best suited for this hectic, 66-game lockout schedule are the oldest ones, the ones with the veteran know-how. How many times did we see Duncan do this in the regular season?

Ginobili’s two slams were equally awesome, throwback affairs.

Through two days, the postseason has been at times depressing (the injuries to Rose and Iman Shumpert) and thrilling (the Clippers’ insane comeback, Kevin Durant’s game-winner), and full of smaller, simpler pleasures that may go forgotten as the playoffs unfold. Pleasures like the knowledge that two of the most reliable aging superstars in the game can still look 10 years younger when they want to.

Who Says The Playoffs Start Late? Not For The Utah Jazz

April 17, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

Via Flickr - TheArtGuy

You ever had your back against the wall? That was where the Utah Jazz were last night against a Dallas Mavericks team coming in that had flummoxed them all season long. The Mavs came to drive home the dagger on a Jazz team that had fought hard to remain relevant, triumphing over the Rockets in Houston three games before, only to drop a second straight meeting with the lowly New Orleans Hornets followed the very next night by a thrust to the heart by a playoff-seasoned Memphis Grizzlies squad that weren’t about to let an outsider-looking-in take a season sweep from them on their home floor.

That was it. It was over, for all intents and purposes. All for naught. The extreme emotional roller coaster was finally grinding to a halt. Jazz fans resigned themselves to the inevitable, by and large.

But then there was an ever so faint glimmer on the horizon. If the Jazz could win out while either the Denver Nuggets or Houston Rockets went 2-3 to finish Utah would still be kicking, provided they had any fight left in ‘em. But that meant beating a Dallas team that they hadn’t gotten the best of in more than two years, two months, and two weeks.

I didn’t even intend to go to this game. Can you imagine?

Can you imagine missing out on a Utah franchise record rebounds by Huge Al Jefferson, a gutty, gritty career high six assists by cast-off DeMarre Carroll, or Devin Harris tying a career best five 3-makes in a bid to open up the paint for the Jazz’s Fearsome Foursome with a new career mark 12 3-point attempts, or even 10-day signee Blake Ahearn’s first points in a Jazz uni?

It was almost an accident, one facilitated by an alternate plan all for the sake of saying hello to Devin Harris’s brother Bruce who was in town for the tilt to pull for the home team to pull off the impossible. When our plan to hook up for a pregame BS session blew all to hell he told me to meet him at EnergySolution Arena instead. How was I to know it would be the most intense Jazz game I’d ever attended?

I’ve been to many Jazz games — many this season, several of which have been candidates for the Game of the Year for the Jazz — but all I could think of as the Mavericks closed in on the undermanned Jazz late was “This is INTENSE!”

I was at that historic MJ’s Bulls at the Delta Center Jazz triple overtime game back in ’92, and that has always been the crowning jewel of intensity for attended Jazz games for me. Until now.

As intense and great as that game was — Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, John Stockton and all — there just wasn’t anything on the line aside from pride. There was oh-so much more than simple, vain pride on the line last night. The Jazz were fighting for their very playoff lives and they knew it.

The first domino fell the evening before when the Denver Nuggets beat the Houston Rockets — two of the teams immediately in front of Utah in the West playoff race. Now, while Utah prepared to tip off in a CPR-ready battle, the Nuggets were on the second night of a back-to-back with Houston, and Houston was up four. The worst case scenario here was that the Rockets would split the home-and-home series leaving Utah for dead on the spring desert floor.

The next domino fell when Devin Harris took the first Jazz offensive possession slicing to the rim, showing the Mavs that the Jazz meant business. As the game wound on and they ran the lead up to as large as 11, I was as glued to the in-arena scoreboard across from me as I was to the focused players on the Larry H. Miller court before me. I would get the news I so craved in a beer line at halftime, offering ESA an emphatic fist pump that felt to me as if it went from rafter to floor. The third domino had fallen, along with the Rockets, whom the Jazz hold the tie-breaker with.

But they had to finish their business first, or it was all so much trash in the can that Jerry Sloan used to lean on to do his media duties in the bowels of the arena.

Dirk was feeling… talkative, and intense, as he always is. He hates to lose. Especially to the pesky Jazz who have tortured him years yore (think Andrei Kirilenko and Right Guard). Ty Corbin threw everything he had at Nowitzki while Jason Terry spun in unreal shot after shot, leaving the twine snapping relentlessly as Utah’s confidence and lead dwindled simultaneously. This is what champions do. This is what Mavericks do to Jazz.

Only the Mavericks don’t have one of these.

Riding a season-high six-game win streak three weeks ago the Jazz rolled into Atlanta and lost an epic battle with the Hawks in four overtimes. Head coach Ty Corbin road his starting five into the ground that night, and I, manning the multiple Dime Twitter accounts and being responsible for a short recap afterward that would be posted on the Daily Dime Live page on ESPN, criticized Corbin for failing to make a move in any of the OTs.

Once again he rode the starters all the way. All the way to victory, playing the odds and the best five cards dealt him. And they responded by taking a big step forward, growing as a team that has each other’s backs, a team not willing to just lay down and die at anyone’s feet.

This was intensity. Playoff intensity. For the playoffs have begun in earnest for the Utah Jazz. And I’m damn proud to say I was there for it.

Utah Jazz Moving Millsap, But Not The Way You Thought

April 12, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

Via Flickr - Moving Simplified

Late last season Utah Jazz head coach Ty Corbin had little to lose in a season not of his making, and so embarked on an experiment, one Jerry Sloan had contemplated but never found the inclination to employ for whatever get-off-my-lawn reason.

“…the admission was made, and it provided insight into whether Millsap hopes to return next season as a power forward or a small forward.

The 6-foot-8, 250-pounder has no problem switching positions and sliding over to the 3 spot on occasion — something he did toward the end of the season to play alongside fellow bigs Al Jefferson and Derrick Favors.”

