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SALT LAKE CITY — It's not as though the Utah Jazz's defense was impeccable before trading away Simone Fontecchio, Ochai Agbaji, and Kelly Olynyk at the NBA trade deadline last week.
But it's been particularly deficient in the team's three games since.
They surrendered 129 points against Phoenix, then 129 more vs. Golden State. On Wednesday night at the Delta Center, they allowed 138 to a Lakers team that was not only missing LeBron James, but playing on the second night of a back-to-back — meaning their flight didn't land in Salt Lake City until about 3 a.m.
So what gives?
Obviously, a not-insignificant part of it comes down to personnel. The Jazz simply don't have any rotation-level wings on their roster right now. And Fontecchio and Agbaji were arguably their top two perimeter defenders not named Kris Dunn.
It goes deeper than that, however.
The team's new lineups and rotations in the aftermath of the trades have been much-scrutinized, but primarily from an offensive standpoint, notably Olynyk's passing/playmaking and Fontecchio's outside shooting. The bigger side effects, however, have arguably come on the defensive end.
"Communication" has been a boogeyman buzzword for much of the season, but it's a legitimate problem now with new faces in new places.
"Because of some of the lineups that we're playing, we've got people that end up on some matchups they're not used to, and that puts you in different spots on the floor than maybe you're accustomed to being in. … If you're in an unfamiliar part of the court, the rotations are different, your responsibilities are different," head coach Will Hardy said.
To his point, the recently-redeployed starting lineup of Lauri Markkanen, John Collins, Walker Kessler, Collin Sexton, and Keyonte George simply haven't banked many minutes together. And after spending much of the season deployed as a four, Markkanen is now manning far more minutes as a three.
Rookie forward Taylor Hendricks has barely played outside of a two-week stretch in December. Guard Talen Horton-Tucker was benched for a significant portion of the schedule and was only granted rotation resurrection on account of the team being limited in its supply of NBA-caliber players.
Kessler noted that, as a result, there's confusion all over the court among the new-look groups playing together, but it's predominantly manifesting itself on the defensive side.
"When to help over, when to shift, you know, confused guys (about) when to (switch), guys running into screens," he said. "Personally, not being a good communicator, I can do a better job doing that, depending on who's being screened."
And, unfortunately, for Jazz fans who have seen the team suddenly transform from a fringe play-in contender to cannon fodder, the solution is a simple one but not a quick one.
"Just sharing time on the court with each other and getting on the same page. … It seems (like) it's an easy thing to do, but there's constantly people subbing in and out," Markkanen said.
Hardy reinforced the idea.
The roster is pretty much set now until the end of the season, barring bringing in a free agent as a 15th man. There are guys who simply haven't played a ton together to this point, and there's just no getting around that.
It can only be resolved by those players getting out on the court, making mistakes, and — hopefully — learning from them.
"You do a walkthrough or a practice, and (in) the situations there's so many variables — 'What if this guy's there and this guy's there?' You could move people around and then change matchups, and the walkthrough would be seven hours," Hardy said. "So, it's about grasping the concept of what we're trying to accomplish defensively."
