Again people are so locked in on the perimeter defense thing they can't see anything else. Every play, every loss, is because of our perimeter defense according to this forum. But the Pacers game was less about the play of perimeter defense, but a real lack of effort from Whiteside and our bigs. It was kind of disturbing actually. It's going to be hard for the jazz to win with Rudy out, especially if whiteside doesn't care to play hard.
Yeah, I hear you but the Jazz are not going to win with Rudy out regardless. Whiteside needs to play better but every player on the floor factors into team defense. Whiteside is not nearly as good as Gobert and cannot cover as many mistakes as he can. Nobody can.
I was curious to see the opponent shot chart in wins versus losses and I think it is pretty telling. The Jazz are giving up 1.3 more field goals (2.6 pts) in the restricted area in losses, but where they are really being attacked is in the mid-range and 3 point line. In losses, the Jazz are giving up 2.3 more field goals (4.6 pts) in the mid-range and 1.2 corner three-point shots (3.6 pts). Interestingly, those are almost all coming from the left corner. In losses opponents are shooting around 5% better in the restricted area, 6% better in the mid-range, and an astonishing 16% better on corner 3s. The Jazz are the 4th best team in the league overall when it comes to limiting opponents 3-point corner shooting percentage, but drop to the 5th worst team in the league in games that the team loses.
Overall, opponents are making 48.2% of their FGs when the Jazz lose compared to 43% in wins and from three opponents are making 38.2% in Jazz losses versus 31.5% in wins. The Jazz are giving up a total of 114.8 points in losses compared to 103.7 in wins.
Conversely, the Jazz are scoring 118.9 points in wins and 108.3 in losses. Interestingly, their shooting percentages are not very different in wins versus losses (about 4.5% worse from three, 4% worse overall). Their number of shot attempts are pretty similar in wins compared to losses, as are free throw attempts, assists, offensive rebounds, turnovers, steals, blocks, and fouls. The Jazz get about 5 defensive rebounds less per game, but we're only giving up 0.6 more offensive rebounds in losses so that difference in defensive rebounding probably just reflects that the opponents are making more shots when the Jazz lose.
Overall, this tells a story of just a few possessions per game. The Jazz win when they make two more three-point shots and two more two-point shots, and when they lose they miss those shots and their opponents make 1.2 more corner threes and 3.6 more two-point shots.
We would have to dig into the numbers more deeply to know how consistent those numbers are across all wins and all losses as a lot of detail gets lost in averages. After looking into all that I'm not entirely sure what that tells us, but it does seem to point to a need to better defend the mid-range and corner 3, especially on games when the offensive scoring falls even a few FGs short of their mark.
