Dante Exum is earning the trust of his coach on the floor, and it has made a sizable difference in the play of the Jazz’s bench.
But it has not really been Exum’s scoring that has set the world on fire, but his playmaking and defense. That comes after a stretch where Exum found himself battling with Raul Neto for backup guard minutes thanks to his up-and-down play.
"If you don’t play well, you have to be able to figure out why and own it. Sometimes, it’s as simple as “I wasn’t as focused as I needed to be on some things,’” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “In Dante’s case, it starts with his impact defensively, and when you throw yourself into the game like that, offense has a way of presenting itself to you.”
In particular, Exum’s offense is finding its way through passing the ball. His eight-assist performance on Friday was his highest since his rookie season, and while he had just one on Saturday, Exum still did a good job of finding his teammates for open shots — they just didn’t go in.
“Dante has done a better job of making decisions when he gets into the paint, whether to finish or to stay under control in order to make a play,” Snyder said. “There’s a number of times he’s risen up and used his height and his length to find people in the corners or to find [Derrick Favors] on a roll late. If he’s under control, it gives him more of a chance to read, and as his decisions get better, the percentages go up.”
“The consistency is something that — not just from our bench, but our whole team — that we’re looking for," Snyder said. "We do think that as Dante has gotten a little bit more comfortable on the floor... he’s stabilized that group some.”
Jae Crowder’s shot selection
Jae Crowder sometimes had a penchant for taking bad shots last season as he figured out his place in the Jazz’s offense. In particular, nearly one in five of his shots last year in a Jazz uniform were from midrange, and he took nearly two shots per game from the midrange in which he had a defender within six feet to bother the shot. As you can imagine, the results weren’t pretty: He made only about 27 percent of those.
This year, though, Crowder is taking shots in the rhythm of the offense, and it’s showing in the results. He has cut the percentage of shots he takes from midrange by over 50 percent, and on his 3-point shot, he’s more likely than ever to be wide open.
The result is the second-best shooting season of Crowder’s career, only under his breakout 2016-17 season as a Boston Celtic.
Snyder attributes that success to learning how to space the floor for the Jazz in various situations.
“He’s been more precise with his spacing, and when he does that as the ball is coming to him, he’s able to make better reads about whether to catch and shoot or move the ball,” Snyder said.
“He’s working in subtle ways. Instead of being at the break [of the 3-point line], he’s all the way in the corner. That four-to-five foot difference is sometimes the difference between a contested or an open shot.”
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