-Jody Genessey, Deseret News

The short stints at the 3 were interesting, if mostly uneventful, last season, and hotly contested by fans and media. The prevalent thinking was that Millsap was too much the tweener — not big enough to impact the towering 4s, but not fleet enough to guard the quick 3s of the NBA — for him to be successful there. The sample size was so small there wasn’t much to be gleaned from Millsap’s 2% of the team’s minutes at the small forward in 2010-11. Yet even then, before the addition of Enes Kanter to the Jazz’s big man rotation, it was enough to spark debates centered around moving Millsap over so that natural defender Derrick Favors could get on the floor more.

Corbin had seen enough potential for a situational move to prompt him to tease us by saying he’d comtemplate using Millsap at the 3 more in the next season, the current one. So Paul set out in the offseason with the goal of adding to his rigorous routine more lower body training to develop the leg muscle required to try and keep the quick 3s in front of him should he see time on the floor with Jefferson and Favors manning the frontcourt.

There was some talk of seeing this bigger, longer lineup coming into the 2011-12 season, talk that was soon forgotten in vain when it never happened. Until a recent series of injuries that coincided with a slump, a seeming blessing in disguise.

On a three-game skid with Utah’s season hanging in the balance, the offense stagnating on the floor while opposing wings found their way into the paint too easily, once again Ty Corbin had little to lose. So he took a chance.

Midway through the second quarter early in April in the Rose Garden the Jazz were down 13, floundering while Nicolas Batum and Wesley Matthews were having their way with Utah when Paul Millsap entered the game at the small forward position. Bigger and stronger than both Batum and Matthews, the Jazz would close the quarter on a 21-11 run closing the gap to three by the break. And never look back.

Corbin trotted out his longer lineup to start the third quarter and it responded with a 14-1 run, Millsap dropping 19 second-half points, Batum and Matthews frustrated and helpless, stymied, unable to stop the stout tweener. These are precisely the types of players Millsap wasn’t supposed to be able to defend, but when you’re wearing out your man with a mismatch it has the inevitable effect of making an impact on the available energy reserves used on offense as well.

Since moving Millsap to the 3 for longer stints in that Portland game midway through 2Q, the Jazz have gone 4-2, the 22nd-ranked defensive squad holding four opponents to less than 100 points, Millsap, Favors, and Jefferson on the floor together a +32 plus-minus. The most effective lengthy lineup of Jamaal Tinsley plus Gordon Hayward — extremely lengthy at the 2-spot — in the backcourt, plus these more-traditional 4s have been wreaking unscouted havoc on the opposition.

From BasketballValue, this lineup boasts the best defensive rating of any of the most-used top 25 five-man units trotted out by Ty Corbin this year.

Even as this potent quintet sees more floor time as a spark plug when the system breaks down, and is reported as potential trouble by scouts, in a league where individual matchups dictate much of the odds of the outcome many times opposing coaches may find themselves powerless to hold back an often bigger and stronger Paul Millsap on the wing, especially with him netting career levels in FG% out to nine feet, leading the NBA in scoring on cuts to the basket, more able than ever to put the ball on the floor, a solid assist rate, and a career-low turnover percent.

It’s moving time in the playoff picture. And Ty Corbin and the Jazz always have extra options with an ever-improving, flexible hard worker like Millsap willing to get in there and mix it up in any fashion required to win.

At The Edge Of Expectation

March 28, 2012 in by with 3 Comments

Photo by Carsten Peter

I miss Andrei Kirilenko.

Somehow, he slipped away without us being able to give him a proper farewell for the decade he spent in the NBA. With the lockout and our scrambling to adjust our rituals, schedules, and expectations once the season was green-lighted, Kirilenko slipped through the cracks—like he did so often on both ends of the floor.

He’s in Russia now, a place he had pined for in the last four years of his NBA career. He’s with his once-former team, CSKA Moscow, leading them to a successful season in Euroleague. In Russia, he is free to be the player he’s always been, but was only able to show a glimmer NBA: a creative force on offense and defense. While never the most fluid or graceful player, Kirilenko’s most devastating talent was his impeccable timing in every facet of his game. At 6’9”, he saw the floor better than most point guards, and made bullet passes in stationary positions and in motion that slipped through traffic. But his most notable brilliance was on defense, and not just in shot-blocking. In a 2008 Sports Illustrated article, Chris Mannix articulates the impossibility of Kirilenko’s defense:

With Utah clinging to a late four-point lead against Milwaukee, Kirilenko poked the ball away from Bucks point guard Ramon Sessions and took it the length of the court for a game-sealing dunk. What was special about that steal—his fifth of the night—was that it came during a dribble handoff. As Sessions gave the ball to Richard Jefferson, Kirilenko slid his arm between the two and knocked the ball free. “Did he just do that?” marveled a scout watching the game. “He’s Rope Man. He can get those arms in the smallest of spaces.”

via The Dream Life of Andrei Kirilenko | Chris Mannix, Sports Illustrated (12/1/08)

In Utah, we watched as Kirilenko’s potential blossomed into surefire stardom, which was swiftly killed by injuries and the offensive hierarchy created by the rise of Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer. Kirilenko spent the second half of his NBA career adrift, simultaneously regressing and stagnating on the only team he’d know. The sheer inconsistency of his place on the team drove him to question his identity as a player. Though it was understandably tough to see the Jazz stifle Kirilenko’s individual genius in hopes of working him in as a glue guy, much of Kirilenko’s intrigue resided in his ability to adapt to his diminished role.

Alas, he’s gone and the Jazz have moved on. But his spirit still looms. And if anyone has assumed Kirilenko’s former role on the team, it’s Gordon Hayward.

It’s not a perfect comparison. While Hayward is quite tall for his position at 6’8”, he isn’t built like a gangly android. His arms are short, and he isn’t a fraction of the defensive force that Kirilenko is. But he tries. Timing was a blessing for Kirilenko, whose 7’4” wingspan could have easily made up for any missteps. For Hayward, it’s a necessity. On blocks, he synchronizes his jumps with the opponent, reaching the ball immediately before it reaches its apex.

