Utah Jazz: Lifting the pace, Joe Johnson at the four

Throughout the first week of Utah Jazz training camp, offensive pace has been a recurring point of emphasis.

Utah Jazz training camp is well underway. It’s an exciting and optimistic time for all involved with the NBA season just around the corner. Jazz players have been able to shine a light on how things are going down behind closed doors, as well as changes they are looking to make at either end of the floor.

Looking at recent practice interviews, one thing has stood out — the pace in which the Jazz play offensively.

The Jazz have been known for running the shot clock down to single digits in a half-court set and using unselfish passing and reliable screen-setting to find a good shot at the last moment. This has helped the Jazz control the tempo and frustrate opponents when paired with their outstanding defensive work.

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However, something that’s been highlighted by both the players and the coaching staff is how they’d like to run the ball ahead off of missed shots and live ball turnovers. After losing George Hill and Gordon Hayward, who did most of their damage in a half-court set, and acquiring Ricky Rubio and Donovan Mitchell, a new strength of Utah’s could be to get some early buckets in transition.

Not only did the Jazz bring in some players that like to get out and run, they could finally have a healthy Alec Burks, who’s shown that he can be really damaging in transition. In a post-practice interview with Rudy Gobert on Wednesday, he was asked if he was seeing any big changes in either the offensive or defensive schemes from last year. Rudy quickly replied, “I think we’re really trying to push more [with] the ball.”

Rubio will be spearheading this new Jazz attack with his outstanding passing. In Utah’s open scrimmage at Hill Air Force Base, we saw Rudy Gobert pull down a defensive rebound, pass to Rubio and, all in one motion, Rubio threw a full-court pass to Joe Ingles on a dime. So that’s obviously something the Utah Jazz will look to add to their offensive arsenal.

One another note: Jazz fans have spent a lot of the offseason trying to figure out possible rotations for the upcoming season. Since the added depth has created a logjam at almost every position, it could have gone a number of different ways.

In Quin Snyder’s post-practice interview on Wednesday, he said “I think we’d like to keep [Joe Johnson] more at the four.” So we know now that after Gobert, Favors and Johnson have taken most of the minutes between the power forward and center positions. Jonas Jerebko and Ekpe Udoh could have a hard time finding minutes.

It also shows that the Jazz want to utilize their ‘small-ball’ lineup to greater effect this season and Burks, who’s coming back from injury, along with Dante Exum and Donovan Mitchell, could spend a lot more time on the hardwood.

On the topic of Burks, it looks as though he has officially reclaimed his status as ‘Houdini’ after almost hitting his head on the backboard while throwing down a showtime tomahawk dunk in Utah’s open scrimmage. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Burks getting a lot of court time right of the bat to start the season.

With the Jazz lacking some offensive firepower, having one of the league’s best slashers and finishers healthy and on the floor would be a nice relief. For those readers currently thinking about how Iso Joe at power forward changes their homemade rotation, here’s what mine looks like at the moment —

Point guard: Ricky Rubio 30, Dante Exum 18
Shooting guard: Rodney Hood 12, Donovan Mitchell 20, Alec Burks 16,
Small forward; Joe Ingles 24, Rodney Hood 20, Thabo Sefolosha 4
Power forward: Derrick Favors 16, Joe Johnson 20, Thabo Sefolosha 12
Center: Rudy Gobert 34, Derrick Favors 14

Of course, there are a lot of factors that come into play like health, whether they need an extra boost offensively or defensively, the opposition and simply who can get on a roll. So my rotation is more of a baseline of what I think could happen to start the year.

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That rotation does look very undersized with 32 of the 48 minutes being played with Johnson or Sefolosha at the four, but with Utah’s ability to gang rebound paired with the defensive prowess of Gobert or Favors at center, it could still be Utah’s most effective lineup.

All in all, it’s an exciting time to be a Jazz fan with the team looking to raise the pace of play and the preseason is just a couple of days away.