Rudy gets outbattled by Zubac
One thing that almost gave away this game was the lopsided matchup between Rudy Gobert and Ivica Zubac. In the first half “ZuBlock” dominated Gobert in nearly every boxout for defensive rebounds. The Clippers pulled Gobert away from the paint to challenge floaters and mid range shots early on, leaving the better positioning to Zubac to grab the offensive rebound.
This gave the Clippers way too many second chance points in the first half. About halfway through the second quarter the Clippers had accumulated 15 second chance points and the Jazz only had two. Utah made some adjustments at halftime that neutralized this lopsided matchup and their starting players (especially Don and Royce O’Neale) were reliable to snare down rebounds within reaching distance.
Clippers 32-22 over Jazz after 1Q. 12 Clipper offensive rebounds in the 1Q, 7 by Ivica Zubac alone. Good effort by Zubac, but man, the Jazz rebounders, especially Rudy Gobert, have to do better.
— Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) December 29, 2019
Were it not for the Jazz’s hot three point shooting, they would have trailed by much more than two points at halftime. Add in the fact that Montrezl Harrell is a monster on the offensive glass, and I’m not so sure the Jazz could’ve pulled out this victory had he played. That halftime deficit may have been too much to overcome.
Despite the adjustments at the half, Zubac still finished with a better stat line than Gobert, scoring 15 points and grabbing 12 rebounds (nine offensive). Rudy failed to notch a double-double tonight, scoring 12 points and grabbing eight rebounds. It would have been his 15th consecutive double-double had he been able to get just two more boards.
The fact that the Jazz were able to pull out a victory despite a bad start to the game from Gobert shows how much their identity has changed from last year to now.
Prior to this season the Jazz were a defensive team that hung their hat on tough defense. “Defense travels” was the constant theme and always seemed to be the keys for the Jazz to win. Tonight the Jazz allowed the Clippers to score over 30 points in the first two quarters, and in most cases if the 2018-19 team had done that the game would’ve been out of reach.
This season the Jazz are the top three point shooting team in the league with the 10th best defense. Last season they were 10th in three point shooting percentage and second in defense. This switch in identity may or may not cost Gobert some awards later on, but the hope is that is raises the ceiling of how far this Jazz roster can go in the playoffs.