But where they align most closely is their ability to make plays for others. Hayward doesn’t have Kirilenko’s repertoire of no-look, behind-the-back, or between-the-legs passes, but he makes simple, quick reads in motion, leading to easy points when defenses collapse on him. Hayward has one of the highest assist rates (27.87) among shooting guards—higher than similarly versatile (albeit more heralded) players in James Harden and Evan Turner.  It’s easy to come away watching Hayward a bit underwhelmed. There isn’t much to his game that commands attention. But there is an understated elegance to his game that is still in development. Being raised in Indiana means learning how to play “the right way”, but there is still quite a bit of talent needed to execute a perfect bounce pass in traffic to a cutting big man.

Hayward is spectacularly unspectacular, hiding at the edge of expectation—an extension and exemplar of this new Jazz iteration. The team doesn’t have any captains. Ty Corbin said earlier in the season that there are “13 Captains”, something of a motto for the Jazz’s fundamentally team-oriented play. This is a team in flux, as recognizable faces and individuals have made way for a younger, more athletic, more amorphous gelling of talent. Yet, despite their facelessness as individuals, this Jazz team has more potential as a darling than most teams of the Deron Williams era.

(Video courtesy of  shandondan40 / @shandonfan)

The team is at an interesting intersection; a juncture where past and future coalesces into something coherent, not corrosive. The team has gone 8-2 in its last 10 games with Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, Devin Harris and a litany of extremely young players. They play unselfishly, a brand of basketball even Jefferson, a notorious black hole on offense, has adopted and embraced. Jefferson, Millsap, and Harris aren’t the future of this franchise; a fact they are surely aware of, but there are few signs of bitterness or resentment as they look forward. Team interviews show a warmth of camaraderie that’s impossible to fake. If anything, how the Jazz have been playing recently asserts the romantic notion that teams play for one another as an affirmation of their bond.

There is something religious about the franchise player model that most teams subscribe to, placing all hope and faith on one man to lead a team to victory. Not to say that a nightly collective effort is altogether agnostic, but the factors that contribute to success are more complex. There is little room for error. But that isn’t why this season’s Utah Jazz are important. They exist at the fringe of popular discourse—just outside of the clutch debate, the closer arguments, and thoughts of MVP and Finals candidates. The Jazz offer some semblance of purity, however fleeting. They are a collection of good, not great, talents playing stellar basketball as of late. Their play displaces some of the noise, some of the clutter.

We thought we found utopia last season in Denver. Perhaps utopia exists further west.

More Like ‘Power Bore-wards’: The Model of Big Men Who Put You to Sleep

March 1, 2012 in by with 3 Comments

Photo by law_keven on Flickr

Recently, while doing research for another post, I stumbled across the following: of players getting starter’s minutes, Al Jefferson has the highest PER for a player not named to the All-Star team this season (Note: since that search, he’s been leapfrogged by Ryan Anderson and Greg Monroe, but just barely). His PER also beats out Dirk Nowitzki, Deron Williams, Roy Hibbert, Chris Bosh, Marc Gasol, and Andrew Bynum. Per 36 minutes, he’s scoring and rebounding more than Bynum and several others. Neither advanced stats nor All-Star appearances are the end-all-be-all of a player’s worth, but seeing Big Al so high up on that list got me thinking about how close Big Al’s time on the Timberwolves came to ending my Timberwolves fandom, about how much I’ve always respected but never liked Tim Duncan, about why Kevin Love feels so different, and what all of that says about how we might lie to ourselves about basketball.

Al Jefferson highlight mixes on YouTube are a little weird, often consisting of highlight reel passes to Big Al for strong, secure two-handed dunks. There will be a bunch of up-and-unders, some blocks on shots by shooting guards and small forwards, some excessively smooth and effective drop step spins to the hoop. He is, in essence, doing everything you could want from the power forward and center position according to those positions’ traditional roles. And I almost fell asleep watching those videos.

When the Wolves were casting about for a reason to get Big Al out of town, the argument that kept coming up was that he was a black hole on offense. Once the ball went into him in the post, it wasn’t coming back out until he scored or turned it over. You see, his propensity for stopping and scoring the ball was taking away chances from, well, Jonny Flynn, I guess. And other deadeye shooters on the 2009 Timberwolves like Corey Brewer, Ramon Sessions, and Sasha Pavlovic. Sure, Jefferson’s usage rate was highest on the team at 24.3%, but numbers two and three on that list were Flynn and this guy. (For what it’s worth, number four was Kevin Love—this was his rookie season.) Jefferson was also (supposedly) creating a logjam in the frontcourt alongside Love, a charge that seems kind of ridiculous when you look at a Wolves team that started this season with three to five natural power forwards and zero serviceable centers, although Pekovic has since emerged as a bruisingly effective five.

And when he was on the Wolves, I bought every justification for shipping Jefferson out with relish. He was such a letdown from the energy and furor of Kevin Garnett, and there was no way he would ever be the face of the franchise. His exemplary low-post footwork, his effective spins, his decent midrange shot, his competent rebounding and blocking: it was all just so solid that it drove me crazy. I didn’t watch basketball for the subtle beauty of the back-to-the-basket game. My first love was the Human Highlight Film, my second was The Answer. I wanted basketball players who defied gravity and physics. I wanted drama. I wanted players to overcome their maladjusted, Frankenstein games and achieve the impossible.

It’s why I never liked Tim Duncan. I never once picked him for an NBA 2K fantasy draft team, despite his reign as one of the (if not one of the two, alongside Garnett) best power forwards of his generation. By 2003, I’d developed a healthy distaste for the Lakers, and so by rights, when Duncan’s Spurs knocked them off in the conference semis I should have crowned him my new favorite player. Instead, I rooted for the Nets in the Finals. He’s clearly an all-time great, a lock for the Hall of Fame. But I find it impossible to drum up any enthusiasm for his hook shots, his low-post passing, his bank shots. His game has virtually no defect, and that, at least to me, is the defect with “The Big Fundamental.” (Well, his free throw shooting has been on-and-off problematic, but even that has improved to respectable—not impressive—levels.)

