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SALT LAKE CITY — Rudy Gobert stood in front of his locker following the Jazz’s final preseason game — a 126-118 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers — and tried to tell everyone that it was all going to be OK.
“The preseason record — nobody cares about it, to be honest,” Gobert said.
Turns out the concerns (no matter how big or small) about Utah’s stout defense backsliding after a preseason where they finished with an NBA-worst 111.4 defensive rating, were a bit premature.
A week into the season, Utah has the top defense in the NBA — and it hasn’t really been close.
According to the Cleaning the Glass, the Jazz have the league's best defensive rating of 93.7 (points opponents have scored per 100 possessions) and no team has yet scored more than 95 points against them.
So, what changed from the end of the preseason to the start of the regular season? You can probably guess it.
“The season started,” Gobert said with a smirk.
“It meant more. It started counting,” added Jazz guard Emmanuel Mudiay.
Once the games began to actually matter, the Jazz locked in. Gobert has been his usual massive presence, Royce O'Neale has been superb on the wing, and the Jazz have even been able to handle their lack of size by allowing the lowest percent of offensive rebounds in the league.
Utah held the Oklahoma City Thunder to an offensive rating of 95 in the season opener. Since then, the Thunder have posted a 130.8 rating against the Warriors and a 109.8 rating against the Rockets.
The Lakers had a 119 offensive rating against the Hornets — the game after the Jazz limited them to 1 of 101.1.
The Sacramento Kings? They’ve posted offensive ratings of 106.0 against Portland and 102.2 against Denver. Against the Jazz, it was 82.9.
The Suns entered Monday’s game with the league’s third-best offense and fresh off a 130-122 win over the Clippers. The Jazz held them to 95 points (and a 93.1 offensive rating).
“It's not something that surprises me or shocks me,” Mudiay said. “I think we just locked in. … I'm not trying to say we were kind of looking over the preseason but, obviously, when there's more at stake a lot of people will be more locked in.”
They may quip now about the preseason numbers, but those may have served as a necessary wake-up call for the Jazz.
“(In the) preseason, we weren’t who we are,” Gobert said. “We are a defensive-minded team and everyone takes a lot of pride in that. After the last preseason game, we had a week to get ourselves together to put some work in, to watch the film. And I feel like we really got our minds right. You know, it's only four games in. We still have room to grow defensively. But the goal is to be the best defensive team in the league.”
So far, they’ve been just that.
But the Jazz will face their tallest task of the young season on Wednesday against the Los Angles Clippers (8 p.m., ESPN). The Clippers will come into Salt Lake City with the league’s best offense. They are averaging 121.5 points per game and have a 119.7 offensive rating in their first four games.
“It's on us to do what we've been doing,” Gobert said. “Execute the game plan, and hopefully we can keep them under 100 points.”
