Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 147-119 loss to the Houston Rockets from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. The Jazz should not be this bad defensively
The Jazz are now 29th in the league defensively. Over the last 10 games, they’re last in the league by an absolutely huge margin.
The best part: that above graph doesn’t even count this game, in which the Jazz allowed 147 points. It’s like Kirk Goldsberry was saying “It can’t get worse than that!” and the Jazz said “watch this!”
Honestly, with their roster, they should be better than that. The roster certainly isn’t a good defensive roster: John Collins is a tirefire defensively, they started Johnny Juzang tonight, there’s a lot of youth.
But it should be at least an acceptable roster. Walker Kessler’s still statistically a terrific rim protector, Kris Dunn was getting talk earlier this season as one of the best guard defenders in the league, Taylor Hendricks certainly has significant defensive strengths. The performances, though, are so far below acceptable it’s not even funny.
We all know why this is the case, though: this team has given up on this season. As soon as the front office traded Simone Fontecchio, Kelly Olynyk, and Ochai Agbaji and didn’t get any good players back, they closed up shop. I think it’s relatively fair to criticize the players for doing so — those players aren’t exactly superstars, and it shouldn’t be this big of a difference. But it’s also a natural human reaction to what the front office did, and so I’m relatively sympathetic to it.
Typically, it’s contract status that keeps players playing their best even when the writing is on the wall; the potential of making more money keeps going. This year, the Jazz’s best players are all under contract through the summer, and so have no reason to push the locker room to try more.
So here we are, with seemingly 11 more games of unwatchable basketball left. Please continue to subscribe to the Tribune anyway.
2. The Kris Dunn and Jabari Smith Jr. skirmish
We thank Kris Dunn and Jabari Smith Jr. for giving us interesting content in a game in which the Jazz were down by 26 after the first quarter.
That skirmish came after the two had a similar, but less significant pushing match when they played last time, in January. I don’t know why — maybe it’s just their different positions — but I think it’s slightly funny that these two guys have an ongoing feud. It just feels so random, like all 450 NBA players’ names were put in a hat, and the NBA scriptwriters pulled out two names to just start fighting each other every time they make contact on the floor.
Interestingly, on Saturday night, the referees said that Dunn and Smith were each assessed a fighting technical. I didn’t know this, but no free throws are assessed for fighting technicals, instead, they’re straight ejections.
What the referees didn’t call was a punching foul. That would have been not just an immediate ejection, but also a suspension. The NBA rulebook says “Any player who throws a punch, whether it connects or not, has committed an unsportsmanlike act. He will be ejected following confirmation during review by instant replay and suspended for a minimum of one game.”
That being said, the NBA can decide in postgame review that either Smith or Dunn threw a punch in the conflict. To me, I think both of them did — neither punch landed, Dunn’s is more short-winded while Smith’s is more loopy, but both have their hand in a fist while taking a swing.
So likely no Dunn vs. the Mavericks on Monday. He would have been helpful, but maybe Jason Preston will get more of an opportunity.
3. Jeff Green’s stint with the Jazz
I truly thought Jeff Green’s career was over more than four years ago. I wasn’t alone.
The Jazz signed him to a minimum deal in the summer of 2019, and the then-33-year-old was so bad that they outright waived him by December, after just 30 games. He was in the rotation when the Jazz cut him, playing even 18 minutes per night, but the results were awful: the Jazz were 13.4 points better per 100 possessions when Green was on the bench.
Honestly, then-GM Dennis Lindsey was pretty upset with his team’s play — he made the move on the same day he traded Dante Exum for Jordan Clarkson, one of the better trades in Jazz history. The Jazz’s public rationale for waiving Green was that G-League sensation Rayjon Tucker was just too good of an asset to miss out on, so they waived Green to open up a roster spot. I was skeptical and remain skeptical that the move was more about adding Tucker than just jettisoning Green.
Green wasn’t picked up on waivers, and in fact spent two months as a free agent before his next team picked him up: the Houston Rockets.
His remaining games that season were actually extremely solid. Then, Brooklyn gave him a contract the next year and got more solid role-player power-forward play. Then, Denver signed him to a 2-year deal, and he won an NBA title. Now, the Rockets have signed him to another 2-year deal, and this one is for nearly $10 million per season. Tonight, he scored 21 points at the age of 37.
What the heck happened in Utah?
I’ve never gotten a great answer for that. I do think part of it was that it was Green’s first time as a minor player, and he just didn’t adapt well to it at first.
I also think then-head coach Quin Snyder’s system and method wasn’t a good fit for Green — Quin had some wacky-but-extremely effective defensive ideas about filtering players to Gobert that new signees always took some getting used to. Snyder’s also so much about nailing the shot chart analytics, getting threes instead of twos, when Green’s game prioritizes twos over threes. That’s the only season of his career when Green took more threes than twos overall.
But even those guesses at explanations still don’t feel like they explain the totality of the problem. Still, whatever it was, it’s unfortunate: those Jazz (and especially when the bubble came around months later) could have really used even this aging version of Green. Instead, they got sub-replacement player performance from a player who throughout his career had been able to deliver more.
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