I’m sure there will be those who read this and have the reaction that I’m “hating” on Duncan and Jefferson, but hating would be an improvement. My feelings about these two players are more like The Nothing from The Neverending Story, and it’s not their fault. It’s mine, and I know it. As I gradually warmed to Kevin Love, I thought maybe I had learned to love a solid, unflashy player. Love’s consistent double-doubles, his lunchpail work on tip-ins and putbacks, his ability to get rebounds via positioning and timing, not size—all of it points to an unglamorous player. He barely jumps on dunks, and if he punctuates them, it’s more with a boldface period than an exclamation point.

But then again: his post game is fine, but hardly the subtle machine of Jefferson or Duncan. Instead of acting like a archetypal big man, his preference is to score from midrange, and (here’s the rub) the arc. He’s kind of a stretch four, but kind of not, and so, he exists in a liminal space. His propensity for threes (and especially for game-winning threes) is what unbalances him as a player, and ultimately what endears him to me. Realizing that has also helped me realize that I’m a fraud.

I like to think of myself as cultivating a refined sensibility in many areas of my life: I like a classic gin martini made with Plymouth, Noilly Pratt, and olives; I’m one of those people who gagged on Dan Gilbert’s Comic Sans letter, who appreciates the clean, utilitarian lines of Helvetica, the timeless beauty of Garamond; one of my top three movies of all time is Wong Kar Wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” a tremendously restrained, lushly shot meditation on love and loss. I love Steely Dan. And what are Al Jefferson and Tim Duncan if not the basketball embodiment of Steely Dan’s cooly professional and misunderstood contemporary jazz-rock?

My ho-hum feelings about Duncan and Jefferson (and other blandly solid players like Andre Miller) belie my idea of myself as a basketball aficionado. Because down at the root I still fell in love with basketball because of Dominique Wilkins, because of Iverson’s crossovers, because of fast breaks and dunk contests, because of style over substance. My other two top movies? “Aliens” and “Die Hard.” My head wants crisply efficient offense and staunch defense. It knows the bank shot is better than the circus shot. But I’m sorry, Timmy and Al, the heart wants what it wants, dammit.

A Tale of Two Endings

February 23, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

Photo by Anthony Mattox on Flickr

(Steve McPherson joins Hardwood Paroxysm today. You can find him on Twitter @steventurous. He likes long walks on the beach and the company of close metrics. Please annihilate his articles in the comments as you would mine. Enjoy. -Ed.)

Whatever your feeling about advanced stats—about player efficiency ratings and win shares per 48—basketball is undeniably a game of numbers. At the end of the day, somebody wins and somebody loses, and not because of how aesthetically pleasing their team’s play was. The ultimate stat is wins and losses because with out those two columns, none of the others need exist. It’s easy to joke about how analysts and commentators talk about the game: “The team that wins tonight if going to be the one that scores more points.” It’s so obviously true, but amazingly, who wins and loses can come down to the firing of a few neurons here or there. It’s pretty well demonstrated by the Timberwolves last two games: a loss to Denver in overtime on Monday and a win against the Jazz last night, both decided in the last few seconds.

But since we’re talking about numbers, let’s simplify the equation a bit. First of all, every team in the NBA looks like they’ve stumbled out of The Walking Dead right now. This compressed schedule is crushing teams physically and several games this week leading up to the All-Star break have had the feel of class on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Kevin Love, in particular, looked flat-out tapped last night. Secondly, the game against Denver was on the road, so Denver’s altitude certainly didn’t help, and the game was close through the fourth quarter and overtime, whereas the Wolves started the fourth quarter down 13 against the Jazz and rallied to win 100-98.

That second point is important, though, because while the Denver game felt like a war of attrition (neither team scored for the first 3:08 of OT), the game against the Jazz featured a much greater swing emotionally for both teams. Here’s a play from early in the fourth quarter:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoh3jff2vVw

With Utah up 12, Earl Watson’s shot misses badly. As the ball heads out of bounds, Nikola Pekovic just watches it go while Watson dives out of bounds and heaves it back to Derrick Favors, who dunks it for an easy 2. The play exemplifies how things were going for the Jazz at that point: they were outworking the Wolves and getting the bounces while the Timberwolves were flat-footed.

But with about seven minutes left, the dynamic of the game started to shift. On back-to-back trips, J.J. Barea and Luke Ridnour both drove the lane and got fouled, making their free throws. Between these possessions, the Jazz had a quick, empty trip on their own end. This sequence felt something like when a football team keeps its offense on the field. The Jazz had the equivalent of a three-and-out while the Wolves ground their way slowly up the field.

That sequence led to this one:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Xo522phiE

Having cut the lead to 7, the Wolves defend Josh Howard’s cut into the paint well and get the rebound off the tough shot. Love misses the wide open 3 at the other end but tiny J.J. Barea (who’s already playing out of his mind at this point) grabs the rebound. You can see him consider forcing the action into the paint, but instead he pulls it back to reset. His iso creates a lane for Derrick Williams, who dishes to an open Ridnour, who drives and kicks to a wide-open Barea for the 3. The basket cuts it to four. It’s a beautiful sequence of basketball, with every player making fundamentally good choices.

And now, as Monty Python would say, for something completely different:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOVafPBmHWU

There’s not much to say about this play by Martell Webster that hasn’t already been said here. Bottom line: a great defensive play turns into a woeful offensive play and the Timberwolves get 2 when they needed 3 and ultimately fall 103-101.

In the wake of each of these games, narratives emerged. The Denver game is evidence that the Timberwolves still make dumb mistakes, that they haven’t learned to play together, that Adelman still doesn’t understand how this team works best. The Utah game is evidence that the team is scrappy, that they can win without a great game from either Rubio or Love, that Adelman is a coach who knows how to ride the hot hand (Barea’s, in this case).

