How did Exum look last night?

[Et tu Brute]

I may not be around here enough to have a reputation but I am 100% a Dante believer and I 100% believe he has the talent to contribute given opportunity and a lot of the criticism placed on his shoulders comes down to not getting the opportunity to do what he does best, and that is with the ball in his hands.

With that being said, he was terrible last night in the first half. Came in, immediately lost his assignment off-ball (Nader I think) on defense and then threw TO's and bad passes in his stint. Dante immediately got pulled for going under a screen allowing an open Larkin 3. You can even see Quin stand up while the ball is in the air to get Rubio in.

ONE turnover.

 

[MDAV28]

The Jazz players get caught up in screens all the time. The Jazz defense uses a combination of going over or under screen depending on the shooter and situation. I watched the first quarter again. Here are some basic bullet point plays.
-Mitchell got caught on a screen for the first three and had an early TO.
-Mitchell got caught on another screen and gave up a mid range jumper that Gobert late contested and was missed.
-Ingles made a bad pass to Rudy in traffic, Donovan got lost on another screen and gave up an open corner 3 that missed,
-Donovan and Rudy miscommunicated on a switch after a screen and gave up an open jumper. I think it was Donovan who was out of position but hard to say for sure.
-Ingles went under a screens several times on Brown but never when he shot one.

That was before Exum came in. Exum's plays were the following with either good or bad outcomes from him or others:
-His first play was a TO on an attempted leave pass to Favors.
-Then he was flare screened by a big while in help position which led to Nadir getting a rim attempt after a skip pass. Dante recovered but was beaten slightly off the dribble.
-Then he passed to Jerebko on a secondary break and Jerebko wisely stopped short and reset.
-Dante hit Jerebko for a jumper out of PnR.
-His next defensive possession he almost got beaten back door but noticed in time to recover before the pass was made.
-He made a pass to Ingles who turned it over on an attempted pass to Favors.
-Then he made an entry pass to Favors who bobbled it out of bounds.
-On the next defensive possession Ingles went under on a screen on Tatum and Tatum had an open 3 that he decided instead to pump fake and drive. He missed it.
-On the break Dante made a nice cut and Ingles hit him with a good pass that he missed.
-Exum went under a screen and nothing really came of it. There was a dump off to Monroe who got fouled, but the defense was solid positionally.
-Exum's next offensive possession he ran PnR and made a good read to Crowder who did a half drive and dish to Jerebko for a wide open corner 3.
-Ingles went under two more screens guarding Tatum in the next possession and Exum almost got a steal but lost it out of bounds.
-On the next possession there was a semi break and Exum drove the basket and dished off to Jerebko who threw up a crazy shot that Exum rebounded for a tip in.
- 28-20 Jazz. Exum went under and got caught on a screen and the guy hit a 3. Quin jumped up and motioned to sub him out. 28-23 Jazz.
- INgles has an open layup and throws up a really awkward flip shot that misses. the Jazz foul to avoid a break

Immediately after he is subbed out Ingles goes under two screens on Tatum and gives up a 3.

So basically I'm not really buying terrible, or even bad. He had two clearly bad plays, and one more that I would be ok saying was bad. He also had some nice plays and a ton of steady normal possessions defensively where he didn't really do anything great or bad. I don't think it is accurate to say that the Jazz are always going over and keeping tight with shooters. Dante definitely wasn't the only guy who gave up an open 3 point look and definitely wasn't the guy turning the ball over a bunch.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Rudy wasn't in the game with Exum at all in the first half. He subbed back in when Exum came out of the game.

Good work on this, very thorough. I think you're confusing not executing with mental lapses on defense. If Donovan gets caught up on a screen, that's different than Exum not playing the game plan and going under when he shouldn't because Donovan is still playing the game plan. Even so, absolutely the starters have a much longer leash than Exum, why wouldn't they?

Also not all bad passes are TOs. He forced the ball into bad cuts, post areas etc. that didn't make sense and also threw one or two off target behind or at the feet. I appreciate you going through possession by possession but I hold that he had a very bad first half save for a couple plays, but maybe I am holding a higher expectation.

 

[tleikheen]

Exum has been in the Jazz locker room for along time ,longer than Mitchell ......to say Mitchell is going with the game plan and Exum isn't because Mitchell goes under the screen occasionally is OK but Exum is deviating from said gameplan if he goes under is BS.
In a close game it wasn't Exum causing Jazz to lose to a injury depleted Boston team ...I point my finger at a out coached Snyder for this Boston loss.

