SALT LAKE CITY — As the Jazz's 2015-16 season came to a close earlier than expected, everyone naturally begins to diagnose what caused the Jazz to fall short of the playoffs.

Here's one big reason: the Jazz's performance in close games. In games when the score was within five points within five minutes left on the clock, the Jazz finished with a 14-28 record. Only the Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns, three of the four worst teams in the league, finished with fewer wins.

So what will be done next year to avoid the same fate? I asked Jazz head coach Quin Snyder and general manager Dennis Lindsey, and they spoke for over five minutes on their thoughts on the subject.

Here's my how-to guide, based on their remarks.

Step 1: Avoid close games

One way to make sure you win close games is by simply winning them earlier. The Golden State Warriors, for example, had 19 games in which Steph Curry didn't play in the fourth quarter just because the team had gotten such a big lead in the first three periods. That almost never happened with the Jazz.

But even by a lower standard, the Jazz could still do a better job of putting themselves in less-difficult situations. That 14-28 record I cited above features 10 games where the Jazz never took a lead at any point in the last five minutes. Sure, they may have worked to scramble back, but they never really made it a true contest.

In other words, the Jazz need to do better on the scoreboard in the first three and a half quarters. The simplest way to do that? Be a better team.

As Lindsey said, "A championship competitive team has the ability to blow out teams and not play those close games. Obviously the greatest example of that right now is the Golden State Warriors. All of us aspire to be that."

Step 2: Practice pressure situations

Here, Snyder is borrowing a tactic from football: the two-minute drill. Snyder wants his players to become used to pressure situations and how to perform in them, so he runs them through last the last two minutes in a variety of situations on the practice court.

Snyder said, "(In) the two-minute drills, we’ve got a thing we call special teams were we’re literally trying to script out situations that we’ll find ourselves in. And we’re doing that primarily to generate an experience."

Now, as Snyder noted later in his remarks, the best experience is undoubtedly game experience. The Jazz did have that this year, though weren't successful in those situations on aggregate. It's possible that the experiences learned now will help them later.

Step 3. Improve on defense

One surprising thing about the Jazz's clutch performance this season: it was the defense that let the team down, not the offense, in close games. The offense stayed essentially middle of the pack in the last five minutes of games with a five point differential, but the defense became the third worst in the league. That's obviously a big departure from the Jazz's overall performance, where they were the seventh best team.

Snyder spoke about this as well. This is a long quote, but I think it's interesting.

"The one area where I feel like where there can be marked improvement is on the defensive end. If you look at where we were defensively during the course of a game and what happened to us defensively late in a game, we weren’t very good is what it comes down to. How do you adjust that, correct that?"

"I think the way the game is played at the end of the game is different. It’s a lot more physical. We’re a team that has to learn to adjust to that. Screens that sometimes aren’t legal in the first quarter become more legal in the fourth quarter. We’ve talked about like a nickel defense, things that hopefully can help our players understand that the game has shifted. That there’s a point in the game where it is unique and for us to raise our concentration, our physicality and competitiveness, to respond to that."

The style of defense has to change in the fourth quarter, because the style of offense changes. Snyder referenced the screens set, but teams also go harder to the offensive glass and focus less on ball movement in close games late. The Jazz need to learn how to adjust their defense, and work to help their teammates, when the going gets tough. Much of that means sending more help to the ball, then you would otherwise: not leaking out in transition, or helping more on a moving screen set.

Step 4: Get luckier

Sometimes, the Jazz got unlucky to lose close games this season. We've looked at the NBA's last two minute reports, where they note calls missed by the referees. The Jazz were last in the league at call margin in these clutch situations. That's something that the Jazz have no control over, but hope will even out next season.

And then, there's the nature of the sport itself. Rebounds can bounce any which way, and sometimes they bounce right into the hands of the opposition. A 3-point shot that goes in and out was probably a half inch away from going in smoothly. These little, unpredictable margins tend to even out over the course of multiple seasons.

"The point differential that the team had this year using Pythagorean Theorem says we’re a 46-win team," Lindsey explained. "That may be a better measure as you’re starting to look forward. So, the quality of the team isn’t indicative of your ability to close close games. It’s a zero sum game. So multi-season when you play a bunch of close games, more than likely you’re going to add that up and it’s going to be zero."

He's right. According to research, a team's point differential is a better predictor of future record than current record is. And the Jazz's point differential this season was great: 10th in the NBA, to be precise. That they didn't make the playoffs despite this is very unusual, and Lindsey doesn't expect his team to be an outlier next season.

All in all, it's an example of good teamwork: Lindsey, the GM, is focused on making the team better in close games by controlling what he can control: the quality of the players overall. Meanwhile, Snyder, the coach, is finding ways to improve in the micro sense. The goal: flipping the outcome of a few games next year that could have changed this season.

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