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Game Thread Nov 22, 2021 07:00PM MT: Jazz vs. Grizzlies

Added to Calendar: 11-22-21

One thing that’s perplexing to me about Grant is that he rebounds worse than Bojan. I’m not joking. Bojan 5.1 rebounds per 36 and Grant 4.7.
I think that's the tradeoff for his offensive production and defense. He legit plays both ends of the court at a pretty high level. Bojan is solid offensively, and a weaker defender. My bet is that could change for Grant if he had a change in his role.
 
Well the NBA admitted they missed 2 calls that favored the grizzlies. Including the final goaltend, which they said was NOT a goaltend but it should have been a Jackson foul with Gobert getting free throws.
 
I mean it’s fairly obvious. He’s doubled his steals this year. He’s getting his hands on the ball a lot more. He’s overall more committed. He was bad last year and now I think he’s solid on that end most of the time. He’s not getting beat as often or as badly and has had less brain fart moments off ball where his guys walks into an offensive rebound or back door layup. It still happens but he had nights last year where he was atrocious and I haven’t seen that this year.
He also has a worse defensive Raptor rating so far this season. I think we are watching different parts of the game. Offensive rebounds and backdoor cuts happen at most 2-3 times a game. They are bad and simple to prevent so they stick out more. Steals are nice, especially for my fantasy team but they are not always great indicators of defense.

What I have been more focused on was his reactions to screens. He tries to move around them with big steps and can't catch up because of the distance he created.
 
Well the NBA admitted they missed 2 calls that favored the grizzlies. Including the final goaltend, which they said was NOT a goaltend but it should have been a Jackson foul with Gobert getting free throws.
And that almost certainly would have been the game.
 
He also has a worse defensive Raptor rating so far this season. I think we are watching different parts of the game. Offensive rebounds and backdoor cuts happen at most 2-3 times a game. They are bad and simple to prevent so they stick out more. Steals are nice, especially for my fantasy team but they are not always great indicators of defense.

What I have been more focused on was his reactions to screens. He tries to move around them with big steps and can't catch up because of the distance he created.
He had all those issues last year and was giving up the space cadet stuff and he wasn’t getting his hands on the ball. The statement is not “Donovan is a great defender” the statement is “Donovan has improved as a defender” and I really think anyone that disagrees doesn’t remember last year much imo.

Most defensive catch all metrics are too noisy to rely on.
 
Yep. Refs pretty handily decided the game. We still played like crap so we didn't really deserve the win, but that's a rough way to end it.
The weird one was the travel… it looked like he jumped up and down and no one really cared.

Didn’t like the whistle we got but it wasn’t egregious. We could have simply won the game if Mike didn’t defer to Royce which led to a turnover and if Donovan would have deferred to Mike instead of dribbling off his foot. One thing that drives me nuts about this team is when we find something that is working and we decide to go away from it for no reason at all. Just have Mike run the pick and roll… they couldn’t stop it.
 
He had all those issues last year and was giving up the space cadet stuff and he wasn’t getting his hands on the ball. The statement is not “Donovan is a great defender” the statement is “Donovan has improved as a defender” and I really think anyone that disagrees doesn’t remember last year much imo.

Most defensive catch all metrics are too noisy to rely on.
Yeah, I get the argument. I just don't think he improved defensively and somehow gotten worse. He is worse defensively because he has made a ****** adjustment defensively when he sees a screen which happens most of the game.

Some of it may be Jazz experimenting a little on the defensive end. With hard hedges, zone and some ball pressure but he definitely looks worse out there. Not everything is effort level. I have seen high effort without IQ get punished a lot.
 
The weird one was the travel… it looked like he jumped up and down and no one really cared.

Didn’t like the whistle we got but it wasn’t egregious. We could have simply won the game if Mike didn’t defer to Royce which led to a turnover and if Donovan would have deferred to Mike instead of dribbling off his foot. One thing that drives me nuts about this team is when we find something that is working and we decide to go away from it for no reason at all. Just have Mike run the pick and roll… they couldn’t stop it.
I think we go away from it lots of times because Donovan decides to go hero ball. That's what happened in this game.
 
Yeah, I get the argument. I just don't think he improved defensively and somehow gotten worse. He is worse defensively because he has made a ****** adjustment defensively when he sees a screen which happens most of the game.

Some of it may be Jazz experimenting a little on the defensive end. With hard hedges, zone and some ball pressure but he definitely looks worse out there. Not everything is effort level. I have seen high effort without IQ get punished a lot.
Respectfully disagree. I’ve seen him more engaged in that end. The steals and deflections to me are very valuable. It’s not like he’s Allen Iverson or Westbrook constantly gambling. I think he’s played much better. None of our guys are great at navigating screens. Mike is the best but he has nights where he does on a ton of them.
 
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