How do the Utah Jazz compare to the Dallas Mavericks?
Utah Jazz vs Dallas Mavericks: Defense
Evaluating the advantage between these two offenses required some thought. Defensively, there is no contest. The Utah Jazz posted the third-best Defensive Rating in the NBA last season, at 108.94. The Dallas Mavericks ranked 20th at 113.79. These offenses are close, but the defenses are several worlds apart.
That discrepancy starts in the middle. The Mavericks would surely prefer to play the 7’3 Kristaps Porzingis at center, but lineups that did so all fell somewhere between mediocre and atrocious on the defensive end last season.
One Porzingis-manned Mavericks lineup was particularly frightening. When Dallas put him at the center spot with Dorian Finney-Smith, Luka, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jalen Brunson, the Mavericks allowed 139 points per 100 possessions (per CleaningtheGlass). That, unsurprisingly, ranked in the first percentile.
The Mavericks’ best defensive lineup with Porzingis at center featured Maxi Kleber at the 4 in place of Finney-Smith. That group, per CleaningtheGlass, allowed 113.4 points per 100 possessions. That lineup landed in the 42nd percentile: not an elite grouping, but a passable one nonetheless.
That grouping still feels problematic. Porzingis and Kleber are a twin-towers formation, the type of pairing the league is largely trending away from. Kleber does allow the Mavericks to double-down on rim protection, but he’s not suited to check the NBA’s wide range of perimeter oriented 4s on a nightly basis. On the other hand, Finney-Smith is, but Porzingis clearly needed a second rim protector alongside him last season.
It’s a dilemma, and it’s one the Utah Jazz absolutely do not have to deal with. As mentioned, they posted the league’s third-best Defensive Rating last season. We don’t need to mine the depths of CleaningtheGlass to see which lineups worked and didn’t last season: this was a strong defensive group, and will be again next season.
Ironically, it’s the team’s 3x Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert who both assures this team an elite defense, and can also arguably become a liability on that end in specific situations. The Utah Jazz accounted for that dilemma this offseason with the additions of Rudy Gay and Eric Paschall as potential small-ball 5s when teams try to out pace-and-space the Jazz.
The Dallas Mavericks have no such simple solutions for their Porzingis dilemma. He’s supposed to be their second star. Where Gobert is (by far) largely a blessing on defense, only posing Quin Snyder any issues in very specific, limited situations, Porzingis seems to hurt the Mavericks’ defense, full stop.
They’ll never catch the Utah Jazz on that end until they resolve that issue.