8:17

Posted by Jeff Winget on November 05, 2009

With 8:17 left to play in Dallas, Deron Williams hit a jump shot that put the Jazz up 76-60, giving fans hope that the Jazz had finally beaten one of their demons: winning the second game of a back-to-back on the road.  Unfortunately, in the 8:17 that followed, the Jazz blew the lead and had all of us wondering what was wrong.

I have to begin this post with a couple of qualifiers that I think are relevant: 1) I question the decision of Jerry Sloan to leave Memo on Dirk during the fourth quarter without much help, 2) I wonder why we didn’t call timeout to try to stop the run, 3) I don’t blame Coach Sloan for the loss, 4) I don’t blame Carlos Boozer for the loss, and 5) I’m absolutely not a statistician, but I’m about to channel my inner stat geek.

The collapse in Dallas was the third unraveling by the Jazz in four games.  In a quest to understand why (and in a quest to get past the blame Sloan or blame Boozer sentiments), I rewatched the second half and took some notes of every agonizing minute.  I found some interesting patterns that are worth analyzing here.

Let’s start with the final 8:17 of the fourth quarter and look at what went wrong.  These numbers include the 18 offensive plays and 18 defensive plays that the Jazz had after Williams hit the jumper to give them a 16-point lead.  For simplicity, I have labeled any driving shot in the lane a layup instead of calling them runners, floaters, etc.  Also, please remember qualifier number 5 from above if there are any mistakes in my figuring since these are unofficial stats based on my notes.

Offensive Plays in the Final 8:17

The Jazz had 18 offensive possessions during this period and scored 10 points.  Here is an outline of the possessions, what type of offensive play the Jazz ran, and the outcomes.  I have grouped them together.

• Plays with a pass into the post: 3 possessions for 2 points
• Layups: 5 possessions for 6 points
• Jump shots:
  • After a pass into the post: 3 possessions for 2 points
  • Without a pass into the post: 4 possessions for 2 points (scored on a pick and pop by Boozer)
• Three pointers: 2 possessions for 0 points
• Total turnovers: 4

I have a couple of reasons for picking these numbers.  Many of the criticisms of Sloan over the years have centered around his offense being predictable and ineffective.  According to these numbers, the only scoring the Jazz did at the end of the game were either within the context of the offense or driving into the paint in transition.  In the five possessions where the Jazz didn’t run a set and shot jump shots or three pointers, they had no points. Also, Sloan has always preached that offenses should work inside-out, which the numbers above show is a more effective strategy.

As a contrast, I did the same type of number crunching on the last 8:17 of the third quarter when the Jazz made their run.  The numbers are telling.  At 8:17 in the third, Memo had just hit 2 free throws, and the Jazz were up 45-43.  Here are the offensive numbers for those minutes.

Offensive Plays in the Last 8:17 of the Third Quarter

The Jazz had 17 possessions during this stretch and scored 22 points.

• Plays with a pass into the post: 7 possessions for 8 points
• Layups: 5 possessions for 8 points
• Jump shots:
  • After a pass into the post: 3 possessions for 4 points
  • Without a pass into the post: 3 possessions for 3 points
• Three pointers: 2 possessions for 3 points (the made 3 came after four passes with 6 seconds left on the shot clock; the missed one was after one pass with 16-17 seconds left on the shot clock and led to a fast break dunk on the other end by Marion)
• Total turnovers: 3

Again, the numbers show that when the Jazz run their offense and play inside-out, they are an effective offensive team (19 of the 22 points in this stretch came as a result of transition layups or running Jerry Sloan’s offense; the other three were created by D-Will).  Unfortunately, in fourth quarters this year (with the exception of the Clippers game), the Jazz have forgotten their coaching and their plays and tried to freelance.  The results have been abysmal.

If the whole story was told with the offensive numbers, it would be easier to solve, but the real problem (not that the offense isn’t a problem) lies on defense.  I took some stats from the same time periods on the defensive side of the ball, and the results are absolutely incredible.  The change in the defense from one quarter to the next is almost unbelievable.

