The Triple Team: Jazz snap 9-game winning streak with loss to Hawks


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SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 99-94 loss to the Atlanta Hawks from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz again can't figure out how to score against Atlanta's defense

It's so easy to blame focus or effort. It's so easy to look at the Jazz's results over the last 24 games, which feature 20 wins against all sorts of NBA teams, and four losses against two of the best teams in the NBA (Houston and Portland) and two losses to one of the worst (Atlanta) and think "I can't believe this team plays down to the level of its competition. Only the Jazz, right?"

Here's the deal: The Jazz struggle against the Atlanta Hawks for real strategic reasons, not mental ones. Donovan Mitchell explained it best: "They play us a little differently than everyone else," he said. "They help off a lot more, and they're so far back in pick and roll."

The Jazz only shot 15-28 at the rim, echoing the January Atlanta performance where they only shot 11-25 down there. It's not just because the Jazz are missing easy layups, it's because finishers like Mitchell are seeing one more body than they're used to at the rim.

Look at how much the Hawks help off of Jae Crowder here to both prevent Mitchell from scoring at the rim and to spend an entire man preventing Rudy Gobert from getting anywhere near the rim.

Triple Team videos: The Jazz struggle against the Hawks because they help so much inside. They dedicate one guy to stopping Gobert from getting to the rim, and then make Mitchell make either a toughish layup or a toughish pass back out to Crowder: pic.twitter.com/lEGJ3i5IuB — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 21, 2018

Gobert talked about that physicality he experienced postgame, saying "It's a physical team. They held us the whole game."

Now here's the good news: The Jazz dealt with this defensive scheme much better than they did in January. The biggest hint is in the 34 3-point shots: The Jazz often did find the open man in these situations, and then the Jazz just missed the open shots. Mitchell was the biggest misser, going 1-10 from the 3-point line, but Joe Ingles, who had the best 3-point percentage in the league, went 1-8 from deep too, with two excellent looks that could have changed the game.

I mean, literally every Atlanta Hawk is in the paint here, trying to stop Gobert from getting the rebound. They left Ingles wide open for a potential game-winning three. He just missed it. Overall, the Jazz shot just 6-34 from the 3-point line.

But unlike the January loss, they did a much better job of getting open 3-point looks. Here's there's 5 guys in the paint trying to get the rebound/stop Gobert, so he kicks it out to Jingles, and Jingles can't come through: pic.twitter.com/gdWWcddBzH — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 21, 2018

"We just missed shots," Mitchell continued from above. "We just make six more threes, like we normally do, we're up by a lot."

When Gobert can't get to the rim, and the whole team can't make an outside shot, the Jazz just don't have much of a chance at being good offensively. Ricky Rubio tried to carry them with his midrange prowess for a while, but in the end, it wasn't enough.

2. Jazz couldn't stop Dennis Schroder

The other point that supports the Jazz coming into this game focused: The defense was the only thing keeping the Jazz in there for large portions of the game. Allowing 41 points on 34 percent shooting in the first half, and keeping a team to only a 97 offensive rating should be enough to win you most games.

But tonight it wasn't, and that's because in the fourth quarter, the Jazz couldn't defend Dennis Schroder down the stretch. Schroder scored 41 points and 17 in the fourth quarter. Both are Atlanta highs for the season, and it's the first 40-point game for the Hawks in nearly a decade — since former Jazzman Joe Johnson did it for them in December of 2008.

What killed the Jazz? Maybe the first thing is that Schroder was money from all three levels tonight, and unusually so. Here's his shot chart:

The Triple Team: Jazz snap 9-game winning streak with loss to Hawks

Usually, Schroder will miss a few of those jump shots, but because he made them, it forced the Jazz to start playing higher up on him to contest those looks.

But even given that, too frequently, the Jazz got beaten at the point of attack. Rubio was the main problem, to be honest. Here, you can see him take responsibility after just allowing Schroder a runway to the rim. He thinks a screen is coming, it is not, and you just can't give a quick right-handed player like Schroder that opportunity.

The Jazz did a good job of team defense, except that Schroder just got to the rim way too easily. I thought Rubio was back to being better than this, but... hrmm. pic.twitter.com/6vCJIxkG8o — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 21, 2018

This happened frequently and is a little bit discouraging because it's a problem that the Jazz thought had mostly been solved: Rubio just getting beat one-on-one by guards.

The Jazz switched different defenders on him late, but it was too little, too late.

I also thought Gobert was weirdly unimpactful. Take this play:

And then I thought Gobert took himself out of the game a little bit defensively once he got his fifth foul. Rudy! Help here! That's why you're you! Don't take yourself out of the game before the refs do! pic.twitter.com/4Sx3HALcwR — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 21, 2018

Crowder gets beat one-on-one, but you would expect that given the switch came early, Gobert would be ready to come deliver help here, even with his man in the corner. Instead, he takes one ineffective step, jumps too late, and isn't even really off the ground when Schroder takes the layup. What is he waiting for? He had five fouls at this point, but he's already taking himself out of the game by playing no defense like this.

It's a little bit discouraging, especially if the Jazz end up playing one of the Western Conference opponents with quick guards: Golden State, Houston, Portland all come to mind readily.

3. What does this do to the Jazz's playoff picture?

Here's the good news: Despite the loss, the Jazz are still big favorites to make the playoffs. They're fully two games ahead of the Denver Nuggets and two and a half games over the L.A. Clippers. The Nuggets lost Monday and the Clippers lost Tuesday.

The rest of the Western Conference 3-10 didn't have the best day either. New Orleans beat Dallas, but it was close late. The Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Clippers, as aforementioned. But the Oklahoma City Thunder lost to the injury-riddled Boston Celtics in a game they were up six with 24 seconds left to go.

The bad news: The loss drastically decreases the Jazz's chances of getting a beatable playoff opponent. The Jazz projected to finish eighth by FiveThirtyEight, with 46 wins. Coming into the game, the site projected the Jazz to finish with 48 wins, so you can see what happened here: not only did the Jazz lose a game the model thought they would almost certainly win, they played badly enough to convince the model that they're likely to lose another game too.

The good news: the Jazz's schedule is one of the easier ones for the rest of the way, and it appears they're getting some gifts, too, that the 538 model doesn't know about. Dallas could be missing Dennis Smith Jr. The word is he'll be out "games, plural" which certainly should include the Jazz's contest against the Mavericks Wednesday. Then they take on the San Antonio Spurs, who are unlikely to have Kawhi Leonard. The Spurs have won their last four, but haven't always looked great doing so, and had lost five of their last six before that.

Golden State should be missing at least half of their core of All-Stars. Steph Curry is targeting a return Friday, so he should be able to play by the time the Jazz play in Oakland Sunday. Draymond Green left Monday's game due to injury, and he hopes to return soon. But at least Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson will be out with injuries.

Then the Jazz play Boston and Kyrie Irving can't seem to figure out what's bothering his ailing knee. Their entire starting lineup has missed games this week.

In other words, it's certainly not over. Given the schedule, Jazz fans should hope to get up in that group with the Timberwolves, Pelicans, and Spurs at 47 wins. If that's how it ended up, in a four-way tie, the Jazz would finish with either the fifth or the sixth seed, depending on if they won their game against the Timberwolves coming up in April.

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