But maybe what each of these games points out best is just what a coach has control over. In the Denver game, no one on the Wolves was playing all that well. Nikola Pekovic had gone down early when he rolled his ankle. Ridnour and Michael Beasley were the only players who’d shot close to consistently (hitting 50% and 44% respectively), and they were both on the court to finish the game. In the Jazz game, the Wolves made their run with Rubio on the bench. Once it was close, Adelman put him back in, but only long enough for him to get to the foul line and miss 1 of 2, bringing him to 1-6 from the stripe. At that point, taking him out is a no-brainer. A close game is likely to come down to free throws, so don’t leave a player having an off night from the line in the game. The unit on the floor to end the game was the unit that got them there: Barea, Ridnour, Webster, Williams, and Love. The Jazz game shows Adelman going with what’s been working, whereas in the Denver game, nothing had really been working. It was a toss-up.

And so looking at the torpor and stagnation of the Denver game, Webster’s ill-timed dunk is just more evidence of a lackluster performance. Ridnour’s floater to win the game against the Jazz looks, likewise, like proof of the team’s scrappiness and Adelman’s coaching acumen. But if Ridnour misses that floater like he missed a late layup against the Nuggets, the game goes to overtime, where the Wolves might have fallen apart. Had Webster pulled up for the 3 and made it, they would have given themselves a chance to win.

But that’s the trick with narratives, with the stories we tell to make sense of what’s happened: they only work in reverse. In the moment, the game exists in the slimmest of margins, in the decision to pull up for the shot or drive, to go for the runner or dish it out. A neuron here or a neuron there is all that separates the two most important columns on the stat sheet: wins and losses.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEtfgsd0haA

History Tells Us, There Are No Guarantees In Lockout Seasons

February 21, 2012 in by with 1 Comment

 

Via Flickr - Irargerich

It was a truncated lockout season in the NBA. A lockout season where an upstart was trying to knock off a favorite.  A favorite with a platoon of prominent players that had not yet graced digits with that most coveted of rewards, a championship ring. I speak of course of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat. Or do I?

There are parallels to be drawn. The 1999 lockout season featured a pair of teams crossing the compressed finish line tied for the best record in the NBA, and as we speak the Heat and Thunder each stand atop their respective conferences, tied for tops in the league at 25-7. But the favorites I refer to are the ’99 Utah Jazz and upstart-at-the-time San Antonio Spurs who had recently lucked out against all odds and landed a future all-timer in Tim Duncan whom they could throw at current best-power-forward-of-all-time Karl Malone.

At that time the Spurs and Jazz were unfortunately not only in the same conference, but also in the now defunct-due-to-realignment Midwest Division. Utah had run headlong into his magnificent Airness, Michael Jordan, the pair of previous Finals, but MJ had now retired (again), leaving an open lane for the John Stockton and Karl Malone-led Jazz to roll right to the Larry O’Brien hoop trophy unabated.

Despite attempting to replicate the recipe of the last NBA champs not named the Chicago Bulls to a degree, the Houston Rockets, the Spurs’ “power centers” Tim Duncan and 1994-95 MVP David Robinson had been unable to supplant the Jazz’s mighty trio of Malone, Stockton, and Jeff Hornacek, getting blasted out of the West playoffs the year before 4-1 by Utah. The Jazz were heavily favored to go all the way this time after reaching the conference finals five of the last seven years and the Finals for two straight, losing one of the late-spring series to MJ and Co. by a total point differential of only four points.

But it was not to be.

As it happens, these two powerhouses wouldn’t even get the chance to clash on the court in the accelerated ’99 playoffs as the Jazz would plow through most of the regular season only to run out of gas near end.

The Jazz finished a [tied-for] league-best 37-13 in 1999 but limped to a 5-5 finish over the last 10 games before struggling, by their mighty standards, in the playoffs. A middling Sacramento team took Utah the distance in the first round, and the Blazers eliminated the Jazz in six games in the second round.

 -Zach Lowe, The Point Forward

I remember that Portland series vividly, even though it happened more than a decade ago. The Jazz won game 1 at home by 10. But then lost game 2, by 3 points. Arvydas Sabonis was a huge man who devoured the paint. Isaiah Rider scored 27 points in that game, and Rasheed Wallace had three blocks and three steals. Worst of all Brian Grant went to the line more than Karl Malone did – and even finished the game with the same number of points…the Blazers broke the Jazz’ serve, and then were beat in Game 3 by 10 points. The Blazers went to the line endlessly in that game – 50 times. Utah also turned the ball over 16 times, and shot (as a team) only 38.9 fg%.

-AllThatJazzBasketball, SLCDunk

The Jazz weren’t just aging; they were ancient, and considering what happened to them after 1999 (and what happened to the Kings, too), perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised they struggled against Sacramento and Portland — a team went 35-15, by the way. Utah’s three best players (Karl Malone, Jeff Horancek and John Stockton) were 36, 36 and 37, respectively, by the end of July 1999, and the roster did not feature a single young player worthy of starting in the NBA.

-Zach Lowe, The Point Forward

Just how “ancient” were those Jazz that were so burnt out and beat down by the time they reached the postseason that they made abundant uncharacteristic mistakes and missed shots? Through the 1999 NBA season, the Big 3 of Malone, Stockton, and Hornacek had played a combined 108,786 NBA minutes (minutes being a more accurate measure of wear and tear than actual age). And the former were legendarily durable and conditioned in a mythical way only less than a handful of players in the league’s annals can lay claim to even approaching.

These present Spurs can boast no such thing, and taking into account a kind estimate of Manu Ginobili’s seven years of professional service prior the Spurs at 1,500 minutes per-season, San Antonio’s Big 3 will have played something very near to 95,497 minutes by season’s end.

In other words, they’re ripe for the picking and supplanting by, oh, I don’t know, the OKC Thunder.

Who may just turn around and run into this era’s version of the ’90s Bulls, the Miami Heat.

Potentially over and over again.

