Post#57 » by BigJimFinn » Wed Nov 8, 2023 5:21 am
I went and looked at the team season stats, mostly to check if Jazz are really hunting for an all-time record in turnovers like it feels, and they pretty much confirmed the eye test evaluation "painful to watch, meh on offense, BAAD on defense".
Utah are leading the league in turnovers (17.8 is actually less than I expected) and opponent steals, 10 live ball giveaways leaking points in transition. At the other end they are 27th in opponent TOs and 29th in steals, so a huge discrepancy here, almost enough to explain the -8.3 points per game.
Mostly awful in every facet of defending (def.rating 29th): transition hurts the stats, but the Jazz are also fouling constantly (28th in fouls, 27th in opp. FTs), and still unable to stop people from getting buckets (28th in opp. 2P%, 22nd in blocks despite Kessler).
Offensively Utah are poor at scoring inside (25th in 2P% and 20th in FTs drawn) and OK in three point shooting. Special mention for being 29th in shots blocked; those blind drives from the guards should count effectively as live ball turnovers, yet Collins is actually just ahead of Sexton here, getting stuffed 1.5 times per game. He seemed a poor fit at both ends and has proven to be just that.
The only clear positive is offensive rebounding, 2nd in the league, and the +5.5 difference here is somewhat mitigating all the possessions thrown away by turnovers and bad forced shots, but transition D is the tradeoff here too.
Most of this feels like a natural consequence of starting 3 bigs, having no natural NBA wings and giving most guard minutes to guys whose ball control and decision making must be the worst in the league, while having zero interior defense in the second unit.
Usually being a high-mistake team at both ends implies youth, but somehow the Jazz have managed to assemble a rotation full of veterans whose collective basketball IQ, concentration and discipline is... not conducive to winning.
Oh well, there are other teams for me to watch. Guess I will mostly be enjoying the excellence of Nuggets and the fresh excitement of Spurs this season.