Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 126-113 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz absolutely toast Cavs halfcourt defense

After playing the worst defense in the league at home on Friday in the Washington Wizards, they faced the second-worst defense in Cleveland and toasted that too.

Maybe it was because they were so small, but the Cavs went with a very help-heavy strategy against the Jazz, where whoever was guarding the player on the wing would help defend drivers like Bojan Bogdanovic or rollers like Rudy Gobert. That meant someone was open on the perimeter. Early in the game, it was Royce O’Neale.

If they didn’t help, they were able to get Rudy Gobert involved more in the offense tonight than at any point in the last 10 days. He had 20 points tonight on 8-9 FG. If they’re not going to help on Gobert’s roll, stuff like this is going to happen.

And at a certain point, the Jazz’s offensive players were able to take easy advantage of the questionable individual defenders the Cavs play.

All in all, the Jazz had a 121 offensive rating on half-court possessions alone tonight, which is a pretty sensational number. Some credit goes to the 20-41 3-point shooting on the night, though given how open the Jazz consistently were, that percentage shouldn’t be a surprise.

How much this offensive performance is translatable to games against good defensive teams is still to be determined.

2. I’m still worried about the transition defense

If 113 points still feels like a lot for the Jazz to give up, you’re right. And that came on just 93 possessions on the night, so the Cavs had a 120 offensive rating overall. In other words, the Jazz’s defense is still playing at a subpar level.

And a trend continued on the night: once again, the biggest problem was with transition defense, rather than half-court. The Jazz gave up a 95 offensive rating in the half court — that’s pretty much fine. What definitely is not okay is the 173 points per 100 possessions they gave up on transition opportunities.

Sometimes, bad transition defense comes after steals. Here, Donovan Mitchell dribbles into traffic, loses the ball, and Kevin Porter gets an alley-oop on the other end. Obviously, Mitchell losing the ball like this around the free-throw line makes it pretty likely a transition play is going to happen the other way.

But also watch Porter and Mike Conley on the above play: as soon as Porter thinks it’s going to be a steal, he goes. Conley, though, leans back to see what’s going on. In other words, Porter is proactive, Conley is reactive, and the result is a dunk.

It’s also possible to have bad transition defense even after made baskets. Like, here, Bogdanovic is too casual about guarding Kevin Love, and the result is a wide open three. Be alert!

Gobert was the difference maker. When he was on the court, the Jazz had a 102 defensive rating, in no small part thanks to Gobert’s five blocks. Gobert limited the Cavs inside, and while the perimeter defense wasn’t always what you’d want, it ended up being enough for the win when factoring in the Jazz’s high-powered offense.

3. The worst challenge

There are two ways to make a bad coach’s challenge. The first, and most common way, is to challenge a play that has no hope of being overturned. Every NBA coach has been guilty of that: you don’t really have time to watch a replay — at best, you can see it once — and so mistakes can easily be made.

But the second way is to challenge something that just doesn’t matter, and that’s what J.B. Bickerstaff did on behalf of the Cleveland Cavaliers tonight. With 10:37 left in the first quarter, the third Jazz possession of the game, Royce O’Neale tripped on Cedi Osman as he drove to the basket.

It was not a shooting foul, and it was not at an important time of the game. Osman was not in foul trouble (it was his first foul), nor is he a player who is particularly prone to foul trouble. And since the whistle was blown before the Cavs had possession of the ball, had the call been overturned, the result would have been a jump ball at half court. There is just so little lost on the incorrect call, and so little to gain on the challenge.

I wrote about this back in October, when C.B. Garrett and Peter Zanca studied the league’s play-by-play and Last Two Minute report data on these kinds of calls. Off-the-ball fouls are 97.6% likely to be the correct call. And even if this is the 2.4% that is incorrect, congrats on the half-court jump ball that saved you zero points. Oh, and you can’t challenge anything for the rest of the game. This seemed very unwise by Bickerstaff.

By the way, here are the stats from the league for coach’s challenges, compiled before tonight’s game.