Tag: Quin Snyder

Sarah Todd on Jazz: “It’s Not About the Regular Season Anymore”

October 12, 2021 / Aaron Fischman / 0 Comments

Donovan Mitchell has improved his scoring and efficiency every season he’s been in the league, yet his team has not made a conference final. Now, year 5 awaits (Instagram/@UtahJazz).

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Sarah Todd, Utah Jazz beat reporter for the Deseret News and host of the Unsalvageable podcast, sheds light on last season’s best regular-season team. How can the Jazz take their pre-playoff success and parlay it into a deep postseason run?

4:48-6:28: “I think it all has to do with versatility and health. Because if Mike Conley is healthy through the Clippers series, if Donovan Mitchell doesn’t have a bum ankle, then maybe the Clippers’ offense isn’t able to break the point of attack as easily as it was able to, which then causes problems on the switch, which is what caused so many problems for Gobert on the defensive side. It wasn’t that he wasn’t good; it was just that the perimeter gave him too much to deal with because they weren’t holding guys out. … Other teams have been exploiting that flaw of the Jazz’s for years. … As far as versatility goes, that’s what they tried to address in the offseason. They got Rudy Gay and Eric Paschall, both guys that can play small-ball 5 and can switch 1 through 5, are versatile defenders.”

12:50-13:06: “They saw firsthand last season how important health is once you are in the postseason and how much it can change things in a really drastic way. And so, in talking with some of these players over the last couple of weeks, they are more open to the idea of resting.” Continue reading

Zach Harper: With Continuity, Jazz Could Become “Best Non-Warriors Lineup in NBA”

April 28, 2017 / Loren Chen / 0 Comments

The Utah Jazz have persevered through a season full of injuries on their way to 51 regular-season wins and a possible advance into the second round of the postseason (Gordon Hayward/Instagram).

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Before this season, the Utah Jazz had made their last postseason appearance in 2012 and hadn’t won a playoff game since 2010. Since then, they bottomed out at 25 wins in 2013-14, then steadily built themselves back up by developing players, finding diamonds in the rough, and, this season, adding some key veterans to their squad. Now, up 3-2 on the Los Angeles Clippers and heading home to Utah for Friday’s Game 6, they’re on the brink of advancing to the next round to face the Golden State Warriors. Zach Harper, an NBA columnist for Fan Rag Sports, twice-a-week participant on ESPN’s TrueHoop Podcast and co-host of the Salt City Hoops Show, takes us through that journey. He breaks down what we can expect for the rest of the Jazz’s postseason, explains how they’re so dangerous on both sides of the court, looks at some big decisions looming ahead in the offseason and tells excellent stories and more. Not to toot our own horn, but you can sample some mellifluous excerpts below:

7:19-8:07: “You’ve allowed the Jazz to kind of dictate so much of the tempo to be a slow, grind-it-out game, and that’s what they want. They want to play at that slow pace. They want to force you to defend for 24 seconds. They want to force you to attack late in the shot clock against them and have to panic into shots and everything. So that’s the tough thing for the Clippers, and maybe why Game 5 was a little bit of a must-win. Just because you can’t be back against the wall while also not being able to play the brand of basketball you want to play in a series. With that said, the Jazz are looking at Game 6 as a must-win, because they don’t want to go back to LA. I kind of think that’s a mistake. It puts an unnecessary amount of pressure on the home team, especially one with such a young core.”

11:58-12:41: “A lot of people locally will say it [the team MVP] has been Rudy Gobert because [of] the defensive impact. Gordon [Hayward]’s a really good defender. He plays really well defensively within that system, and he’s so vital to them offensively that, to me, it’s just enough to edge out what Gobert’s been able to do, who might be the Defensive Player of the Year and was the second-best pick ‘n roll big man this year in the NBA, but Gordon, his patience…you see so many star wings go into this hero mode and this iso[lation] mode and maybe rush shots and rush possessions, because you have to make sure you get a shot off, right? But Gordon just always plays within the flow of the offense and doesn’t really force anything, doesn’t take bad shots.”

All That Amar: Utah Jazz “Think They Definitely Need to Win Now”

December 13, 2016 / Loren Chen / 0 Comments

Rudy Gobert has silenced the critics who called his offense an afterthought by leading the league in field-goal percentage and averaging nearly 20 points over his last three games (@rudygobert27/Instagram).

