With Jerry Sloan stepping down, there are a lot of reports that Sloan decided to step down after growing tired of butting heads with Deron.  The two have reportedly but heads all season, with things really getting heated on Wednesday.  Again, according to reports, a lot of the stuff between Williams and Sloan was due to different mindsets when it came to the issue of halfcourt offense vs. transition offense.  I don’t think I need to tell you who was in favor of what, but here is an interesting excerpt from Jack McCallum’s great piece on Sloan from yesterday:

And there are reports that his talented point guard, Deron Williams, was growing upset with the Sloan half-court system, believing that more transition offense (and a few different players) was the way for the Jazz to climb out of their doldrums.

After looking at the numbers and watching through the tape you can see why both Williams and Sloan feel the way that they do, and video evidence suggests that this (whether or not to run more) is why their relationship deteriorated.

Why Williams Wants To Run?

The Utah Jazz actually lead the league in points per possession in transition with a PPP of 1.231 on 63.1% shooting (also first in the league in transition).  However, despite the positive numbers, the Jazz don’t run all that much, with only 13.1% of their total possessions labeled as “transition” by Synergy Sports Technology, which is only the 11th most in the NBA.

So if you are Deron Williams and you are seeing your team putting up solid number both in terms of scoring and in terms of shooting percentage, you are probably going to wonder why the team doesn’t run more than it does.  Also, you are going to believe that if you run more that you can keep the efficiency levels the same.

Why Sloan Doesn’t Want To Run?

Now, Sloan has always been a guy who ran a half court offense, so some of this has to do with him not wanting to change his system (and rightfully so, if you ask me).  However, in addition to that, there are numbers that suggest running might not be the best thing for this Jazz team.  First, the Jazz turn the ball over a lot in transition, posting a team turnover percentage of 13.0% when in transition, which is just 24th in the NBA.  So while the Jazz are posting a high shooting percentage, Sloan probably thinks his team can be more efficient in the halfcourt where they turn the ball over much less (12.3% of halfcourt possessions – 7th lowest TO%), giving them more possessions.

Another reason why Sloan may not want to run is because Deron Williams isn’t a very good point guard in transition.  Williams is posting a PPP of 1.16 when in transition which is 164th in the NBA.  This is due mostly to turnovers as Williams is turning the ball over on 15.5% of his individual transition possessions which is good for a ranking of 246th.

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Last night against the Chicago Bulls, the Utah Jazz trailed by three points with 13.0 seconds left.  The Jazz did have timeouts left, so you could understand if they wanted to try and go with the quick two.   However, coach Jerry Sloan drew up a play to set up Deron Williams for three.  It worked, but Williams wasn’t ready to shoot the ball when he caught it:

The play starts with Raja Bell getting a double staggered screen at the top of the key, using it to flash to the ballside corner.

After Bell uses the screens, Paul Millsap flashes to the opposite wing while Al Jefferson gets in position to set a pindown screen.

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A team’s performance after a timeout may be the best way to judge a coach’s Xs & Os knowledge, and his ability to draw up plays. The Clipboard Awards is a competition where I choose the top three post-timeout plays each night, adding up the scores over the course of the season.

Play #3 (1 point)- Jerry Sloan/Utah Jazz

Something that I noticed with the Utah Jazz is coming out of timeouts they like to have Deron Williams work off of the basketball, coming off of pindown screens (when Williams is off the ball it is almost a guarantee that he comes off of a pindown).  It makes sense, because Williams is a good enough shooter where defenses need to respect him coming off the pindown, but he is also a great passer, meaning defenses can’t help too much.

That is what happens here.  Williams comes off of a pindown screen set by Al Jefferson.  Jefferson’s man, DeMarcus Cousins, shows too hard, and Williams is able to dump it off for an open dunk.

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A team’s performance after a timeout may be the best way to judge a coach’s Xs & Os knowledge, and his ability to draw up plays. The Clipboard Awards is a competition where I choose the top three post-timeout plays each night, adding up the scores over the course of the season.

Play #3 (1 point)- Gregg Popovich/San Antonio Spurs

This quick hitter starts with Tony Parker bringing the basketball down the right side of the court.  As this happens, Gary Neal comes off of a screen from Antonio McDyess, heading towards the top of the key where he receives the pass from Parker.

