Every week during the regular season begins here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring features that let us relive the biggest moments, key performances and hot issues in Jazzland from various angles. Check in every week for the quotes, stats, plays and performances that tell the stories from the last 168 hours in the world of the Jazz.
A 1-5 start has the Utah Jazz searching for answers. Injuries and growing pains have stymied Will Hardy's young club, which had hoped to start climbing toward relevance after making roster upgrades. Instead, Utah lost all three of its games this past week and now has to leave the Wasatch Front for a 4-game trip.
The Monday loss to Memphis was less surprising when you realize that stars Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. left the game after just six and nine minutes, respectively. Utah had to reinvent itself on the fly, and did force a tight finish thanks to Keyonte George's 26-point night and a double-double from Ace Bailey. But the NBA's only undefeated team held on as Utah missed three straight shots in the final minute after pulling to within a point.
Then they played a surprisingly plucky game against San Antonio, even without their injured All-Stars. A solid game plan and another superb night from George (31 points) helped them build up a double-digit lead against the reigning West champs, but the Spurs came back and Utah shot 2-for-7 in overtime. Still, it was impressive to see the shorthanded Jazz take mighty San Antonio to the wire.
They followed up what Hardy had called their best game of the season vs. SA with perhaps their most disjointed. The Jazz were never really in the game against Portland in a Halloween matinee, falling behind by as many as 28 points. Markkanen was back but clearly struggled to dial in his shot with an injured shooting wrist, George had an off game, and the Jazz couldn't stop sending Deni Avdija and other Blazers to the free-throw line.
In a vacuum, there's context that helps allay the panic of each of those losses. But on the aggregate, it still doesn't feel great: Utah currently sits at 1-5, their only triumph being a closer-than-it-should-have-been win against a team that's 1-4 in all other games.
It's still super early, and it's not unheard of for teams with a 1-5 start to still make the playoffs. But they need to stop the bleeding. Let's look at some ways the Jazz might change their trajectory.
Get healthier. Jackson's most optimistic reevaluation date is December 8, but knee tendons aren't an injury where you want to take risks. Meanwhile, Markkanen avoided a serious injury, but it's clear that his right wrist is still bothering him. Tracking stats say that he missed nine of his 12 uncontested shots on Saturday. We have to assume it will take him some time to adjust. Neither of these feel like injury issues with immediate fixes.
Jusuf Nurkic's return, though, could help the Jazz in several areas. He's probably the team's best screener and rebounder, and he also just gives them another option for how to generate offense. His reevaluation date is approaching this week.
In today's NBA, diversity of play style is almost a prerequisite for beating half-decent teams. Utah had that with Nurkic last year, as they had the option of placing him as a hub at the nail or elbow and running a bunch of their off-ball actions around him. This magnified Markkanen's strengths as an off-ball threat and took some pressure off of George to create on every trip down. Right now, the Jazz don't really have another big capable of being that type of hub. Kyle Filipowski might in theory, but he has had as rough an opening stretch as anybody. Jaxson Hayes and Mo Bamba are bigs with different strengths. Getting Nurkic back could just give Utah another lever to pull when defenses succeed at suffocating the Jazz guards with ball pressure.
Tinker with rotations. The problem here is that the bench play has also been pretty uneven for the Jazz. The Jazz already made the move to shift Filipowski's rotation role to other players, and they've tried different configurations with their wing reserves. They could certainly contemplate some more staggering to get away from the reserves-only minutes that haven't really worked so far: they're -16.5 per 100 when all of Markkanen, George, Bailey and Darryn Peterson are sitting.
Roster fixes. November trades are extremely rare, and there aren't really difference makers sitting around as free agents at this juncture.
That said, it wouldn't be shocking if the Jazz made a deal in the next 44 days. Players acquired by December 16 can be aggregated in trade deadline moves, meaning there's some logic to the Jazz trading up in salary or using their $15M trade exception in the next six weeks, potentially enabling them to package that salary into something bigger later. That probably doesn't fix anything immediately, though.
Which leaves us with the most boring (but probably correct) answer:
Just... play better? For the most part, the Jazz are not getting blown out. They were within a point of Memphis down the stretch, and tied with the Spurs. Only the Blazers put them away easily, and how many nights are Markkanen and George going to combine for 5-of-24 shooting?
