PG Utah: No Defense, No Bench, No Victory

[skones]

Honestly though, the Golden state Warriors who most here said were a horrible team after the first two games are only a half game worse than us.


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We're less than 10 games into the season. This literally means nothing right now.

[Pachinko_]

We haven't looked good in almost a year.

[fan230]

How much better is (jrue and dja) over (Bledsoe and Hill)?

[Istanbullus]

I wonder if this has been brought up yet: does anyone think that as part of Giannis' meeting(s) he had suggested or asked about Thanasis getting more playing time?

[FlagsFlyForever]

I wonder if this has been brought up yet: does anyone think that as part of Giannis' meeting(s) he had suggested or asked about Thanasis getting more playing time?

I think his playing time can be explained by Wilson being terrible and I would expect Thanos to lose playing time when the Bucks upgrade the position before the playoffs.

[-Jragon-]

Tough loss. Jordan Clarkson was everywhere. Many of their shots were over outstretched arms. They had some open ones with ball movement and nice back screens but not more open 3s than than we did, they just made them. DJA and Forbes had open 3s whenever they wanted and missed.. Brook could have made a couple more all his were wide open.

We battled hard to keep in the game and tied it a bunch of times in the 2nd half. Hard to get too mad about this after 3 straight wins.. learn from it, make shots next time and move on to the next.

[DutchManDanFan]

Good to know how we do when it’s a close game in the 3rd.

[Cythaps]

The game keeps changing, the 3pt shots attempts league wide are way more than even last year so it is bound to get more random, especially in the regular season. That's why there is no dominant team out there and we have so many huge underdog wins. Our offense is by far the best in the league and that's the main thing. It is much easier to get better in defense than in offense.

Our starting 5 is much better than last year, and that's what's going to matter in the playoffs. Today we lost because of a horrible bench performance and a 17% 3pt shooting differential. The defense wasn't good, but it's not like we didn't have equally good looks from the 3 as well. We're gonna lose 10 more games like that but it doesn't matter. How many number 1 seed seasons do we need to waste to understand that it doesn't matter that much.

P.S. That was a Utah franchise record in 3s. They deserved to win. When we did the same thing in Miami, did it mean that Bud outcoached Spoelstra?

[pifhluk23]

Yea the Jazz shot extremely well but I can't recall too many times a team has just completely worked over our weaknesses like that.
We were made to look like a poorly coached, really dumb basketball team.

The Miami series wasn't that long ago. I don't get why the defense can't just stay at home on the guys who can actually shoot. Why is the goal of the defense to give up the corner 3, the most efficient shot in basketball.

[Thanos1985]

What really worried me is that we were outplayed all game. They were executing offence, giving them open midrange and open 3s and as they were hitting them then they were hitting them with more confidence. We never try anything to stop this or coach thinks we werent able and our only hope is to miss tyhe open shots with high confidence.

On our attack i was seeing isos and contested 3s or deep 3s or shout and catch out of screens with the defender right , so they had to shoot like curry in terms of quickness.

I never felt we had a chance even when we got close.

Also 2 other things worries me

One Giannis and Holiday chemistry and if they are good , if they like playing together, cause both they want to be playmakers. And Giannis body language in Miami win was saying, "i am ok but i feel like **** i scored only 9" (if i remember)

2. If augustin continius to play like this is he tradeble? have we any assets to take some players before the playoffs?
Cause if someone of portis and the 5 starters gets injured we are so f....ed giving minutes in playoffs to anybody else.

[BroncoBuck]

I don’t understand blaming Bud for the defense when the players were the ones who completely failed to run it. Guys were caught watching the ball all night. Transition D was awful, terrible miscommunication on that end of the floor after some horrendous forced shots/sloppy turnovers on offense.

Half the roster turned over from last year and the team didn’t have any time to practice. Teams are essentially playing shoot around in empty arenas. We’re going to continue seeing plenty of games like this around the league

I blame Bud. How the hell does he play Thanasis relevant minutes? It’s not a coincidence that the Jazz were on fire every time he stepped on the court. He’s completely clueless on D.

Craig and Pat were both out.

[yannisk]

How much better is (jrue and dja) over (Bledsoe and Hill)?

