So far, this series is presenting the Jazz with various puzzles that they've attempted to solve as creatively as the circumstances allow them to.
1) Let's get the elephant dealt with first: Rudy Gobert missing is the single biggest story so far and it's forced the Jazz to become resourceful in certain ways. Some have worked, others not so much.
Would we have put Ingles on Paul with Gobert on the floor? Probably not, but neither should we have continued that coverage in the 4th yesterday once we knew Paul was forced to take over offensively with Griffin sidelined - More about that later.
If Favors doesn't bounce back really well next season, trade him to a team desperate for any kind of rim protection that is stupid enough to overrate what he brings. If someone already does that this offseason, do it early. In theory I really love Derrick's skillset and maybe I'm being unfair because he's missed so much time, but he either should take a seat if he isn't ready and split time with Withey with both actually putting their body on the line and giving everything they've got. Managing his energy to play 35 min does not work (right now)
Specifically last night's 4th quarter and in general the rim protection is lacking this series. At times Favors was neither contesting properly, nor boxing DeAndre out. Completely overmatched. Playing Diaw and Joe together was very interesting on offense and the defense wasn't much worse.
In theory Derrick should be able to do a similar job like Draymond defensively, but his BBIQ and timing are not the same level. His mobility, especially laterally looks limited, which -again- could be a result of his back issues, but even in the past I often felt like he should be able to move more graciously in theory.
2) Staying in front of guys. Gobert isn't playing, so it's more important than usual to really stay in front of guys instead of redirecting them into traffic. All of the Clippers get relatively clean looks around the basket compared to what we get there. If we can't trap them into bad drives, we should focus more on staying in front. Right now we force too few TOs and allow too many shots close to the rim while not limiting the %s enough. Easy makes were the reason the Clippers could stay in the game when we were hot and hitting difficult shots in the first half.
3) One of the biggest reasons we couldn't seal the game was a lack of interior scoring. Gordon isn't reliable attacking the hoop and if he can't fool a defender into giving him a good driving lane or pump faking him into the air to draw a foul he often doesn't generate a decent shot there.
In general we couldn't create enough paint scoring yesterday. Joe Johnson was the guy who was best at it. He could leverage a combination of attacking a missmatch with his off the dribble skills and body control into clean looks from 5-10 feet.
The only shot Favors hitts are drop offs and DeAndre Jordan banks on his ability to both contest the ball handler and recover fast enough if Favors getts it at the blind spot.
Hill was hitting some sick floaters, fade aways and leaner, but those lucky makes only balanced out the tragically high number of wide open 3s we bricked. I think Ingles even airballed one where he had all the time he needed to get a practice shot up.
In general I didn't like that we couldn't use the ball movement in those situations to get a 2nd wave of penetration going after 3s didn't fall and we needed some reliable offense to fight back against Paul taking over. When we have decent shooters that open behind the arc, we should have tried harder to let the close out fly by and play 5v4 on a straight line drive or at least jail the close out at times when catching a guy off balance. Instead we kept shooting shots we should make, but didn't.(I was furious with those Clippers commentators lauding the Clippers defense for not giving the Jazz quality looks when they came back into the game)
4) Going forward, we should really focus on maximizing the spacing at all times. Johnson and Diaw splitting time at the 4 with Lyles being another option, who's taller is fine. With Gobert it works within the scheme.
Main reason I want 4 around Rudy is because I don't see significant improvements in the driving game. Hayward is so-so, Hill, Hood and Ingles lack either speed or strength to be consistent at finishing. So we really need clean spacing to drag opposing bigs more often out of the paint or we pray for Exum to make a huge jump and he becomes a ferocious slasher.
This is connected with the next point:
5) We do not run many sets this playoffs, I think we should do it more often to keep the defense guessing - but forcing and attacking switches has worked reasonably well over large stretches(It's btw a big reason why Mack is playing so little - His misunderstanding with Favors before he got benched for the rest of the game was showcasing his limitations when it comes to improvising in a nutshell. Same applies for Favors)
It leads to read and react situations where we find corner 3s and ball movement in order to collapse the defense completely. Better spacing will make these type of plays more efficient as we can often just toss it up to Rudy in those situations as his body control further improves over the summer.