In other words, the Jazz might not be that far off if they can engineer some targeted improvements. There are plenty of areas to find low-hanging fruit: they've struggled with turnovers, they're not shooting the ball well from outside, and they don't get to the rim a ton. The bench has been inconsistent. They're also relying a lot on young players who might have a better handle on what's asked of them as the weeks march along.
It's fun to fantasize about trade possibilities, but the quickest way for the Jazz to turn their season around is to take their destiny into their own hands and just be 15% better in key areas that right now are holding them back. The reality is, if they were turning the ball over 16 times per game instead of 17.7, they'd probably be 4-2 right now. Same is true if they had made just one more timely three in each of the Lakers, Grizzlies and Spurs games, or if they rotated correctly on one key defensive play in each of those contests. They didn't, and this is a resuls-obsessed business, but the reality is the Jazz can course correct with better execution.
If they don't, the season could get out of hand fast.
"Trying to be aggressive is my biggest thing right now... I just got to find that place, and once I find it, I won’t lose it all. So, I’m not worried about it."
- Peterson, in Shreyas Laddha's look at the rookie's NBA start
Peterson might be a perfect microcosm of the Jazz's start. Plenty of promising things are happening, such as his 13.3-point average and his 36% start from three. But the rookie is also still figuring some stuff out, such as defensive rotations, offensive decision-making and just how to stay inside the game plan.
But the talent is so obviously there. Even in some of his less efficient games, you can see the ease with which he is able to get to his spots and you can tell that the dam is close to breaking for the 19-year-old guard.
Take Monday's game against Memphis. The box score will tell you Peterson was 5-for-18 from the field, but what it won't tell you is that he showed off a bunch of really mature shot creation stuff, even on his misses.
Just consider all of the processing that Peterson does here in the two seconds he possesses the ball. He catches and immediately gets his body in front of the defender, forcing a Zach Edey help and a panic stunt from the strong side corner. He jukes toward the corner to force that defender to release, then pump fakes to get a backpedaling Edey to jump, sending his momentum backwards. That gives him space to get the floater off cleanly, and it hits the inside of the rim at two different spots before bouncing out. Such a smart series of reads and moves, all in a couple blinks of an eye. He just missed.
Then he had this make:
I mean, come on. This guy is 19, and gets his defender leaning toward the screen before a behind-the-back crossover, fake drive and stepback "hop" into a three. That's ridiculous for a teenager to do in the NBA.
A little later in the same game he had another shot that got this writer pretty geeked... even though he missed the bunny.
Look at him just carve his way against a good defender! Jaylen Wells closes out well, so DP has to create his own advantage here. He gets into Wells' chest twice, first at the FT line to freeze him, then again after getting him to bite on a little pump fake. Then he steps back while Wells is rebalancing from the bump, and gets off a clean 8-footer that is halway through the rim.
Again, I get it, it's a results-based job, and at some point he has to make more of those shots for his "bag" to matter. But 19-year-olds aren't typically able to create looks like these for themselves in the NBA. These clips — even the misses — are evidence of what makes DP special.
"He’s getting thrown right into the fire and I think he’s handling himself great," Hardy said in Laddha's piece
17.7
The Jazz have had a higher turnover rate than their opponent in all six games. This week, they were -8 on turnover points in a game that was within one point in the final minute (105-106 vs. Memphis), and -6 in turnover points in a game that went to overtime (vs. SAS). Even the Portland game looks very different if the Jazz weren't -9 in that category. In all, they're spotting opponents 17.7 points per game off turnovers.
34
The 34 free throws Portland made on Halloween were tied for the second most by any team this NBA season. Portland only had six fast break points and 26 paint points, both season lows for Jazz opponents, but still won comfortably because of their +15 from the perimeter and +13 from the line.
28.6%
The Jazz and Spurs were tied heading into the third quarter, but then Utah proceeded to make just eight of their final 28 shots in the 4th and OT (28.6%), and they turned the ball over six times in that span. They scored 24 points on their final 31 possessions, an ORtg of 0.77.