Defensive Plays in the Final 8:17

The Jazz had 18 defensive possessions during this stretch.  The Mavericks scored 36 points on those possessions.  The following 6 stats speak for themselves.

• Layups by the Mavericks: 9 possessions for 22 points
• Fouls committed: 8
• Steals: 1
• Blocks: 0
• Forced turnovers: 1
• Possessions without a score: 2

There really isn’t anything to say.  The first stat on the list and the last one speak volumes for the defensive effort put forth by the Jazz.  Contrast that with the same time frame in the third quarter and the numbers look even worse.

Defensive Plays in the Last 8:17 of the Third Quarter

The Jazz had 17 defensive possessions during this stretch. The Mavericks scored 9 points on those possessions.  These stats look pretty impressive.

• Layups by the Mavericks: 2 possessions for 2 points (one layup was blocked by AK, and the other was the dunk off of the missed three)
• Fouls committed: 1
• Steals: 3
• Blocks: 1
• Forced turnovers: 8
• Possessions without a score: 13

The difference is staggering, and the results of this type of defense are obvious in the results of the two stretches of game that I analyzed.

So, for me, the conclusion of all of this stat talk is that the Jazz have a lot of problems that need to be fixed.  It doesn’t make sense to blame all of those problems on Coach Sloan, Carlos Boozer, or any other single individual.  The problems seem to stem from forgetting the team concept and trying to go alone.  This results in freelancing offense and no help defense.  I don’t know why that is happening, but the team is broken and needs to find its identity as a team.

5 Comments

J R Stewart on November 05, 2009 said:

Excellent points!

Jazzaholic

Joey Parker on November 05, 2009 said:

This team is weird. Every time things are going good for them, they just sit back and relax and go back to not running the offense and not playing defense. I remember that the late 90’s Jazz teams knew that if they just went at it hard for a couple more minutes and were able to get the lead from 15 to 20, the other team would probably just give up. We just don’t have that quality yet.

Also, you are very brave to rewatch that 4th quarter. I myself deleted it from my DVR as soon as it was done.

Ben H on November 05, 2009 said:

Me too, Joey. I turned it off when the meltdown was on, checked the final score half hour later, and deleted the rest. Couldn’t take it.

Jeff: excellent analysis. To me, the 4th quarter offense brings out a painful, currently unfixable flaw the Jazz have: we have no shooters. With our simple pick and pop curl route 12 footer, we have 3 guys who can do it: CJ, Korver, and Harp. All out. Ballgame.

I’m optomistic about the Spurs game tonight. I think we’re going to see some fire out of the boys.

Go Jazz, and great post, Jeff.

Jeff Winget on November 05, 2009 said:

@Joey,

I think the Jazz have lacked that killer instinct that is needed to suck the will out of teams for the last several years. The finish against San Antonio tonight makes me feel better about it, though. Watching the second half again was painful, but informative. I noticed myself focusing on things more while watching the Spurs game as well (the Jazz really clicked within their offensive sets tonight–the pick-and-roll was deadly tonight).

@Ben,

I think the lack of a shooter is a problem, but I think Matthews could fill that role while KK and CJ are out. The problem will be how to divide minutes once the other two come back if Matthews is still impressing.

canadajazz on November 06, 2009 said:

At least you got to see the whole game. For some reason, NBA League Pass blacked out the game until about the 7-minute mark of the third period. Couldn’t watch it on my local affiliate, Raptors TV. Couldn’t watch – or even hear it – on my computer through NBA TV.
Then miraculously, the game came on. This proved to be the ultimate insult, though, as I got to watch Novitsky dismantle the Jazz and set his 4th Quarter scoring record.
But you’ve provided great analysis of what went wrong.
Obviously, the Jazz learned something from it. There were very few wasted possessions against San Antonio last night. And most of the game was actually televised locally! (Except I had to wait until the completion of the college football game between those two powerhouses, East Carolina and Virginia Tech).
It’s not easy, being a Jazz fan.

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