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SALT LAKE CITY — Notes from today's first practice back after a 4-game road trip, and ahead of Wednesday night's game against Toronto.
Practice today
With a game tomorrow, the Jazz spent today's practice on a lot of mental things on the court. Rather than spending their time running, they worked on offensive and defensive execution.
On offense, the focus was making the right read on plays, analyzing how to attack whatever the defense gives them. On defense, the focus was on communication, being able to deal with those threats with five men working together on a string.
Booker struggles
I talked about it in The Triple Team after the Jazz's loss against the Magic, but right now, the Jazz are not getting what they need from Trevor Booker. When Booker was asked what he thought of his game so far, he said, "I feel great. I think I'm playing great basketball. Scoring is not there right now, which is not a concern. They don't look to me to score, they look to me to bring energy, and that's what I'm doing."
Sure, the team isn't looking for Booker to score huge chunks of points, but they need better than 29.4 percent shooting and exactly zero free-throw attempts so far this season in order to keep him on the floor. Those sort of numbers crater the Jazz's efficiency while he's out there, and he'll need to turn it around to play like he did last season.
Quin Snyder told us that he watched film with Booker before Sunday's game against Atlanta, and figured out some things that may improve Booker's numbers moving forward.
"I think it's a question of playing to his strengths," Snyder said. "There are ways that he scores, and scores at a good clip, and we want to make sure he's focused on doing those things."
Transition defense
One surprising issue for the Jazz so far is transition defense, where the Jazz have allowed an above-average percentage of transition opportunities, and allow an above-average number of points per possession on those opportunities. I asked Snyder to evaluate what's happening there.
"There are a couple of situations that get us. One is when we get penetration from one of the guards, and we're spaced in the corners, which hopefully is going to happen a lot. That's tough to get out of the corners. If there's just a little bit of hesitation, it hurts you. Then we had some mental breakdowns. Al Horford ran by one of our guys one time. We worked on it today."
Jazz try to recover after long road trip
One topic at practice today was how the team recovers during and after a long road trip, such as the four-game swing they just went on.
"We have recovery days, or what we call pro days, where we have to do whatever you have to do to be a professional," Snyder said.
"Whether it's the cold tub, or nutrition, or sleep, or free throws, or the weight room, or soft tissue work, there's so many different things that guys can do. We try to raise their awareness of that."
Derrick Favors admitted that the schedule wears on players, but also noted the lack of stability the schedule features.
"It's tough. You come here, play one game, get comfortable, then you gotta get back on the plane and leave again, so you're like 'ugh, I've gotta pack my bag again.'"
This was also Favors' first road trip away from his newborn twin girls.
"I miss my kids!" Favors said. "I haven't had the chance to really spend time with them, so hopefully we'll get some home games coming up and I get the chance to spend some time with them."
The Jazz play one game against Toronto Wednesday, then go on the road to face the Mavericks Friday. It's not until Nov. 29 that the Jazz will have two home games in a row this season.
What drives Favors?
After a solid start to the season, where he's in the top 10 in the NBA in PER, Favors is earning some All-Star buzz. Would such an appearance be important to Derrick?
"It would. I'd love to make it," Favors replied. "But you know how it works out, I might not make it, it depends on how stuff goes. Hopefully my name will be in there when they announce it."
This summer, Favors was snubbed from the USA Basketball roster, something that still motivates him early this season.
"It does," Favors said. "That motivates me to keep going out here and work on my game, go out there and play hard every night, and go out there against certain guys. It still motivates me."