17 & 10
Bailey's double-double on Monday was his third, and among all Jazz players, only Derrick Favors and Isaiah Collier had more before their 21st birthday. The second-year forward has all season to catch up to Collier's 11 or Favors' 15. Bailey right now has the best on/off differential of the main rotation guys: +11.9, due largely to a better defensive output.
30th
Utah right now is playing against a set defense most of the time. Only 11.7% of their non-garbage time possessions start with a transition play, per Cleaning the Glass. That's last in the league.
Lost in all the alarmist talk about Utah's current 4-game skid is that Bailey has looked like a player who can contribute right away to winning basketball.
Here's a quick look at a play that looks pretty simple on the surface, but actually demonstrates the sophistication that Bailey is already playing with.
Sadly, there are no Game Balls to bestow this week, as Utah lost all three since our last SC7 edition. But we'll still recognize the best performers from the three losses.
Strong in defeat:
- Jazz 105, Grizzlies 110: Ace Bailey. Markkanen and Jackson were out just minutes into this one, and the Jazz had to completely reorient themselves on the fly. George helps, but Bailey was a bigger X-factor. He had his third career double-double with 17 and 10, made half his threes, and contributed to both the 11-0 run Utah that straddled the halftime break and the 15-4 run Utah used to make it a 1-point game in the fourth. I actually loved Peterson's game too, but he struggled with shot-making, and Mo Bamba and Josh Green aided the comeback with strong play off the bench.
- Jazz 111, Spurs 117: Keyonte George. Hayes' work against Victor Wembanyama deserves mention, even though he only had two points. Really, there's no reason to get cute about this one: George had 31-3-4 and put the Jazz in position to shock the reigning champs of the West. He was 7-for-14 from the field through three quarters, and had the shot that forced overtime. Brice Sensabaugh had two huge clutch threes as well, and Bailey and Peterson both scored in bunches.
- Jazz 90, Blazers 112: Darryn Peterson. Nobody played a fantastic game here, so we'll default to the max scorer. Peterson made four of eight shots in the first half, shared game-high assist honors (4), and had the best — or least bad, anyway — plus/minus of the Jazz's big minute guys. Sensabaugh's efficient 12 off the bench helped, but he only played 19 minutes.
The Jazz got just one win out of their 5-game homestand and now head out on the road for four straight away from Delta Center.
Monday 11/2 @ Spurs: It will be harder to catch the Spurs by surprise this time, after leading by double digits on Wednesday. That OT win by Wemby & Co. is one of four straight victories that have the Spurs looking more like the contenders they are. Wembanyama is averaging 28 points, 11 boards and 4 blocks, and their new 4-guard configuration appears to be working: their new starting lineup is +19.8 per 100 possessions. It will be interesting to see if they stick with that after free agent signee Tobias Harris gets healthy.
Wednesday 11/4 @ Pelicans: The Jazz's lone win this season came at the expense of these Pels, who finally won two (against the Kings and Hawks) after an 0-4 start. The Pelicans play incredibly fast (second most possessions per minute) and their very paint-oriented. They take the fewest of their shots behind the arc, and have one of the lowest percentages when they do shoot from deep. The flip side is that a third of their shots come inside three feet — the most in the league.
Friday 11/6 @ Mavs (NBA Cup): The Jazz get their first look at the Cooper Flagg-Kyrie Irving Tandem, which has the Mavs sitting at 4-2. Flagg looks amazing so far, with 27-6-7 counting stats and remarkable overall efficiency (65% true shooting) despite not being able to make threes early. Irving looks like his old self again, carving up defenses with his elite handles. Former Jazz guard Walt Clayton Jr. landed in Dallas on a two-way and has a decent role with the Mavs, including a 15-point outburt in a road win in Miami.
Sunday 11/8 @ Wolves: Minnesota has lost three of its last four, including two losses since the announcement that star guard Anthony Edwards had knee surgery. With Edwards sidelined, they don't have a single 20-ppg scorer, and more ball handling duties have shifted to LaMelo Ball. Three-time Jazz All-Star Rudy Gobert took Halloween night off due to a sore back, but is listed as day-to-day. Jazz draftees Trey Lyles and Cody Williams are Minnesota reserves.
One of the things your nerdy scribe keeps track of is how the Jazz roster came together. Before we get too much further into the season, here's a graphic that shows how the 18 current Jazzmen came to the franchise.
