Utah Jazz: 4 reasons why their season ended prematurely

Why the Utah Jazz season ended prematurely: The perimeter defense/Gobert problem

Utah came in the series with a highly touted elite defense and left the series looking like a junior college defense. This was all because the Clippers committed to their small-ball lineup. But not just any small ball lineup – this potent lineup was a group of guys that are all between 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-9 that can shoot the ball and switch 1 through 5. Although this group couldn’t stop the Jazz offense,  it completely dismantled the Jazz defensive scheme.

In Game 1 and 2, Ty Lue tried to play his big men and use pick and rolls (something they used a lot in the regular season) to no avail because that involves Rudy Gobert. Gobert shuts down any screen actions, closed off the rim, and made it hard for LA to score inside 10 feet. But once the Clippers went to a five-out lineup where everyone could shoot, they took Gobert away from the rim and forced Jazz perimeter defenders to stop them in isolation. And as we can see from the numbers, they couldn’t.

Gobert for the series was still good around the rim – the Clippers shot seven percent less than they did their season average around the basket.

What LA did was they didn’t engage Rudy Gobert – instead, they drove and once Gobert crashed back to protect the rim, they kicked the ball back out to open shooters who just didn’t miss. The Clippers ended up taking only 35 percent of their shots within five feet – a lower percentage than any team in the NBA this season. The Clippers made a tactical choice: they were picky about times and they attacked the rim – pretty much anytime Derrick Favors was on the floor – and the other times they forced Gobert to go side-to-side from the perimeter in order to protect the rim.

All the Twitter-know-it-alls are trashing Rudy for this series, but they’re only watching highlights, not the game. What Twitter should be trashing is the Jazz perimeter defense, which was leakier than a 1,000-year-old lifeboat.

All the Jazz perimeter defenders were like empty cardboard boxes — there was no resistance, no impediment to anything the Clippers were trying to do on offense. Almost every wing defender on the Jazz gave up 133 offensive rating or greater in the series. Pretty much, the Jazz defenders got beat badly time and time again and hoped that Rudy Gobert would bail him out.

The Clippers figured this scheme out and rode it for the entire series. Gobert got exposed and, as Jeff Van Gundy said on the broadcast, “they turned the Utah’s strength into a weakness.”

But if you saw what was happening, you’d think adjustments would be made. This leads me to the final reason why the Jazz lost.