We should also get a backup Center who can mimic Rudy's defensive style. Not at his proficieny, just in general, so we don't have to alter defensive schemes when Rudy sits and approach drives completely differently. Maybe JaVale at a reasonable price?
6) What's going on with Hood? I didn't pay a crazy amount of attention to what he did, but I didn't perceive him so negatively that it warranted sitting him for as much as we did. We ran a ton of plays where we aimed to free guys for shielded shots with blatant moving screens(that apparently are never being called unless you lean forward with your shoulder). We did pretty well on those attempts, especially Gordon. I remember Hood as someone who excels in those situations as well. We apparently did a ton of individual practice on fundamentals. Very few unprecise passes that didn't hit guys shooting pockets in rhythm, even though a lot of easy hand offs may cloud that picture a little.
I expect us to keep it that way for the rest of the series. Trying to shield defenders off and get an open look in rhythm is one of the main goals and "advanced" schemes we use when it comes to shot creation.
One deceptive action that we used a lot in game 2 and a couple times in game 3 was lulling the defense in safety and catching the Clippers off guard - We pushed the ball in up a little faster, someone got up to set a pick/receive a pass to initiate default motion strong action, but instead Hill went the other way and got a clean look.
7) Crossmatching Ingles and Hill defensively was good in the first, as it mixed things up for Paul, who generally looks to get the team running early on. Ingles is slow to follow him, but he's long enough to limit his passing lanes and when Paul isn't decisive about taking a shot from the mid range. Late in the game I didn't like it so much because it was obvious he'd look for his own scoring opportunities. Why not try Hayward if you want length? Ingles is crafty when it comes to avoiding fouls even when recovering, but he's slow. Hayward at least is more slithery and worth a shot.
8) Rebounding...How can we allow to get abused on the boards like that? I understand that DeAndre is the biggest, strongest and most athletic guy on the floor, but play him dirty. Just box out full force, get tangled up, limit his mobility and at times he'll get whistled too. Just have a proper distribution of guys cleaning short miss and others in position to pick up long balls. It's so frustrating to lose a game because you couldn't be arsed to box a guy out after a shot goes up.
1) Let's get the elephant dealt with first: Rudy Gobert missing is the single biggest story so far and it's forced the Jazz to become resourceful in certain ways. Some have worked, others not so much.
Would we have put Ingles on Paul with Gobert on the floor? Probably not, but neither should we have continued that coverage in the 4th yesterday once we knew Paul was forced to take over offensively with Griffin sidelined - More about that later.
If Favors doesn't bounce back really well next season, trade him to a team desperate for any kind of rim protection that is stupid enough to overrate what he brings. If someone already does that this offseason, do it early. In theory I really love Derrick's skillset and maybe I'm being unfair because he's missed so much time, but he either should take a seat if he isn't ready and split time with Withey with both actually putting their body on the line and giving everything they've got. Managing his energy to play 35 min does not work (right now)
Specifically last night's 4th quarter and in general the rim protection is lacking this series. At times Favors was neither contesting properly, nor boxing DeAndre out. Completely overmatched. Playing Diaw and Joe together was very interesting on offense and the defense wasn't much worse.
In theory Derrick should be able to do a similar job like Draymond defensively, but his BBIQ and timing are not the same level. His mobility, especially laterally looks limited, which -again- could be a result of his back issues, but even in the past I often felt like he should be able to move more graciously in theory.
2) Staying in front of guys. Gobert isn't playing, so it's more important than usual to really stay in front of guys instead of redirecting them into traffic. All of the Clippers get relatively clean looks around the basket compared to what we get there. If we can't trap them into bad drives, we should focus more on staying in front. Right now we force too few TOs and allow too many shots close to the rim while not limiting the %s enough. Easy makes were the reason the Clippers could stay in the game when we were hot and hitting difficult shots in the first half.
3) One of the biggest reasons we couldn't seal the game was a lack of interior scoring. Gordon isn't reliable attacking the hoop and if he can't fool a defender into giving him a good driving lane or pump faking him into the air to draw a foul he often doesn't generate a decent shot there.