Jrue is better than Bledsoe and DJa worse than Hill, I hope DJA will play better but at the end the result will be close, hopefully with the current PG pair slightly better

at the same time Giannis is worse than last year (worse ppg, fg 3p% rbs, ft%) again we hope he will play better

Middleton and DDV are better than last year

the bench is terrible (worst in the league?)

Bud is the same, he does not change. The problem is all the good coaches know exactly what he does and react accordingly

I don't think this team as is currently constructed will go far and we have limited assets to change the team drastically

[ShootingtheJ]

That was definitely our best chance. Cheaping out on Brogdon will go down as an all time bad move.

I fail to see how Brogdan instead of Jrue makes this team better.

I’m not quite sure how you’re viewing them as mutually exclusive, but I’ll add it to your growing list.

Kind of hard to trade picks acquired in the Brogdan trade to get Jrue if we don't make the Brogdan trade. Does it make sense to you now?

[GoldenAntlers]

Another subtle callout about the scheme post game, this time by Jrue

quote?

Read on Twitter

This is great. Hopefully Jrue is the one who can force Buds hand to actually play smart basketball.

[ShootingtheJ]

I don’t understand blaming Bud for the defense when the players were the ones who completely failed to run it. Guys were caught watching the ball all night. Transition D was awful, terrible miscommunication on that end of the floor after some horrendous forced shots/sloppy turnovers on offense.

Half the roster turned over from last year and the team didn’t have any time to practice. Teams are essentially playing shoot around in empty arenas. We’re going to continue seeing plenty of games like this around the league

I blame Bud. How the hell does he play Thanasis relevant minutes? It’s not a coincidence that the Jazz were on fire every time he stepped on the court. He’s completely clueless on D.

Craig and Pat were both out.

DJW can defend.

[midranger]

I fail to see how Brogdan instead of Jrue makes this team better.

I’m not quite sure how you’re viewing them as mutually exclusive, but I’ll add it to your growing list.

Kind of hard to trade picks acquired in the Brogdan trade to get Jrue if we don't make the Brogdan trade. Does it make sense to you now?

Pretty sure the key to that deal was not the 24 pick in the last crappy draft, and they could have figured something out with the 5 unprotected picks/swaps during a time of uncertainty surrounding our best player, that were obviously the key to the trade.

[ShootingtheJ]

I’m not quite sure how you’re viewing them as mutually exclusive, but I’ll add it to your growing list.

Kind of hard to trade picks acquired in the Brogdan trade to get Jrue if we don't make the Brogdan trade. Does it make sense to you now?

Pretty sure the key to that deal was not the 24 pick in the last crappy draft, and they could have figured something out with the 5 unprotected picks/swaps during a time of uncertainty surrounding our best player, that were obviously the key to the trade.

New Orleans didn't receive 5 unprotected picks, and we can't just give them less in the trade, Boston was offering 3 picks and a better player.

Also, this past draft has actually been productive so far. Lots of players drafted after 24 are producing. The weakness of this draft was the quality at the top, not the depth.

We traded one of the Brogdan picks to move into this draft and grab what looks like a rotation caliber player out of this draft in Nwora.

[midranger]

You’re right, it would have been literally impossible to replace that pick with anything else.

[paulpressey25]

You’re right, it would have been literally impossible to replace that pick with anything else.

As long as we are having Festivus, I’d rather have A over B last night.

A: Brogdon, Bojan, Bledsoe, Hill plus all those picks and pick swaps to deal for one other dude if needed

B: Jrue, Middleton and DJA.

[BigO]

Kidd’s switching defense was good for a year and then others figured it out. Finally kidd left.

Bud focused on let it fly when few teams did that. The percentages worked for us. Other teams started shooting more 3s and recruited more 3 point shooters. So our advantage was nullified.

In defense Bud’s philosophy was to defend the rim primarily because those were otherwise high probability shots. But with better outside shooters of the opponents, the probability of their making 3 pt shots went up a lot. Also more and more 3 pointers were tried against us. So 3 point scores against us became more common. This is the defense’s problem. Just like Kidd’s defense, Bud’s defense has been figured out. Not sure what can be done.

Excellent post.