___

A couple of fun nuggets uncovered in the course of researching this piece:

• The current Spurs are through 32 games and on an eleven-game win streak. Beginning at game 30 of the 1999 lockout-shortened season the Utah Jazz ripped off a win streak too — of eleven games

• Through 32 games of the ’99 season the Jazz were 26-6. Through 32 games of the current season the best record is held by the Miami Heat and OKC Thunder at 25-7

• In ’99, a younger Spurs started the season somewhat slower through 32 games, but still a very warm 22-10. However, they would finish the regular season 13-1 beating the now-stumbling Jazz twice, holding them to a mere 78 and 69 points, and demolish everything they ran into in the playoffs sweeping both the Los Angeles Lakers and aforementioned Portland Trail Blazers en route to a 15-2 postseason record for a combined 28-3 finish to their initial title run that culminated in a steamrolling of the unlikely upstart New York Knicks

Jeremy Lin anyone?

Funny how history can be so cyclical.

___

“Failure can prepare you for success.”

-Avery Johnson

If you’ve noticed any other parallels let me know, I’d love to hear about ‘em.

When Heroes Become Human

February 4, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

 

Via Flickr - The National Library of Scotland

By now you’ve certainly seen the heavyweight, circus-ring bout between brass-balled legend Karl Malone and emerging owner Greg Miller, who is only now finding his voice and place in the public eye as the front man for the Utah Jazz. Anyone who’s followed Karl knows he has an unbridled passion for speaking his mind, and now finds himself in the unfamiliar position of not having a platform for lending his mind to a given matter nearly as often as he’d become accustomed to.

As for Greg Miller, the pendulum has swung a wide swath among Jazz fans, going from “he doesn’t care about the Jazz like his dad did” — a sentiment I challenged here at HP a few weeks ago, and had confirmed straight from the horse’s mouth a short time later — to now he cares too much and should keep his mouth shut. But that’s not the Miller way. Malone has always forced his hand with the Jazz brass, and this is a throwback to what was commonplace for nearly two decades in Salt Lake Valley. The difference now is, the media world is more far-reaching thanks to formats like Twitter and personal blogs allowing for more immediate and nuclear action and reaction to take place.

In case you missed any of the action, a more comprehensive play-by-play of the drama isn’t to be found anywhere than this one, if you’d like to take a moment to catch up.

No one wants to think ill of their heroes and legends, and they’re held to a higher standard by the public at large, scrutinized and sliced to be put under glass for the microscope to dissect, right down to the last letter. But when all the chips are down, they’re still very much like us — human.

They have feelings, favorites, and extended family, so when shots are fired the need to throw up a shield and and fire back is human nature. Of course, this is typically the domain of the fan, so it’s a bit unnerving to see it in an arena as vast as this, even if it is fascinating to watch unfold. Rarely do we get to see inside the minds of giants-among-men such as these, or have an opportunity to glean insight into how they tick, how decisions that affect so many are made.

It’s unfortunate that the Band-Aid was ripped viciously off of festering wounds leaving them torn asunder all over again, unnecessarily in my opinion, in the name of page views and listeners, in the midst of a surprise season from a Jazz team that is in the now, trying to make headway with the tsunami of last season finally behind them. Sometimes the media gets caught up in a scoop, forgetting just how enormous it’s reach and influence can be, creating a snowball that effectively avalanches down a slippery slope unchecked until it swallows up everyone and everything in it’s path, including the combatants who never saw it coming for slinging ice-balls at each other.

Those in pursuit of “the TRUTH” may never be satisfied no matter how much more information from the Jazz Cave on the fateful night Jerry Sloan retired is divulged — truth tends to be in the mind’s eye, a personal matter of preference based on the amount of information one’s consciousness is able to take in and withstand. We all have a different threshold and tolerance for what we wish to believe, and tend to read into or take away from any juicy nugget what falls in line with our preconceived notions. We don’t like our comfort challenged nor our statues tarnished. They are, after all, legendary for a reason.

We should remember that there were a finite number of entities with first-hand knowledge of what really went down when the stalwart walls came crashing down to set in motion a franchise-changing series of events, and to what end would lying about how it went down would serve. This isn’t the first time this season someone “close to the organization” has played devil’s advocate, stirring the pot, forcing Greg Miller to do the distasteful part of his job (if you clicked the links you know I’m referring to the assertion that the Jazz were for sale). “A confidant of someone in the room” could be virtually any of a few dozen people, not the usual channel for a source at the least, and makes for third-hand knowledge corroborated by someone who was living a life post-NBA, seemingly struggling to remain relevant as a strong voice.

Malone put the Millers on the spot by asking for a job on national television, and was backed by countless fans who fondly recall the way Karl left every ounce of his being on the floor every single night, a trait he took with him to the Los Angeles Lakers as he pursued that elusive ring his final season. It can be argued that Malone and Gary Payton were the only ones who came to play the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 Finals, Malone doing so on one leg, as another three-ring circus burst into flames ending an era for the Lakers franchise.

But it doesn’t mean he’d make a good coach at this particular time for the Jazz. In fact, Malone’s personality and penchant for making headlines would surely overshadow the new-era Jazz as they forge ahead trying to make their own legacies and way into the annals of history for this storied and steady franchise. Ty Corbin surely had the free agency to choose Karl if he liked, but instead brought in Mike Sanders, who’s done an admirable job bringing along the two young guns in step with the two big guns in the front court.

The only voice we haven’t definitively heard from yet in this fresh round of fire is the one at the center of it all, Jerry Sloan. And we may or may not. But to call any of the current combatants liars is to also call Sloan one, as he already stated the matter for the record once.

And I get the distinct impression Jerry got tired of repeating himself once already. He’s surely shaking his head at this nonsense, preferring to focus on what really matters: The game on the court, not the one off of it.

[Author update: Jerry Sloan releases statement concerning the feud]

I’m pleased to report that a Jebediah Springfield was not pulled on Malone’s statue last night.

