Utah Jazz defense
Of every area the Utah Jazz have struggled in to begin the 2021-22 season, this has to be the most surprising. Despite rostering 3x Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, the Jazz’s Defensive Rating of 106.78 ranks just 11th in the NBA.
Again, that’s not a terrible figure, but it falls significantly short of anybody’s expectations for this team. Given their high risk, high reward, high variance offensive strategy, it is imperative for this team to field a top 5 defense if it wishes to contend for the NBA championship.
It’s hard to know exactly where to point the blame. Gobert’s Defensive Box Plus/Minus (DBPM) of 1.7 would be his lowest since his rookie season, but DBPM is closely related to who a player is sharing the floor with. The eye test suggests that Gobert’s defense is in line with the elite levels we’ve come to expect from him.
Joe Ingles’ performance on that end is a little more troubling. His -0.7 DBPM falls considerably short of his career 1.2 mark. At 34, it feels possible that his slow feet have finally gotten slow enough to make it impossible for him to compensate for them with his high IQ.
Out of the rest of the regular rotation members, only Royce O’Neale joins Gobert in posting an even reasonably impressive DBPM at 2.3. Otherwise, Eric Paschall is -1.4, Bojan Bogdanovic is -2.0, and Jordan Clarkson is -2.1.
If the Jazz can’t start to demonstrate some growth in this area, a midseason trade may begin to look appealing to the front office. Without a top 5 defense, this team will let something besides opposing players blow right by it: the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
On the plus side, the Utah Jazz are 8-5 in spite of these problems. They haven’t given up nearly enough ground for a hot streak not to cover. Hopefully, they can start on one against the Philadelphia 76ers tomorrow night.