There’s a lot to pick at after Utah’s first loss to a team with a losing record in two months, including missed layups, missed 3-pointers and giving up a career high to Dennis Schroder. But there’s a thread that many Jazz fans may not like pulling, because it reaches back well into the nine-game winning streak and beyond.
Utah’s bench is struggling.
That continued on Tuesday night and was in some ways magnified by the absence of Derrick Favors, who was out with knee soreness. Typical bench player Jonas Jerebko made the spot start, but was 0 for 4 from the field. Jae Crowder scored eight points, and Dante Exum scored six.
The fact is there just isn’t much scoring off the bench for the Jazz. Crowder has played much better than his Cleveland numbers in the 16 games since he joined Utah, averaging 12.6 points per game. But here’s something that may shock you: That accounts for more than half of Utah’s bench points in that 16-game stretch (24.4 ppg).
One guy. More than half the points off the bench. Not good.
Favors helps hide that deficiency because many of his minutes are at backup center. But without him, many flaws are exposed. Jerebko and Royce O’Neale are both shooting under 40 percent in the last 16 games, and combined are averaging fewer than 10 points per game. Raul Neto is injured again, and Exum is still getting used to playing in games. Ekpe Udoh has played sparingly and hasn’t made a basket in more than a month. Alec Burks is the only one of the main bench players shooting above 40 percent in the past 16 games (Crowder included), but he’s been shelved since Exum’s return.
The total damage is that the Jazz bench has scored the third-fewest points per 100 possessions (96.9) of any team in the NBA since the Crowder trade (versus 105.0 for the season, 15th). Because the Jazz bench also boasts the best defensive rating in the NBA during that same span (92.3), it’s been a net positive. But it won’t be that way every night.
While many fans have been pleased with Crowder’s toughness and defense, trades bring positives with a cost. That cost has been Rodney Hood’s bench scoring, which helped carry the Jazz through cold stretches with the starters off the floor. The absence of Thabo Sefolosha is also more clearly felt, as O’Neale — who was vastly outperforming his contract before the All-Star break — has fallen back to Earth.
It’s obviously not insurmountable, and for a Jazz team slated to return to the playoffs, postseason rotations tighten up anyway. But winning has a way of coating over flaws that losing can expose — and boy was that flaw exposed against the Hawks.
But moving onward, here’s the week in review:
STARTING FIVE
1. Let’s all take a step back and process a few things: The Jazz have won at least 40 games for the third straight season, and it’s been after losing Gordon Hayward in free agency, trading away Rodney Hood and struggling for 26 games without Rudy Gobert. It’s been a season that no one saw coming, Tony Jones writes, and he breaks it all down. [Trib]
2. This weekend, Quin Snyder called Rudy Gobert’s status as the NBA’s best defensive player “an empirical fact,” and Gobert himself said “there’s nobody who impacts the game defensively like I do in the whole world.” We took a look at the case for Gobert for Defensive Player of the Year, which is strongly supported by the numbers, but greatly hampered by his missed games this season. [Trib]
3. Ricky Rubio takes roadtrips just like the rest of us. We talked to the Spanish point guard about his vacation through redrock country, what drew him into visiting three national parks (including two in Utah) and what junk food he ate. [Trib]
4. Related to our second item, Andy Larsen had a thorough breakdown on why the Jazz defense has been so dominant through the latter half of the season. A lot of it comes down to Gobert, but Andy also dives into the statistical side of Utah’s rebounding, fouling and personnel changes. [KSL.com]
5. Look at who’s the cover story for SLAM magazine: That would be Donovan Mitchell. Adam Figman covers some familiar ground here on Mitchell’s origin story, but offers some perspective from the national side of things. [SLAM]
LISTEN IN
We’ve actually done two podcasts since the last newsletter, in part so we could bring in a special guest: Our most recent recording was with Dante Exum, recently returned backup point guard who talked with me and Tony deeply about what it was like to suffer an injury back in the preseason. We also talked about sunnier topics, including the legendary pickup runs at UCLA, how his father played with Michael Jordan and whether Joe Ingles is a better friend or locker-room bully. Our previous podcast was with Aaron, where we broke down Gobert’s dominance, Raul Neto’s injury and why Stan Van Gundy has to be second-guessing his draft choices.
IN THE ROTATION
• Joe Ingles gave a gift last summer that changed the life of an 8-year-old blind fan. We took a look at the impact $10,000 electronic glasses have made on Landon Carter’s life. [Trib]
• Tony’s mailbag is always a treasure trove. This week, he tackled if Gobert is a top-10 player and if the Jazz should control their playoff matchup by (gasp) tanking. [Trib]
• Gordon Monson will say it if no one else will: Quin Snyder has earned Coach of the Year honors in his eyes. [Trib]
• We all did stories on David Stockton joining the Jazz on a 10-day contract this week, but frankly, only Brad Rock was able to get ahold of his father — you may have heard of him. He has a statue out front. [DNews]
• Ben Anderson had a fun breakdown of how the Jazz have personalities on the team who aren’t afraid to pick the occasional fight or stand up for teammates when necessary. [KSL.com]
• Eric Woodyard revisited a March Madness moment with Jae Crowder, when his Marquette team knocked off BYU. [DNews]
• As the Jazz prepare for a road trip to Dallas, the Mavericks continue to deal with fallout from a harassment scandal. The latest is a first-person account in Sports Illustrated by a former Mavericks employee who reveals her identity. [SI]
QUOTABLE
Can a loss be good? Donovan Mitchell hoped last night that defeat would refocus the Jazz as they prepare for the last three-game road trip of the season.
“I think this is a good loss, in my opinion. Now we go on the road and we understand we’re not invincible. It’s easy to say we’ve kinda secured that playoff spot, it’s easy to come out with that mindset. But this kind of brought us back to reality that we still gotta keep pushing and keep working.”
ODDS TO MAKE THE PLAYOFFS?
While the Jazz took a bit of a shot in the odds after the loss to Atlanta and fell from fifth to eighth, it helps that they’ve built a two-game lead over Denver:
FiveThirtyEight • 90 percent (tied for seventh-best odds in the West)
Basketball Reference • 84.2 percent (sixth)
ESPN BPI • 92.5 percent (seventh)
UP NEXT
The Jazz have won 11 straight road games — can they keep that up? There are going to be three tests at Dallas, at San Antonio and at Golden State. This is a stretch that could be greatly affected by injuries, with Kawhi Leonard still working on a long-awaited return to the Spurs and Steph Curry looking to come back for the Warriors by Friday (two days before they play Utah).
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