NBA Chemistry 101: The Utah Jazz and the Team Concept

January 17, 2012 in by with 3 Comments

Author Illustration

September 29, 2011

SLCDunk: What single story went under the radar that you thought was important, and why?

Clint: The way the Jazz bigs finished the season.

I don’t think anyone would dispute that the Jazz struggled with chemistry issues last year, for obvious reasons. But the frontline of Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, and Derrick Favors began to find a groove by season’s end.

-Jazz Jam Session: September, SLCDunk

If you ask George Karl or the Denver Nuggets what’s been the single most important thing that’s contributed to their ability to flourish as a team despite having no stars you’ll be told it was the loss of the distraction that was Carmelo Anthony. We saw a similar effect during the Memphis Grizzlies’ Cinderella playoff run last season as well after they lost their top talent and rising star Rudy Gay to injury for the remainder of the 2010-11 season. And the Utah Jazz are rocking some of this same mojo this year, beating a nigh unbeatable Nuggets team in the Pepsi Center by out-teaming what’s been the best “team” in basketball in recent memory.

Before the first horn solo in Entrance of the Gladiators was done Jerry Sloan was gone. Before the second bar could begin so was Deron Williams. It was suddenly Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, and Ty Corbin’s team, and they were briskly dubbed the worst team in basketball with fans calling for Corbin’s head on a silver platter. They were supposed to lose in Denver by 10.5 points, instead winning by 10, a 20.5-point swing. They somehow stand among the elite in the standings when they were supposed to be challenging the Washington Wizards for the rights to Anthony Davis or Harrison Barnes in the next draft.

What sort of sorcery or (forgive me) “Al”chemy is this?

While their schedule has been fortunate at times thus far, they’re also a fundamentally changed ball club, making hay while the sun is shining, picking up momentum and confidence by the bushel, now not only beating teams they should by what they should be, but also pushing the mighty LA Lakers to the limit and soundly trouncing a Denver team that’s had the best home record over the last several seasons.

With this Utah team there’s no single standout area that you could pinpoint statistically that would comprehensively or logically explain a turnaround this dramatic.* It’s rather a product of a sum of improved parts that are buying into what Ty Corbin and assistant additions Sydney Lowe and Mike Sanders have been selling. The Jazz are protecting the paint — over their last three games they’ve given up only 36.0 points in the paint while dropping 46.5 — and chasing opponents off of the 3-point line — giving up 16.2 PPG from 3, down from 21.7 last year — something Sloan never did preferring to play the percentages, an ill-conceived strategy in a league dropping from range at an historic rate. Indeed, that’s basically Denver’s entire game, all inside or out, with little in between. The Jazz forced the Nuggets out of their comfort zones and into unfamiliar territory, a league-wide lower percentage long mid-range game. Utah’s improved defense is controlling pace and dictating where opponents get looks.

*As SI.com’s Zach Lowe points out, if you had to pick one it would be Paul Millsap, who somehow adds something new to his game every year. Watch out for his passing, this, he’s clearly been working on his court vision.

Sample sizes are still small, but early returns have Al Jefferson as anchor on three of the four best defensive five-man units among the ten most used on the Jazz, including the best one,  and he’s has never been more focused on the defensive end, his improved effort given a double-dose of help by his coming into camp in the best shape of his career coupled with a D-scheme devised by Corbin, and vocally enforced all game long by Sydney Lowe, that’s far more conducive to all the Jazz’s personnel than the antiquated one run by Sloan. To put it plainly, Corbin is using the tools he was given in a more efficient manner than Jerry Sloan was at the end of his magnificent run of greatness.

According to mySynergySports, Al Jefferson cut to the basket only 1.22 times per-game his last year with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Last season, his first in Utah, he ran cuts 3.35 times per-game, and now he has the conditioning and explosive physique to make those cuts count. Throw in a willingness to pass out and reset the post now when the double-team comes — and the double and even triple-team is coming a lot, watch for it — instead of forcing his way through it every single time as he always had before and he’s found a new threat to dangle over opponents on offense.

A cursory glance at Jefferson’s statistics don’t tell the whole story — what he’s doing his subtle, but extremely effective. Throw out his outlier offensive struggles with the Lakers and he’s hitting on .556 field goals, where the 6th-best player there in the league sits this year. It’s taken several games for his FG% to recover after running into the LA Towers each time. Lucky for him Millsap seems to finally have the Lakeshow figured out. Maybe Paul will share his secret.

On this play Al gets the entry pass and the double comes causing him to reset to Devin Harris who returns the favor. All the while Millsap is lurking on the weakside, stalking the play, waiting for the right moment. When it comes, Paul cuts, turns and finishes strong off the glass on the Al dime. And no one’s scoring better on cuts this year than Millsap, Paul putting down 1.69 points-per-possession, good for number one in the NBA.

And this play can go the other way as well. Either Millsap or Jefferson has recorded two assists in every game this season but one, the overtime tilt with the Lakers where each logged one.

And their odd chemistry doesn’t end there. Here’s a few more examples of how the coaching staff has found ways to play to each player’s strengths:

• Both are posting career bests in defensive rating, Al 99 and Sap 97. This after Jefferson posted four straight years of a heinous 108 (lower is better for D-rating). Under the new D-scheme Corbin has Jefferson defending the post 61% of the time where he’s 7th-best in the NBA allowing a mere 0.60 points-per-possession.

• Together they’ve netted 32 steals and posted 30 blocks, Sap the better pickpocket with 22 and Al the better rim stopper with 21 blocks. Their blocks and steals on the season are a virtual funhouse mirror, Al 1.9 blocks and 0.9 steals and Sap 0.8 blocks and 1.8 steal per game. Jefferson is currently at career highs for both steals and blocks percentage and Millsap for steals percentage. They are each “helping the helper.”

• In only one game this season did one or the other fail to score at least 18 points, the home opener where Millsap had 14 and Al sat out injured.