 

[Et tu Brute]

The Jazz players get caught up in screens all the time. The Jazz defense uses a combination of going over or under screen depending on the shooter and situation. I watched the first quarter again. Here are some basic bullet point plays.
-Mitchell got caught on a screen for the first three and had an early TO.
-Mitchell got caught on another screen and gave up a mid range jumper that Gobert late contested and was missed.
-Ingles made a bad pass to Rudy in traffic, Donovan got lost on another screen and gave up an open corner 3 that missed,
-Donovan and Rudy miscommunicated on a switch after a screen and gave up an open jumper. I think it was Donovan who was out of position but hard to say for sure.
-Ingles went under a screens several times on Brown but never when he shot one.

That was before Exum came in. Exum's plays were the following with either good or bad outcomes from him or others:
-His first play was a TO on an attempted leave pass to Favors.
-Then he was flare screened by a big while in help position which led to Nadir getting a rim attempt after a skip pass. Dante recovered but was beaten slightly off the dribble.
-Then he passed to Jerebko on a secondary break and Jerebko wisely stopped short and reset.
-Dante hit Jerebko for a jumper out of PnR.
-His next defensive possession he almost got beaten back door but noticed in time to recover before the pass was made.
-He made a pass to Ingles who turned it over on an attempted pass to Favors.
-Then he made an entry pass to Favors who bobbled it out of bounds.
-On the next defensive possession Ingles went under on a screen on Tatum and Tatum had an open 3 that he decided instead to pump fake and drive. He missed it.
-On the break Dante made a nice cut and Ingles hit him with a good pass that he missed.
-Exum went under a screen and nothing really came of it. There was a dump off to Monroe who got fouled, but the defense was solid positionally.
-Exum's next offensive possession he ran PnR and made a good read to Crowder who did a half drive and dish to Jerebko for a wide open corner 3.
-Ingles went under two more screens guarding Tatum in the next possession and Exum almost got a steal but lost it out of bounds.
-On the next possession there was a semi break and Exum drove the basket and dished off to Jerebko who threw up a crazy shot that Exum rebounded for a tip in.
- 28-20 Jazz. Exum went under and got caught on a screen and the guy hit a 3. Quin jumped up and motioned to sub him out. 28-23 Jazz.
- INgles has an open layup and throws up a really awkward flip shot that misses. the Jazz foul to avoid a break

Immediately after he is subbed out Ingles goes under two screens on Tatum and gives up a 3.

So basically I'm not really buying terrible, or even bad. He had two clearly bad plays, and one more that I would be ok saying was bad. He also had some nice plays and a ton of steady normal possessions defensively where he didn't really do anything great or bad. I don't think it is accurate to say that the Jazz are always going over and keeping tight with shooters. Dante definitely wasn't the only guy who gave up an open 3 point look and definitely wasn't the guy turning the ball over a bunch.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Rudy wasn't in the game with Exum at all in the first half. He subbed back in when Exum came out of the game.

Glad you went to the effort to do this. It shows that with Exum at this stage, Quin places a bigger onus on Exum doing the 'fundamentals' right all the time. He cuts slack with the established members. Logic I guess is that those other players have proved themselves and contribute nightly.

I like the fact this challenges those seemingly throw away lines like -"Exum was horrible in his first stint"//

 

[Et tu Brute]

Exum has been in the Jazz locker room for along time ,longer than Mitchell ......to say Mitchell is going with the game plan and Exum isn't because Mitchell goes under the screen occasionally is OK but Exum is deviating from said gameplan if he goes under is BS.
In a close game it wasn't Exum causing Jazz to lose to a injury depleted Boston team ...I point my finger at a out coached Snyder for this Boston loss.

Deep down you know it was Exum's fault that Rozier got hot ....

 

[Miggs]

Good work on this, very thorough. I think you're confusing not executing with mental lapses on defense. If Donovan gets caught up on a screen, that's different than Exum not playing the game plan and going under when he shouldn't because Donovan is still playing the game plan. Even so, absolutely the starters have a much longer leash than Exum, why wouldn't they?

Also not all bad passes are TOs. He forced the ball into bad cuts, post areas etc. that didn't make sense and also threw one or two off target behind or at the feet. I appreciate you going through possession by possession but I hold that he had a very bad first half save for a couple plays, but maybe I am holding a higher expectation.

IAWTP.

Also, this shouldn’t be hey, “he had 2-3 bad plays and 2-3 good. So overall he wasn’t bad.” That’s bad. Our good plays need to far outweigh the bad. If Lamar makes a dumbass decision and play for every good one he makes, then I don’t want him here. We need better than that.

 

[Miggs]

I have off for a week and a half and I will attempt to start tracking Lamar over the next four games and every little thing he does.

