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SALT LAKE CITY — Armed with a tightly gripped piece of paper, Quin Snyder walked up to the dais ready to defend his team.
On a normal game day, Snyder will spend 5-10 minutes before each contest answering various questions from reporters. On Tuesday, though, he didn't wait for the queries to come. Before he even sat down, Snyder launched into what would end up being nearly a 20-minute tirade against two narratives that had grown over the last couple days.
"A lot of times people use numbers to tell a story, and it's important to do that responsibly," Snyder said, laying out the paper that was filled with stats he wanted to share.
Snyder took issue with the stats people are using to claim the Jazz are a poor closing team and how Donovan Mitchell doesn't pass to Rudy Gobert — storylines he called "not true" and "ridiculous."
Here's a look at Snyder's gripes.
The narrative: The Jazz have lost 15 games where they've held a double-digit lead, so clearly the team is soft and far from clutch.
Snyder's response: The Jazz head coach started his long rant by bringing up the seven games where the Jazz lost a fourth-quarter double-digit lead. Their record in those contests: 3-4.
"Maybe that means we're a resilient team," Snyder said.
Aside from that, though, he believes the heavily-cited stat that has just about everyone tracking each time the Jazz go up by 10 is inherently flawed.
"I think we can all agree a 10-point lead in the first quarter is different than a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter," Snyder said.
That's why he focused on the fourth quarter, alone; and he mentioned the Jazz aren't alone in coughing up those late leads. The Boston Celtics, for example, have done it five times and have a similar record in such games. The Jazz's seven blown double-digit fourth-quarter leads, however, are still the most in the league — he failed to mention that.
And when it was brought up the Jazz would have the best record in the Western Conference if games ended after the third quarter, he mockingly suggested that maybe the Jazz should play games like race horses — be behind entering the final stretch and then storm back for the win.
"I don't think anybody's running from the fact that we want to be better down the stretch, like far from it," he said. "We have been transparent in that. … Let's not get ahead in the third. It's like a horse race when you're holding back so you can plow down the stretch and be the team that's been behind in the third quarter more, taking the lead and winning."
He admitted there have been problems — especially in recent losses to the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors — things just have been a bit overblown.
"If there's things we're doing in the fourth quarter that are hurting us, then, man, let's fix them, but don't let this turn into some sort of anxiety, 'Oh, gosh, we're ahead at the end of the third, what's gonna happen?'" Snyder said. "It's not true. Three times we gained the lead back. That's a pretty resilient team. … Let's be responsible about how we report these things."
His passion toward the blown-leads narrative didn't come close to comparing to his annoyance toward the other storyline that's dominated Jazz social media.
The narrative: Donovan Mitchell doesn't want to pass to Rudy Gobert. There were many stats cited since a video clip circulated of Mitchell missing Gobert in the paint late against the Warriors. Among them: Joe Ingles has more passes to Gobert than Mitchell this season, and he hasn't played in a game for Utah since Jan. 30. And Mitchell is averaging the least amount of passes to Gobert since entering the league five seasons ago.
Snyder's response: "The other thing is this business about Donovan not passing to Rudy, and this one's really irresponsible because it's not hard to figure this out," Snyder said.
He brought up the stats of Atlanta's Trae Young and Clint Capela — the duo that have often been cited in arguments against Mitchell's passing — and said the comparison wasn't "apples to apples."
"Trae Young and Capela, that's the comp that we're using, right? You know, out of 3,442 possessions, he's passed to Capela 472 times. OK. Donovan, out of 1,600, he's passed to Rudy 150 times," Snyder said. "So those are roughly the same number, right?"
Kind of. Young to Capela percentage is 13.7%; the Mitchell to Gobert percentage is 9.4%. And, according to Second Spectrum tracking data, Young passes to Capela about twice as much as Mitchell passes to Gobert on pick and rolls.
Still, more to Snyder's point, Mitchell shares ball handling duties with Mike Conley and doesn't always play alongside Gobert over the course of the game. And regardless, the Jazz have the top offense in the league mostly due to their pick-and-roll prowess — even if those plays don't always end up with the ball in Gobert's hands.
"Maybe Donovan throws to Mike and Mike hits a 3. So you don't get credit for passing to Rudy, but I think we take 3 over 2," Snyder said. "So let's just not try to drive a wedge between some of these players, especially using numbers. We should be more responsible."
And there lies the heart of Snyder's annoyance with the narrative. It pits his two All-Stars against each other once again after two years of rumors and reports of a growing divide between the franchise cornerstones.
"When we're trying to drive a wedge between two players — maybe that's not the intent — but I think we all could agree that writing about Donovan not passing to Rudy and responding to a still shot picture and saying, 'Oh, there it is, there's proof.' Show me a few others where (Donovan's passed) and Rudy's dunking. The inference there is he doesn't pass and there's a problem between the two of them. I haven't seen that at all. They eat at the same table when they eat sometimes. I don't know if they ride to practice together, probably not," he concluded in a semi-mocking tone."