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Yesterday, my latest Clipboard post at Basketball Prospectus went up, looking at the Jazz’s poor help defense:

When the Utah Jazz left for a five-game road trip, Utah was coming off five wins in the last seven games. The Jazz was unable to keep their momentum going, losing all five games and then dropping their return game against San Antonio. That leaves Utah with a six-game losing streak, zapping all the confidence out of both the fans and players. he problem isn’t that the Jazz has lost six games; teams go through slow stretches all the time. It isn’t even that Utah lost to a lot of poor teams (including Washington, New Jersey, and Philadelphia during this trip). What is troublesome is these games have been highlighting what has been a problem all year for the Jazz, the inability to defend spot-up jumpers.

Utah is 29th in the NBA when it comes to points per possession allowed in spot-up situations, giving up 1.06 PPP on 41.7 percent shooting in 970 possessions (accounting for 20.4 percent of the Jazz’s total possessions on defense).

The biggest problem that I have seen is with Utah’s off-ball defense. The Jazz simply doesn’t play disciplined team defense, often times helping too late, overhelping, showing help when it isn’t needed or just being lazy on closeouts. This all leads to open jumpers for opponents.

Head on over and check it out!

Against the Spurs, the Jazz found themselves down five points with 20.9 seconds left in the game.  At this point in the game, and with 1 timeout left, the Jazz were faced with a tough decision.  They could decide to either go for the quick two, foul, and use their timeout to extend the game, or go for three and do the same thing.  Utah decided to go for three:

Now, obviously if you can get three points, you take them, but usually threes are harder to come by late, meaning more time will come off the clock instead of going for a quick two.  Often times if you try to get a quick three up (which is what Williams does in the first clip), it is going to be contested, and that is exactly what happens here.

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With about a minute left in their game against the Detroit Pistons, the Utah Jazz went to the pick and roll twice in one possession to try and break the tie.  The Pistons employed a strategy to try and keep Deron Williams out of the paint, and while it worked the first time, the Jazz were able to get a wide open three on a defensive mixup on the second PNR:

On the initial screen, you have Al Jefferson setting a screen for Williams and then rolling straight to the rim.  Greg Monroe (Jefferson’s man) shows hard, trying to keep Williams out of the paint as Tayshaun Prince works over the screen.  This forces Richard Hamilton to sink in to help on the roll.

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When I did my post talking about how the Cavs failed to maintain proper floor balance against the Heat, commenter IHateLeBatard asked:

Do you have any examples of floor balance preventing Miami’s fastbreak?

It took me a little while to come across a proper example of this, and while it isn’t against the Miami Heat, I do think it is worth checking out.  It shouldn’t be surprising that this example of fundamental basketball comes from the Utah Jazz:

As Deron Williams brings the basketball up the floor, he is going to get a screen from Paul Millsap at the top of the key.  Williams is going to use that screen to try and get himself to the rim.  However, that isn’t what we are focusing on here, what we are paying attention to is Raja Bell and Gordon Hayward, the two Jazz that are standing in each corner.

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The Minnesota Timberwolves found themselves up by two points with 43 seconds left against the Utah Jazz.  They get themselves one stop, there is a very good chance that they will end up winning the game.  Instead of getting that stop however, Martell Webster rotates a split second late when trying to take a charge, giving up the foul, and the Timberwolves lead.

Even though I single out Martell Webster in the intro to this post, there were a few mistakes from some other Timberwolves to get to that point.  The first mistake is made by Michael Beasley, who sinks way off of Paul Millsap, despite Millsap being only one pass away from the basketball.  Because Beasley sinks off of Millsap, he allows himself to be screened easily by Al Jefferson.

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Even though it was a fantastic play, it just didn’t feel right leaving an empty possession as the sole quick hitter of the day.  So when J.E. Skeets started talking about a play that the Jazz ran last night during today’s episode of The Basketball Jones podcast, I knew I had to check it out.  After finding the play that Skeets was talking about, it was clear why he made a point to talk about it.  This particular play is a good example of why it is important to have multiple options on a play:

The play starts off with Deron Williams entering the ball to Andrei Kirilenko on the wing.  Once Kirilenko gets the basketball, Earl Watson goes across the paint to set a screen for Al Jefferson.  The design makes it look like the Jazz are simply trying to get the ball to Al Jefferson in the post coming across the paint (we see just about every single NBA team run something like this).  The Milwaukee defender, noticing this dives deep in the paint to try and keep Jefferson from getting across the lane.

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