With Rudy Gobert manning the paint, the Utah Jazz boast one of the league’s most stifling defenses. However, the team’s transition D has been a mixed bag.
A strange thing happened when the Utah Jazz played host to the Washington Wizards on Saturday night: they nearly lost the game.
Despite the Wiz having just been eliminated from postseason play (while the Jazz are battling for a top-four seed) and Utah’s total decimation of Bradley Beal and his crew just days earlier, the home team only narrowly escaped with the win in the end.
There were multiple reasons for the near letdown — allowing Washington to knock down 15 3-point shots definitely rates highly here — however, more than anything, the Jazz band’s transition D left something to be desired.
The Wizards scored 20 fast-break points in the game, which is way above league average and nearly double the Jazz’s season average. But then Utah’s transition D has actually been a bit of a mixed bag all season long.
It may be the one thing working against Rudy Gobert‘s paint dominance in the halfcourt and keeping the Jazz from catching the Milwaukee Bucks and becoming the Association’s No. 1 defense overall in terms of D-rating.
For the year, the Jazz are actually second to the Bucks in terms of fast-break D, allowing just 11.3 points per game in that manner. However, if we look at Synergy’s play-type tracking, where transition numbers include the secondary break and, really, any time the defense is put into a scramble, the Jazz don’t show nearly as well.
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If we’re using that scope, which goes beyond the simple fast-break, the Jazz concede 1.16 points per possessions in transition, which is third-worst in the league. On the whole, the opposition scores 53.4 percent of the time in those situations, which is the worst mark in the NBA.
The Jazz have also resorted to putting the opposition on the line in 12.7 percent of those possessions, which is the seventh-highest rate league-wide.
In other words, they may be able to limit transition opportunities at times — which is good — but when they get beat…they really get beat.
Clearly, the Jazz continue to be elite overall behind the efforts of Gobert, Derrick Favors and a number of other willing defenders. But with the 2019 NBA Playoffs fast approaching, this could be a wrinkle that needs to be ironed out to ensure their best chance at advancement.
Sure, we’re talking fragments of points here and there, but the team’s margin for error is about to get razor thin.
Against the Wiz, the Jazz got sloppy and it almost sunk them; against actual good teams in a playoff atmosphere, it could be fatal.