 

[Quin's Murderface]

Good work on this, very thorough. I think you're confusing not executing with mental lapses on defense. If Donovan gets caught up on a screen, that's different than Exum not playing the game plan and going under when he shouldn't because Donovan is still playing the game plan. Even so, absolutely the starters have a much longer leash than Exum, why wouldn't they?

Also not all bad passes are TOs. He forced the ball into bad cuts, post areas etc. that didn't make sense and also threw one or two off target behind or at the feet. I appreciate you going through possession by possession but I hold that he had a very bad first half save for a couple plays, but maybe I am holding a higher expectation.

He did not force bad passes outside of the first one. That simply isn't true. He absolutely did not throw off target passes in the first stint. You are making that up. It's annoying that you just throw things like that out when I already did the work of watching for it and tried to add context to those plays as well. Favors fumbled the ball on a routine post up where he didn't shield the defender well. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the pass and Favors got a TO (that was his only pass to a post up). Jerebko got the ball in the paint twice on routine passing plays to a cutter. He made a good decision to not continue driving on one because the defense was there, and on the other he had multiple options but threw up a crazy shot that Exum rebounded. Exum didn't get pulled for those plays anyway. He got pulled because Quin overreacted to a legitimate mistake that Exum made. A mistake that was not unique to him as I showed.

Your defensive assessment is just making excuses for your earlier opinions. I know the difference between mental errors and trouble getting through a screen. Mitchell lost focus briefly on a couple of his which is why he had to recover. You conveniently ignored Ingles going under a lot of screens on shooters in the same way Dante did. That weakens your argument that it was outside of the game plan or that Quin is being rational about how he applies his anger about alterations to the game plan. I'm certain if I watched the whole second half I would find plenty of other mistakes. I remember in the second half Rubio lost his man on a back cut at least once which is a mental mistake. I remember a couple times guys going under on screens and giving up open looks. There's obviously the last sequence. These things happen every game.

If you are just one of those guys who can't ever be wrong and will keep spinning things we should probably stop now.

 

[Quin's Murderface]

IAWTP.

Also, this shouldn’t be hey, “he had 2-3 bad plays and 2-3 good. So overall he wasn’t bad.” That’s bad. Our good plays need to far outweigh the bad. If Lamar makes a dumbass decision and play for every good one he makes, then I don’t want him here. We need better than that.

I only commented on plays that were up in the air, or good because he was involved in a specific part of the play. He had a ton of defensive possessions where he played good defense. So happily Dante did live up to your standard even on the first stint. You can't make a great play every time. You can make the correct play which he did the vast majority of his possessions on offense and defense.

This also ignores his second stint where he made 3 or 4 really big plays that were key to the team having a lead going into the end of the game.

 

[Quin's Murderface]

I have off for a week and a half and I will attempt to start tracking Lamar over the next four games and every little thing he does.

I welcome this. There's nothing worse than lazy BS analysis from memory. Our memories are known to be extremely unreliable. What you really need to do as well is watch other players very specifically. You'll most likely see that players tend to make mistakes somewhat often.

 

[Miggs]

I only commented on plays that were up in the air, or good because he was involved in a specific part of the play. He had a ton of defensive possessions where he played good defense. So happily Dante did live up to your standard even on the first stint. You can't make a great play every time. You can make the correct play which he did the vast majority of his possessions on offense and defense.

This also ignores his second stint where he made 3 or 4 really big plays that were key to the team having a lead going into the end of the game.

I don’t need him to always make great plays but I certainly need him to avoid making boneheaded plays time and again, leaving me completely baffled.

 

[Quin's Murderface]

I don’t need him to always make great plays but I certainly need him to avoid making boneheaded plays time and again, leaving me completely baffled.

Well he has already succeeded in that so far this season. And yet you keep trying to create some level of negative plays that aren't there with any more regularity than other players. It's the whole point of my posts about this topic and looking at the plays themselves. He's not making boneheaded plays time and again unless you are willing to say that every NBA player does that since they all continue to make occasional mistakes.

Seriously how many stupid TO's did our guys have last game? Joe, Ricky, Donovan, Rudy, Favs, Jerebko, Crowder were all doing stuff that Exum would get killed for. They've been doing it all season. Exum gets killed for one TO and passes that people feel weren't placed well enough by some imaginary standard that only seems to apply to him. It's not rational. It's emotional reaction and little to no introspection. There's a ton of pride and bad feelings on the line from arguments with other fans as well which I think fuels a good portion of it.

I'm just trying to treat Exum like any other player. He does make mistakes, but they aren't and haven't generally been out of the ordinary. It's the attention each one gets that has been out of the ordinary. The reaction to this last game was a great example of that, but sadly not unique at all.