Record season is a work in progress
Jazz expose weaknesses in defense D’Antoni says have to be addressed
When Utah prodigy Donovan Mitchell flew over Clint Capela and Trevor Ariza to spike home a slam as if planting a flag to declare the Toyota Center lane his, the Jazz had a signature moment to go with their Game 2 win Wednesday.
But the action that better typified how the Jazz took apart the Rockets’ defense came when Mitchell did nothing more difficult than turn around and walk away.
The Rockets had taken a fourth-quarter lead when Mitchell went to work, breaking down and beating up the Rockets’ defense on drive-and-kick possession after possession. The Jazz nailed four consecutive 3s, all set up by Mitchell beating the Rockets off the dribble to draw the defense and find open shooters.
When he completed that run with a pass to Joe Ingles, Mitchell did not need to even watch the shot. He turned and began his walk to the other end of the floor, knowing Ingles had long
since passed the point at which he could miss or the Rockets could stop the Jazz. When the Rockets emerged from a video session Thursday spent reliving the breakdowns, there was little doubt about what had to be done.
“It’s about us,” forward P.J. Tucker said. “We weren’t great on defense. They scored (116) points. That’s, wow. We scored enough points. Our defense has to be better. It will be better.”
The Jazz scored as many points (108) in the lane, from the line or on 3pointers as the Rockets scored, as if mocking the Rockets’ defense by mimicking the Rockets’ offense. They set it up by running pick-and-rolls with the style Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni has taught for years.
Jazz’s clever screens
The Rockets on Thursday again cited the Jazz success slipping, rather than setting, screens to roll to the basket. This is not new for them, and Capela has done that effectively for two seasons. But the Jazz did it so often and so successfully, catching the Rockets between switches, the Rockets had to make defensive repairs.
“They almost never really set screens,” Rockets forward Luc Mbah a Moute said. “They put you in confusion because you’re not sure if you’re going to switch or not. That second of confusion had (Rudy) Gobert at the basket or the guard going downhill. That was huge. We never really got that tight. Even on the weak side, that guy coming in to help, we were not on the same page. Now, we saw it. We’re going to be prepared to guard it. It’s a fix. We’ve done it before. It’s not rocket science. We saw it on tape. We talked about it. Now we have to just go out there and do it. Easy or not easy, it’s something we have to fix.”
Putting aside Mbah a Moute’s unintentional pun, making that correction should not be complicated. The Rockets improved on covering those rolls to the basket just by rotating with greater intensity. Gobert did not take a shot in the second half Wednesday. But the body blows of those initial pick-and-roll dunks might have set up the Rockets for the knockout punch of the fourth-quarter 3-pointers.
Layers of defense
“Helping on the big, now they kick out and get the open 3,” Tucker said. “It was another layer. It’s layers and layers of defense that you try to get to, that we got to get to be a championship team. We got to keep getting better with each layer and each tier of our defense to have the reaction to each action that they make.”
The Rockets argued all of that can be repaired. D’Antoni said uncertainty about some switches led to “hesitation.” That delay was long enough for the Jazz to get to the rim. There were simple mistakes about rotations after that with 3-point shooters incorrectly left open. Ingles’ seven 3-pointers were a career high. Utah’s 15 3-pointers were a postseason franchise record.
“What we wanted to do, what we needed to do, there was confusion in some of the stuff,” D’Antoni said. “We’re going to try to correct it. It’s easy on film. We’re going to try to cure it in the game. Sometimes there are gray areas. You can see why there is hesitation. When there is no hesitation, we can’t make a mistake.
“When we switch, don’t switch, who’s got the guy — there was miscommunication early on a lot of plays. It led to a breakdown in confidence in what we’re doing, in switching out and doing the things we do. Once you hesitate, all is lost.”
Telling statistics
There is little uncertainty about how vital the defensive corrections would be. The Rockets split their 16 regular-season games when they allowed 50 percent shooting or better. They split the two games of the series when allowing 50 percent shooting or better. The last thing the top-seeded team wanted was for a second-round series to become a toss-up.
“We scored enough points,” guard Chris Paul said. “Our defense has to be better. We gave them too much easy stuff.”
As easy as a walk to the other end of the floor.