• Last season Jefferson led the league in lowest turnover percentage at 6.8%, although he’s always been good there due to his ability to keep the ball and get a shot off as opposed to this year where he commonly passes back out when Corbin hasn’t intentionally called an iso for a mismatch. But he’s still one of the best there at only 7.4%, only now he has company. Millsap is Al’s near equal now turning it over only 7.9% of the time, down from a career 12.4%.

You have to have that guy that you can pencil in nightly numbers for, and on the Jazz this is Al Jefferson. You also need that big-game-moment guy, and your man here is Paul Millsap (Hi, Miami!). If one is off the other has been there to pick up the slack. And if they’re both clicking, well, you’re boned.

In The Can on Sunday night Al Jefferson got ripped off by the Pepsi Center scorers of a beauty of an entry dime as he spied a cutting Millsap in the fourth quarter who deftly plucked the floater from space and hovered as he spun mid-air and set the Spalding on a straight and true course for twine.

An ecstatic Al Jefferson threw a hay-maker of a fist pump then met his stone-faced ‘mate with glee in a moment of pure team emotion and appreciation I’ll never forget.

Courtesy @theweezy25

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s hard to beat good coaching and chemistry when executed properly within the team concept. Ty Corbin is laying the foundation, drawing up the plans, and mixing up a brew of win that’s difficult to overcome if you’re on the wrong side of the floor. And his students are intently carrying out their instructions practically flawlessly right now.

We’re so much more familiar with each other now… The guys are counting on each other, trusting each other on both ends of the floor. We’re continuing to grow because we’re making the right passes. We’re making great cuts on the offensive end, pushing the ball up the floor, we’re searching for early opportunities. And when we get in half-court sets we’re doing a good job of executing our offense.

-Ty Corbin, courtesy Jody Genessy, Deseret News

Author’s note: You have to be careful when looking at the Jazz’s stats this season; they were so bad the first three games it’s skewed the entire available sample size to this point

How the Utah Jazz Cut Their Own Throats by Trading Mehmet Okur

December 27, 2011 in by with 4 Comments

While it was a wily business decision by GM Kevin O’Connor that created flexibility for the future for the Utah Jazz, the logistics will be a nightmare for head coach Ty Corbin in the trade of Mehmet Okur to the New Jersey Nets. You see, they have no legitimate 3-point threat to keep defenses honest now in an offensive system heavily dependent on getting high-percentage looks that leaves the 3 as a last-resort option.

League-wide, 3-point percentages are at all-time highs — the 3 no longer being a lesser offensive option in the NBA, but a primary weapon in team arsenals, as shown in this chart from this post here at HP a few weeks ago. The generally accepted line between good and bad 3-point shooting is 35%. Indeed, when we examine the Jazz’s 3-point percentages over the last ten years we find that in their six playoff seasons they averaged a total .350 from the arc as compared to only .333 in seasons in which they would miss the playoffs.

Last year Utah was 20th in the NBA in 3-point percentage at .346 and tie-22nd in attempts at 15.3 per-game. In Jerry Sloan’s heyday with the franchise .346 was exactly the league average from the 3-point line. But no more. It’s a brave new NBA, one where the constant perimeter has been extended considerably.

As an astute observer pointed out to me, three of the Jazz’s best career arc aces, Deron Williams, Mehmet Okur, and last year’s pet project of shooting coach Jeff Hornacek, Andrei Kirilenko, are no longer on the roster, leaving Raja Bell, CJ Miles, and Devin Harris to carry the bulk of the perimeter load. This is a scary prospect.

Raja Bell takes, and misses, a contested 3

What we need to understand here is that it’s not as important to Utah’s offensive scheme that they take and make 3s as it is to have the threat available. A few years ago in the postseason we saw Kobe Bryant utterly disrespect Ronnie Brewer on the perimeter by playing several feet off of him, daring him to pop. It wasn’t pretty for Ronnie B and the series played a part in his eventual trade from the team. The Lakers downed the Jazz in the series relatively easily by simply packing the paint, the place where the Jazz has historically done the bulk of it’s offensive damage to opponents, using it’s superior length to halt any offensive advances. The Jazz were unable to convert enough open looks to dissuade LA from it’s camping spot.

While Okur has not re-found his Money shot since tearing his Achilles tendon, he was still the threat Utah requires to run it’s offense efficiently. Bell is the the best on the roster by the numbers to open up the paint for them, and while Raja is among the tops in career distance pops his .352 percent of last season was way off his career pace of .406 from 3.

A snippet from SynergySports, Raja Bell from 3 last season

Indeed, while watching his entire offense from 3 in 2010-11 on SynergySports he rarely inspired the opposition to truly respect the Jazz from the arc, at most getting a token close-out challenge from a charging player who would then sprint out in transition, often netting an easy bucket from a Bell 3-miss off of a long rebound garnered by a defense-turned-offense-in-an-instant on an outlet pass. Raja hits on most of his open looks, but when contested on close-outs he clanks more often than not, and he can most often be seen in the offense just floating around the 3-line looking for a spot-up. Defenses were more than happy to accommodate him.

This is Utah’s deepest threat remaining on the roster on the outside. Are you beginning to see the problems and collateral damage from not staying current with the league-wide trend of sharp-shooters and combo-threats?

Note: Yes, I am fully aware that Gordon Hayward led the league in 3-point percentage post-All-Star break in ’10-’11, but one attempt per-game is not near enough to make a defense need to run out on him.

CJ Miles is another option already on the roster, one who had a horrendous year on the perimeter, last, but has shown from previous 3-point percentages that he is capable of knocking back rainbows at an acceptable clip. The onus is on him this season to live up to his assertions of improving his consistency there, and Jazz fans were treated to a hopeful future from him in the team’s scrimmage and preseason, where Miles managed to lead the team in overall 3-point efficiency taking five shots and making 40% of them in two games against Portland.

The fact of the matter is, Utah is not a perimeter threat, and the league knows this. Until someone emerges or is acquired by them to be that Al Jefferson will look bad and inefficient and Paul Millsap will continue his career arc of moving away from the basket and out to the mid-range making life needlessly more difficult for Ty Corbin and Co.

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