The Triple Team: 3 thoughts on Jazz vs. Mavericks


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DALLAS — Three thoughts on the Jazz's 112-107 win over the Dallas Mavericks from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz get star performances from Hayward and Gobert

It wasn't too long ago that Jazz fans were lamenting these kinds of games from their opponent: the Jazz would play good, solid ball to keep the game close throughout, but in the end, a star hit some shots and some weird things happen, and the Jazz would lose.

But Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert have progressed to the point where they're making other teams feel that same twinge of insufficiency. The Jazz's two leaders should both be All-Stars, and they're taking over games late and leading the Jazz to victory.

"Gordon and Rudy led the way, man," Joe Johnson said. "It was fun to be a part of this game tonight."

Hayward finished with 26 points (though on 8-22 shooting), seven rebounds, and four assists on the night, but it's really the stat line of Gobert that stands out: 27 points and 25 rebounds. That's the league's first 25-25 game since over a year ago, when Dwight Howard did it on Jan. 18, 2016. And 25-25 games are rare. I thought this note from Ben Anderson was a good illustration of that:

For reference re rarity of Gobert's 25/25 night, there have been 19 such games since 00. There have been 129 50-point games in that stretch. — Ben Anderson (@BenKFAN) January 21, 2017

14 of those points and 12 of those rebounds came in the fourth quarter and overtime, when the Jazz needed them most. Gobert's ability to outrebound the entire Dallas team was the single skill that won the Jazz the game. The Jazz had 13 missed shots during that period, and Gobert got over half of them.

The biggest one, weirdly, was a rebound he caught a foot off the floor. For some reason, the Mavericks forgot to box out the shooter on Gobert's missed free throw, and he picked the ball up off the ground, fed Joe Johnson for a three, which he calmly hit to even the score in overtime.

Big Shot Joe with the biggest shot of the game! 👌👌 Tonight's @AFCU Instant Rewind! ⏪ pic.twitter.com/HEYlPLBunX — Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) January 21, 2017

Then the Jazz just ran pick and roll to good results late, sending Rudy Gobert to the rim against Dwight Powell and a smaller Dallas lineup.

And it was enough to get the Jazz their fifth win in a row. Adding five extra minutes to this game probably hurts them Saturday, when they play at home against Indiana, but this was a win worth getting.

2. Playing big and small

Thanks to perpetually-tinkering head coach Rick Carlisle, the Mavericks play some weird lineups and cross-matches that some other coaches wouldn't even think about. That includes a lot of 2-point guard lineups, a whole lot of Wesley Matthews and Harrison Barnes guarding power forwards, and more.

And they were having some success with it. In particular, J.J. Barea was getting open in the mid-range against Raul Neto, and then Harrison Barnes was getting some good post-up looks on George Hill, taking advantage of the Jazz switching nearly everywhere on the floor to contain pick and roll and prevent Dallas' preferred 3-point shot.

So what did the Jazz do? Well, for three minutes in the middle of the fourth quarter, and then again once Hill fouled out, the Jazz countered the Mavericks 2-PG lineup with a 0-PG lineup: Hayward, Joe Ingles, Johnson, Boris Diaw, and Gobert all out on the floor at the same time. The shortest person there is Johnson, listed at 6-7, but really it was Ingles and Hayward who took over the ballhandling duties for the most part.

That lineup is impossible to do the switch and post-up plan against, because Barnes isn't bigger than any of those five Jazz players.

I've been asking around recently: besides Gobert, what's the Jazz's biggest defensive asset? Hayward told me that the the Jazz's perimeter length was maybe the biggest: all of the Jazz wings are big and long, and George Hill's wingspan is wing-like too.

Generally, you'd think that those teams would use that length to generate turnovers, but instead, the Jazz use it to stop the 3-point attack of other teams. Dallas is seventh in the league in terms of 3-point makes, but the Jazz limited them to just one make from there in the fourth quarter and overtime.

(And, as a side note, Diaw messed up badly on that play. Why'd he leave Seth Curry here, with the Jazz up 3?)

3. Value of getting in the penalty

The Jazz picked up their fourth foul with 9:17 left in the fourth quarter tonight, meaning that the Mavericks would shoot two free throws the rest of the quarter if the Jazz fouled them. It looked like that was bad news.

But it was only once that the Jazz fouled on a non-shooting foul, sending Barnes to the line with about four minutes left in the game. That was really the only impact of being in the bonus.

And actually, it turns out that being in the bonus is less helpful to the opposition than you'd think. On average, teams last year averaged only 2.3 points more per 100 possessions when their opponents were facing the penalty. (Thanks to Matt Femrite of Nylon Calculs for that research.) Even that might be high, because teams at the end of games get in the penalty when they send opponents to the FT line to try to catch up.

So anyway, being in the bonus early in a quarter is, well, a bonus, but it's not a big one. In general, it seems like referees swallow their whistles a little if they know ticky-tack fouls will send a team to the line.

Okay, one more refereeing thought, because I can't help myself: that tonight's refereeing crew of Kane Fitzgerald, Leroy Richardson, and Mark Ayotte didn't notice that Rick Carlisle was calling timeout as soon as Deron Williams got the rebound with over two seconds left in regulation is shocking. With 25 seconds on the clock to begin that play, as a referee, you know that the most likely outcome is a missed shot, then a rebound and a quick timeout by either team. Somehow, they appeared to not be aware of Carlisle and the entire Mavericks bench screaming for a timeout in the absolute most logical time to take one.

It cost the Mavericks a chance to win the game, and the Jazz were fortunate that it went to overtime. Now, sure, there were many definite missed calls that didn't go the Jazz's way. But the missed timeout was the biggest incident for either side.

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Andy Larsen

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