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SALT LAKE CITY — Welcome to KSL.com’s weekly Utah Jazz Mailbag. Beat writer Andy Larsen and KSL.com contributor Ben Anderson will discuss and debate your questions surrounding the Jazz to try to find a common ground answer.
Andy and Ben just did a daily podcast about the Utah Jazz titled the KSL Court Report. Click the link to subscribe.
Ben Anderson: Hey Andy!
The playoffs are here, and the Jazz are set to face the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round. There seemed to be a real urgency from Jazz fans late in the season to secure home-court advantage to give the Jazz better odds of winning the series.
I think one of the bigger reasons fans clamored for home-court advantage, outside of getting a decisive Game 7 in Salt Lake City, was the perceived talent discrepancy between the Jazz and the Clippers roster.
Chris Paul is a first-ballot Hall of Famer and has been dubbed the best point guard of his generation. Blake Griffin also appears to be headed to Springfield if he can keep up this level of play for another half decade. Meanwhile, DeAndre Jordan made his first all-star appearance this season.
With that said, both the Jazz and Clippers finished with identical records this year at 51-31. According to mangameslost.com, the Jazz had players miss the sixth most games due to injury this year and ranked them No. 1 overall in games lost due to injury. That’s extremely significant, if they’re projecting the Jazz as a 60-win team. The Clippers players missed 139 games to injury this season and lost six as a result.
Is there an enormous gap in talent between these two rosters? Is there a reasonable way to quantify the talent discrepancy?
Andy Larsen: One exercise I tried in an attempt to figure this out was rank the players from best to worst in the series, from 1 to 20, based on current form. Here’s my list: Chris Paul - LAC; Rudy Gobert - UTA; Blake Griffin - LAC; Gordon Hayward - UTA; DeAndre Jordan - LAC; George Hill - UTA; J.J. Redick - LAC; Joe Ingles - UTA; Joe Johnson - UTA; Rodney Hood - UTA; Derrick Favors - UTA; Austin Rivers - LAC; Mo Speights - LAC; Jamal Crawford - LAC; Luc Mbah a Moute - LAC; Ray Felton - LAC; Boris Diaw - UTA; Brandon Bass - LAC; Shelvin Mack - UTA; Wesley Johnson - LAC.
A couple of notes about that list: Austin Rivers is out with a strained hamstring and will miss the first two games of the series. His placement on the list is based on his form before his injury, which was actually very good. He’s the Clippers’ best bench player. I don’t really believe that Joe Ingles is a better player than Rodney Hood or Derrick Favors. But Jingles has been more impactful than the other two all season long.
Whether Favors or Hood step up could be a big difference in the series. The Clippers have the best player, two of the best three, and three of the best five. That’s no small advantage, and so many NBA series have been won by answering the simple question of who has the better top-end talent at the end of games. But the Jazz have seven of the top 11 players. That, to me, is where the Jazz need to attack. They need to take advantage when the benches are on the floor and go on runs.
Does this really “quantify” the talent discrepancy? Not really. Based on season data, I think you could say something like “well, the Clippers’ top three is three to four win shares better than the Jazz’s big three.” But what does that really mean over the course of a seven-game series? The matchups are the important thing, in my opinion.
Now, unfortunately, I think the Clippers have some really tough matchups for the Jazz: not just qualitatively, but stylistically. That’s where they could find themselves in trouble, especially on the offensive end.
Ben: That is my fear as well with the Clippers. Even if the Jazz do have seven of the 11 best players on the floor, not having the majority of talent in the top five is going to make for a difficult series.
The wildcard here, however, is not knowing what the Jazz should expect from George Hill. I wouldn’t be shocked if Gobert and Hayward are capable of having equal, or bigger impacts, in this series than Griffin and Jordan. It will then fall on the shoulders of Hill to close the gap between Paul and himself.
Unfortunately for the Jazz, the Clippers are one of the teams that have given Hill particular trouble this year. In fact, through all of his injuries this year, the Clippers are the only team that Hill played against four times in the regular season, and his numbers left a lot to be desired.
Against Paul, Hill averaged 13 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 2.8 assists, with a 42 percent / 35 percent / 57 percent shooting slash line. The 13 points are tied for his fifth-lowest average against any team he faced this season, and his 49 percent true shooting percentage is the sixth worst against any team he’s faced.
If Hill plays to those averages this series, the Jazz are going to struggle to hang around long.
On the bright side, since March 1, Hill has averaged 15 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 4.0 assists, shooting roughly 48 percent / 40 percent / 81 percent. If he can maintain those numbers, his efficiency should allow the Jazz to keep pace with the Clippers.
Also, I don’t want to dismiss the Jazz talent advantage at the back end of the playoff rotation. Going into the series with a rested Joe Johnson, healthier Rodney Hood, and Derrick Favors as your fifth, sixth, and seventh best players is a significant upgrade over Austin Rivers, Mo Speights, and Jamal Crawford. And, with Rivers missing the first two games in L.A. due to injury, the Clippers have to dive even deeper into their rotation, further increasing the Jazz advantage. If the Jazz can get the Clippers in foul trouble, their depth will be tested early in the series.
Finally, is there one player on this Jazz roster not named Hayward, Gobert, or Hill that could play a particularly important role in this series based off of expected matchups?
Andy: Hey, and you didn’t even mention Hill’s sketchy plus-minuses against the Clippers: -66 overall, including two -30 performances. For this article on KSL.com, I looked at all of Hill’s games against Chris Paul. In those bad games, he was actually getting pretty good shots, just missing them. The Jazz will take that. One bigger problem was his injury status. I believe he tweaked his groin in that game, which he eventually missed time for. I thought it was clear that Hill wasn’t moving around at the level that he usually does.
Watching the video of the game from October, Hill did a great job of leading the Jazz in that game, and that was at the peak of the Clippers’ defensive performances. Basically, if healthy, I think we’re likely to see normal Hill, not a matchup-limited one.
I think the most important player you didn’t name is Joe Johnson. Johnson is going to get significant time in this series, spacing the floor for the Jazz and even will be guarding Blake Griffin for long stretches. If he can do that capably (and he’s shown that he can, especially in the Jazz’s lone win this season), he’s going to be a huge value-add for the Jazz.
If you’d like to send a question to the next KSL Jazz mailbag, comment below with your question or send an email to me at alarsen@ksl.com. Ben Anderson is a contributor at KSL.com, follow him on Twitter @BenKFAN.
