With the Jazz having just defeated the Thunder in a less than impressive start to the 2019-20 campaign, the team will take the win nonetheless. With just one game in the books, I took a look back at the Jazz’s preseason performances and what we might expect to see from Utah in a season of high expectations.
Closing the preseason at 1-4 (if you count the victory over the Adelaide 36ers of Australia), the Jazz had both positive and negative moments during preseason action. Now I know you’re probably thinking “it’s just preseason, the games don’t matter”, and you might be right. Despite that, I was able to “take note” (like what I did there?) of a few things from the team’s games. Also, we will not be counting stats from the Adelaide win, because really?
Defense
The Jazz have found their niche as one of the NBA’s best defensive teams under Quin Snyder, leading to three consecutive playoff appearances. The defense is anchored, of course by Rudy Gobert, the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year in back-to-back seasons.
As good as the defense has been though, it hasn’t created the right matchups to advance Utah in the playoffs. With this year’s acquisition of Mike Conley – a former All-Defensive Team member – the expectations for the Jazz to continue to perform on the defensive end remain.
After the preseason games, here are the good and bad of the team’s defense in those matchups.
The Good
The Jazz forced turnovers, and any coach loves to see extra possessions and more fast break chances. The team forced 15 turnovers per game in their four matchups, which would put the Jazz tied for seventh in the league over a full season based on last year’s statistics. If they can be disruptive and force turnovers in the games that count, they should be able to create extra opportunities and slow down the pace against teams that like to play high tempo, like a Houston or Denver.
The Bad
The Jazz couldn’t stop opponents from getting buckets. Teams averaged a whopping 129 points against a squad that praises defense. Perhaps a more alarming stat is how well teams shot from deep, with three of the teams shooting above 40% on more than 30 attempts per game.
Now I know people continue to make the argument of the preseason doesn’t matter and starters aren’t playing regular minutes anyways, but it might say something about the teams depth being a question. If they want to make a playoff run, the Jazz need support from their bench unit to keep a game intact before the starters check back in.
Offense
Utah has had its fair share of offensive struggles over the past few years, but the addition of Conley to take some pressure off third year guard Donovan Mitchell and the addition of Bojan Bogdanovic to space the floor and be a three-point threat should open up the team’s offense. Mitchell is also expected to make a leap into the upper echelon of NBA players, so the Jazz offense should see much improvement.
The Good
The Jazz did have some stellar shooting performances from beyond the arc, shooting 50% (19-for-38) against New Orleans and 46% (14-for-30) versus Portland. Even though the team was just in the middle of the pack last year in three-point shooting, it gives hope that with some new additions that the Jazz will shoot better from the perimeter this year.
The Bad
As much as Utah had its good moments from behind the arc, there were also some problems. They shot just 6-for-29 (20%) against the Bucks and 9-for-35 (25.7%) against the Kings, which are some pretty horrendous shooting performances. The Jazz have really struggled for the past few seasons to be a consistent threat from three – save for Jinglin’ Joe – while the NBA continues to become even more reliant on perimeter offense. The Jazz need to look for more consistency to keep up with teams like the Rockets, who I swear launch 100 threes a game.
The Stars
Donovan Mitchell
Despite playing just a fraction of his normal minutes, Mitchell played relatively well. In 26 minutes per outing, he chipped in 18 points, three assists and four rebounds a contest. Donovan really showed up in the preseason finale, dropping 27 against Portland, ending on a good note as he looks to continue to increase his scoring average in his third season.
Rudy Gobert
Despite not playing against the Bucks, Rudy played well in the other three games. Averaging 15 points in just 26 minutes a game, he also chipped in eight rebounds a contest, showing his two best skills. Also, he’s my best to three-peat as Defensive Player of the Year.
Mike Conley Jr.
As is usual for Conley, he was good on offense and pesky on defense in the preseason contests. He averaged 11 points and two assists per game in limited minutes, highlighted by scoring 20 points in 27 minutes against Portland. Coming off the best season of his career, Conley will look to push the Jazz over the top and into the realm of title contenders in 2019-20.
Wrap Up
Utah’s preseason possibly gave us a glimpse of the team’s strengths and weaknesses, but regular season play could also be much different from what we saw. The season’s storylines will be interesting: seeing if the team can develop chemistry quickly and avoid a slow start like the past few years, how Bojan can space the floor, how the bench and rotations look, etc. It is a long 82 game grind, so we’ll just have to wait how it all plays out.
All stats courtesy of NBA.com. Current as of October 25, 2019.
What an article!