Damian Lillard Dishes on How Portland Beat Jazz's New Zone Defense
The Utah Jazz had rolled out a new zone defense last week, debuting it in a win over the Boston Celtics. It's primarily a 1-3-1 zone, designed to trap the ball. It's a scheme that "caught teams off-guard," according to Jazz center Kelly Olynyk.
However, in Wednesday night's 127-112 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, Utah's new-look defense faltered. After dropping 30 points, while three other Portland teammates scored in the 20s, Damian Lillard dished on how the Trail Blazers disrupted Utah's defensive attack.
“We took advantage of it,” Lillard said post-game. “I got to the pocket and guys made shots, guys cut and finished, got to the free-throw line and I thought that was how we won the game.”
Indeed, when the Jazz zigged, the Trail Blazers seemed to anticipate it and zagged — much to coach Will Hardy's chagrin.
"We just didn’t do a very good job keeping the ball out of the middle of the court," Hardy said post-game. "Whether we’re in man, zone— a lot of the concepts are trying to take away that pass to the nail and I just thought we were late the whole night, trying to keep the ball from getting there. We looked a step slow on everything defensively tonight and they made some timely threes."
Even though Portland only shot 31.7% from deep, it was when those shots sank that really set the Jazz back, arresting momentum and putting Utah on its heels.
"They shot 31, 32% from three, so they made some timely threes, which didn’t feel good, but I think, in some ways, we overreacted to that and got too spread out," Hardy said.
With Rookie of the Year candidate Walker Kessler manning the middle of Utah's defense, the team has made a concerted effort to disincentivize opponents from attacking the rim. For whatever reason on Wednesday night, the Jazz failed to execute that defensive focus, though Kessler had a trio of blocked shots.
"A formula for us defensively the last couple games has been trying to really eliminate the basket as a team," Hardy said. "Have the other team take a lot of hard, contested threes, with hands coming at them late, and I just don’t think we did a very good job protecting the basket."
Let's face it, while Portland obviously did its homework on Utah's new-look defense, if the Jazz don't turn the ball over a whopping 17 times, we could be talking about a different result. Turnovers have been a persistent issue for Utah throughout most of this season, and until Hardy figures out a way to get a handle on it, some of these winnable games — even against plus-.500 opponents — are going to be squandered.
"Obviously, on the offensive end, 17 turnovers," Hardy said. "We talked pre-game about [how] our offense had taken a jump and a large part of that was we took care of the ball and tonight, we didn’t. Decisions were made late, just sloppy passing, our spacing was just okay, but this is the NBA. There’s nights where your team can be kind of a step behind, a step low... And if you have 17 turnovers in an NBA game, it’s hard to win.”
The Jazz finished with just four players in double-digit scoring, but only All-Star Lauri Markkanen totaled 20-plus, finishing with 40 points and 12 rebounds. It was a gritty performance by 'The Finnisher,' as he played hurt late in the game after suffering what appeared to be a wrist injury on a flagrant type 1 foul in the fourth quarter.
Per Markkanen, X-rays were negative post-game, but Coach Hardy said that his All-Star will be day-to-day. It's not the greatest development, as the Jazz are still without starting point guard Collin Sexton and shooting guard Jordan Clarkson.
Next up, the Jazz host the Eastern Conference-leading Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night in the last of their four-game homestand.
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