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Where will the Jazz rank in defense this year?

What will the Jazz rank in DRTG?

  • 30

    Votes: 13 36.1%
  • 25-29

    Votes: 17 47.2%
  • 20-24

    Votes: 6 16.7%
  • 15-19

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 10-14

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5-9

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1-4

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    36
Other than Keyonte its 100% coaching. Lots of players on the roster are capable, and even Keyonte could be much better, but through either incompetence or uncaring, the coaching staff hasn’t made D part of their priorities- if minutes depended on your defensive effort, they would be distributed much differently.

I'd agree with most of this. The coaching staff has been bad at defense and they have admitted it was not their focus. I don't think that's part of a larger effort to sandbag and tank....I just don't think that's good coaching.
 
rebounding everyone but clayton has cement shoes and late rotations on 3 point shooters means giving up massive points

He is late on rotations sometimes but he's also kinda strong when guys try to bump him on drives and he has quick hands for steals. The type of guy who has tradeoffs defensively. The hope is the good points are enough to offset him giving up a bunch of 3s due to late rotations and lack of ability to contest effectively.
 
One thing that "should" get us out of 30th place is defensive rebounding. That's not what you typically think of when playing defense, but it definitely makes an impact. Nurk is a "bad" defender, but his rebounding actually raises the floor of a defense quite a bit. I think between he an Kessler + being a team a team with lots of size we should be a good defensive rebounding team. We were 22th in defensive rebounding last year, and with our size I think it's inexcusable if we're not at least top 15 but we should really be one of the best. We've been really poor at defensive rebounding in the first 3 preseason games, but that's one area I'd expect to be better in the RS.

One area that also "should" be better is creating turnovers. But Will Hardy defenses have never forced turnovers and we're not even seeing the benefits elsewhere as we did with the Gobert led defenses. We can't defend for ****.....but with youth and length we should at least cause some more disruption.

Defensive rebounding is tough to judge just because there are some outside factors that affect the ranking. If the other team is making all of its shots, then there are less opportunities to rebound. Also, we give up tons of 3s and missed 3 pointers bounce hard off the rim. Is it bad rebounding if a missed 3 bounces all the way back to the 3 point line? I have no idea how you coach that kind of thing. The common refrain is just to box out but I don't know if that helps in the previous scenario.

Are the Jazz bad at rebounding or just bad at defense? It's hard for me to separate those things.
 
@MT Steve been selling for years that Hardy doesnt care about defense. Whether the problem has been in priorities, competence or personnel... I dare not speculate. But it would be foolish to deny us being systematically bad under Hardy.

I think the personnel is now slightly better. Sexton and Clarkson are not here and their minutes will be eaten by Collier, WCJ and Ace who all look they at least try harder than their rotational predecessors. Hendricks is back, and looks frisky. Maybe we will be in the 25-29 gourp and call that a victory?
 
Defensive rebounding is tough to judge just because there are some outside factors that affect the ranking. If the other team is making all of its shots, then there are less opportunities to rebound. Also, we give up tons of 3s and missed 3 pointers bounce hard off the rim. Is it bad rebounding if a missed 3 bounces all the way back to the 3 point line? I have no idea how you coach that kind of thing. The common refrain is just to box out but I don't know if that helps in the previous scenario.

Are the Jazz bad at rebounding or just bad at defense? It's hard for me to separate those things.

You can just look at defensive rebounding rate.
 
If we have a 3-5 rotation of Lauri, Flip, Kessler, Hendricks, Nurk we might just be so massive that we can keep teams out of the paint and have enough 3pt shooting variance nights to not be last place.
 
Jazz are currently 27th in defense, but the Pelicans and Nets are the worst defensive teams in NBA history so far so we may be able to dodge 30th this year.
 
Earlier in this thread I had mentioned that our defensive rebounding should carry us out of 30th. IMO, it's disappointing that we are only 13th. That's not a personnel problem. We have a giant team, and even though Nurk is cooked, he's still a very good rebounder so you can't put the blame on him.
 
Kessler will not be available the next three games as he is in Salt Lake having tests done on his shoulder.
This could be a real issue. It’s lingering since camp. Further tests is suggesting maybe there is a long term issue to be addressed.

The tank may be unstoppable without Walker.
 
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