SALT LAKE CITY – For two months, Utah Jazz players have been unable to enter their practice facility at the Zions Bank basketball campus, relying only on their home gear. In the worst case, some players went weeks without shooting a basketball. Some had independent external circles. At best, they had access to an internal courtyard.
However, even after the gym opened on May 11, players were only able to train individually. They could go through conditioning exercises, lift weights, and lift shots with a masked rebound, but shooting the ball is only part of the game. Defense is not something that can be easily simulated individually.
“We weren’t playing against and we weren’t competing with anyone else,” said jazz guard Jordan Clarkson of the months preceding his arrival in Florida.
While the scrimmages of the show in the NBA bubble at Walt Disney World began last week, one thing has become very clear: it would have taken a little longer to shake off the defensive rust accumulated during the arrest of the NBA.
“Defense is something we need to focus more on getting into this and playing other teams,” said Clarkson. “It is certainly more difficult to harvest after such a long break.”
Jazz has been training as a team since 9 July and while the past two weeks have been helpful, especially offensively, there is no substitute for the competition.
It is one thing to defend one of your teammates in practice, when there are no bets and you are allowed to restrain yourself, while knowing the trends and playing the calls. It is a completely different animal when you are going against a different team that is fighting to achieve the same goal and throw you down the road.
“Now we can focus on some of these things that you don’t have a chance to do in practice,” said jazz head coach Quin Snyder. “You can talk about it and work on it, but until you are in a game and you compete, it doesn’t resonate so much until you play someone.”
When Jazz hit the track on Thursday against the Phoenix Suns in the first of three scenes that led to the resumption of the season on July 30th, there were obvious problems at the end of the defense.
The Suns fired 60% off the floor in the first quarter and Jazz didn’t come close to stealing or blocking and seemed far from a smooth defensive rotation.
“We are a defensive team. It may not have seemed like in the first few minutes, but it will only take a while to get back into the flow of things, ”said Donovan Mitchell after the game. “This is what these exhibition games are for. It is the first time that we have played for four and a half months. There will be things we have to work on – this was one of the biggest things. “
On Friday, Jazz held the practice with the highest priority in addressing defensive shortcomings. This time, they had one resource they were without for four months anymore: cool film.
Able to review what they have done and not done against the suns, the Jazz have concentrated their time on three areas of defense of the team.
“Get back in transition, keeping the kids out of the paint and us spinning,” said Clarkson. “These are the great things we are focusing on in these scrimmages and moving forward.”
The more Jazz is able to compete with someone other than itself, the more films it will have to watch, the more examples of what needs to be done. And, when the defensive rust starts to fade and the team’s defense principles become clearer, even their individual instincts on that side of the ball.