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All That Amar, Managing Editor of SB Nation’s SLC Dunk, stops by to discuss the Utah Jazz, whom he declares are finally in win-now mode. The young Jazz haven’t won a playoff game since 2010 and have finished with between 38 and 43 wins three of the past four seasons, but things appear to be changing for the better. Amar explains how the coach, general manager and players have all come together to generate a much-improved product on the court. Here are some of the highlights of our discussion:

4:18-5:07: Our guest explains how added depth has allowed the Utah Jazz to weather an early storm of injuries: “The main reason is that they’ve had a few seasons with injury before, so they kind of figured out that they need to prepare for that. And what Dennis Lindsey, the GM of the Jazz, did was he went out and… they wanted to get depth, and I think that they accomplished that this season… adding George Hill, Joe Johnson and Boris Diaw. These guys, they haven’t been healthy for every game of the season, but they have made sure that when Utah is missing 1.5 starters per game, about three rotation guys every single game… they still have enough guys to stay in the game. If this was last year’s roster, the record would probably be maybe eight wins instead of 15.”

Previewing the 2016-17 NBA Season With James Herbert

October 19, 2016 / Loren Chen / 0 Comments

James Herbert picked the rise of the Utah Jazz as his most compelling storyline of the NBA season (sixersphotos/Flickr).

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On this episode, James Herbert, NBA writer at CBSSports.com, joins the show to run through the most compelling storylines for the fast approaching 2016-17 NBA season. After an offseason filled with ample player movement and coaching changes, James helps us navigate the new landscape of the NBA, including which teams he thinks improved their chances and which he believes regressed. He also opines on possible breakout players, gives his season award predictions and offers his thoughts on the increasing social activism among NBA players and in professional sports in general.

1:40-4:38 Herbert is very high on the Utah Jazz’s prospects for the season. Here’s a taste:

“I just think they’re gonna be a monster this year. I think a lot of people really expected them to be that breakout team last year — some thought it would even happen the year before, they’d make it to the playoffs — but I think this is really the year that it’s going to happen. They should have been a playoff team last year. They just barely missed out, and that was when they didn’t really have a point guard for the whole season…so I’m a bit more bullish on them than I think even most NBA hipsters are…I think they’re seen as this big team, this enormous team that plays power basketball because of [Derrick] Favors and [Rudy] Gobert, but they can put Trey Lyles and Boris Diaw there as their frontcourt with their bench unit, and they can match up with small teams too. I think it’s really about versatility in the modern NBA, not just going small, and the Jazz have the pieces to play pretty much any way.”

11:03-11:50 Like many analysts, Herbert sees a significant drop-off after the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors. Here’s what he had to say concerning the near-inevitability of another Cavs-Warriors Finals: Continue reading

Larsen: For Jazz Future, “So Much Depends on How Good Exum Is”

April 9, 2016 / Loren Chen / 0 Comments

Derrick Favors is one of the young core players for the Utah Jazz who they hope to lead them to continued improvements in the future. (sixersphotos/flickr)

Derrick Favors is one of the young core players whom the Jazz hope to lead them to continued improvements in the future. (sixersphotos/flickr)

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The Utah Jazz are in the midst of a tight race at the bottom of the Western Conference playoff picture as the regular season comes to a close. Andy Larsen, a beat reporter for KSL.com and managing editor of Salt City Hoops on ESPN’s TrueHoop Network, joins us to explain why making the playoffs this season is especially important for this young, up-and-coming Jazz team. He delves deeper into whether Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors still have room to grow, how sophomore Rodney Hood has exploded onto the scene and the next steps for the Jazz in trying to become a championship contender. Finally, he discusses Jerry Sloan’s legacy in Utah and how one of the all-time great coaches in NBA history might still be underrated. Excerpts below:

2:11-3:10 on the value of making the playoffs for these Jazz:

“Obviously you hope that playoff experience gives them some idea of how much room there is to still to go… you kind of show the young players how much work there is left to still be a championship-caliber team. I think that’s valuable even if you do get swept or lose in five games… I think it’s helpful for free agents to see that they are a playoff team on the rise and can be part of something good… Then you look at Gordon Hayward, who can opt out of his contract next summer. I think you have to start to put together a case of why he should stay on the Utah Jazz, and that starts with multiple playoff appearances.”

4:12-4:52 on the Jazz’s potential first-round matchup against the Golden State Warriors:“

You look at [the two close losses to the Warriors during the regular season in Utah] and really both games they were one shot away. I think what’s really interesting is they didn’t need a bad shooting game from the Warriors in order to get it… They (the Warriors) actually shot 35, 40 percent from 3 in both of those games. It’s just the Jazz were able to lock down the inside shots and play some good switching defense on the outside, and that kind of frustrated the Warriors… I think that would give you hope for maybe being able to steal one at home and maybe play the Warriors better than the other teams at the bottom of the Western Conference would.”

Tag: Quin Snyder

Sarah Todd on Jazz: “It’s Not About the Regular Season Anymore”

Zach Harper: With Continuity, Jazz Could Become “Best Non-Warriors Lineup in NBA”

All That Amar: Utah Jazz “Think They Definitely Need to Win Now”

Previewing the 2016-17 NBA Season With James Herbert

Larsen: For Jazz Future, “So Much Depends on How Good Exum Is”

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