In general we couldn't create enough paint scoring yesterday. Joe Johnson was the guy who was best at it. He could leverage a combination of attacking a missmatch with his off the dribble skills and body control into clean looks from 5-10 feet.
The only shot Favors hitts are drop offs and DeAndre Jordan banks on his ability to both contest the ball handler and recover fast enough if Favors getts it at the blind spot.
Hill was hitting some sick floaters, fade aways and leaner, but those lucky makes only balanced out the tragically high number of wide open 3s we bricked. I think Ingles even airballed one where he had all the time he needed to get a practice shot up.
In general I didn't like that we couldn't use the ball movement in those situations to get a 2nd wave of penetration going after 3s didn't fall and we needed some reliable offense to fight back against Paul taking over. When we have decent shooters that open behind the arc, we should have tried harder to let the close out fly by and play 5v4 on a straight line drive or at least jail the close out at times when catching a guy off balance. Instead we kept shooting shots we should make, but didn't.(I was furious with those Clippers commentators lauding the Clippers defense for not giving the Jazz quality looks when they came back into the game)
4) Going forward, we should really focus on maximizing the spacing at all times. Johnson and Diaw splitting time at the 4 with Lyles being another option, who's taller is fine. With Gobert it works within the scheme.
Main reason I want 4 around Rudy is because I don't see significant improvements in the driving game. Hayward is so-so, Hill, Hood and Ingles lack either speed or strength to be consistent at finishing. So we really need clean spacing to drag opposing bigs more often out of the paint or we pray for Exum to make a huge jump and he becomes a ferocious slasher.
This is connected with the next point:
5) We do not run many sets this playoffs, I think we should do it more often to keep the defense guessing - but forcing and attacking switches has worked reasonably well over large stretches(It's btw a big reason why Mack is playing so little - His misunderstanding with Favors before he got benched for the rest of the game was showcasing his limitations when it comes to improvising in a nutshell. Same applies for Favors)
It leads to read and react situations where we find corner 3s and ball movement in order to collapse the defense completely. Better spacing will make these type of plays more efficient as we can often just toss it up to Rudy in those situations as his body control further improves over the summer.
We should also get a backup Center who can mimic Rudy's defensive style. Not at his proficieny, just in general, so we don't have to alter defensive schemes when Rudy sits and approach drives completely differently. Maybe JaVale at a reasonable price?
6) What's going on with Hood? I didn't pay a crazy amount of attention to what he did, but I didn't perceive him so negatively that it warranted sitting him for as much as we did. We ran a ton of plays where we aimed to free guys for shielded shots with blatant moving screens(that apparently are never being called unless you lean forward with your shoulder). We did pretty well on those attempts, especially Gordon. I remember Hood as someone who excels in those situations as well. We apparently did a ton of individual practice on fundamentals. Very few unprecise passes that didn't hit guys shooting pockets in rhythm, even though a lot of easy hand offs may cloud that picture a little.
I expect us to keep it that way for the rest of the series. Trying to shield defenders off and get an open look in rhythm is one of the main goals and "advanced" schemes we use when it comes to shot creation.
One deceptive action that we used a lot in game 2 and a couple times in game 3 was lulling the defense in safety and catching the Clippers off guard - We pushed the ball in up a little faster, someone got up to set a pick/receive a pass to initiate default motion strong action, but instead Hill went the other way and got a clean look.
7) Crossmatching Ingles and Hill defensively was good in the first, as it mixed things up for Paul, who generally looks to get the team running early on. Ingles is slow to follow him, but he's long enough to limit his passing lanes and when Paul isn't decisive about taking a shot from the mid range. Late in the game I didn't like it so much because it was obvious he'd look for his own scoring opportunities. Why not try Hayward if you want length? Ingles is crafty when it comes to avoiding fouls even when recovering, but he's slow. Hayward at least is more slithery and worth a shot.
8) Rebounding...How can we allow to get abused on the boards like that? I understand that DeAndre is the biggest, strongest and most athletic guy on the floor, but play him dirty. Just box out full force, get tangled up, limit his mobility and at times he'll get whistled too. Just have a proper distribution of guys cleaning short miss and others in position to pick up long balls. It's so frustrating to lose a game because you couldn't be arsed to box a guy out after a shot goes up.
