Every week during the regular season begins here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring features that let us relive the biggest moments, key performances and hot issues in Jazzland from various angles. Check in every week for the quotes, stats, plays and performances that tell the stories from the last 168 hours in the world of the Jazz.
We're starting this edition here, because the biggest story of the week actually was an X-and-O angle: how the Jazz suddenly reengineered their offensive flow to focus on Jusuf Nurkic's playmaking.
Nurkic has always been a creative passer, but a key part of the Jazz's game plan in San Antonio on Monday was to have him playmake from the perimeter as a means of forcing Victor Wembanyama away from the paint. It worked well enough that the Jazz kept right on playing Nurksketball all week, with the big man piling up 36 assists over the next three games.
A lot of those plays featured pretty fun off-ball designs. Take his career-high 14 assists in the Jazz-Spurs rematch on Thursday. It felt like no two plays were exactly alike, and they trusted Nurkic to pick apart a confused defense after a variety of misdirection plays.
Here, it looks like Nurkic is prepared to go right into DHO action with any of three guys on Keyonte George's side of the floor. All three defenders there are focused on that when Nurkic quickly turns and heads towards what could be a hand-off with Ace Bailey. The Jazz run these little DHOs out of the corners all the time, so Bailey's defender starts to creep to the high side. Bailey smartly V-cuts, making a convincing feint towards Nurkic to dupe his man before cutting hard to the baseline. Nurk's bounce pass is perfectly placed where it's out of Wembanyama's reach and just behind De'Aaron Fox.
Then a few minutes later:
Slipping is a great counter to switching defenses, and the Jazz knew the Spurs were slipping this little guard-to-guard brush screen off the ball. But what makes this one really fun is the ball placement. Even after Isaiah Collier slips the pick, he still has to get by Wembanyama. Nurkic helps him by putting the ball right where Wemby will think he has a shot at it. The pass kind of bends on the air because Nurk puts some spin on it, and that makes Wemby lunge at it so that now he has to recover to challenge Collier at the rim. If Nurkic hasn't tempted him to reach for the steal first, Wemby probably obliterates that attempt.
This one might be my favorite of this batch:
Cody Williams' backscreen on Bailey is mostly fluff, but has the added effect of making the defender focus on following Ace through the paint. Then Williams goes to fake a screen for George, instead spinning right into the open space just vacated by Bailey and his trailing defender.
Now watch again and just track Wemby's movements. At first he sags way off of Nurkic, but he has to inch back closer when it looks like a Nurkic-George DHO is coming. THAT's when Nurkic throw the pass, so the timing has to be just right on George's decoy action and Williams spinning trickery.
One more:
Again, great misdirection as Bailey curls around the fake handoff out front. But again, watch the placement on the bounce pass. Nurkic is super careful to put the ball right where Wemby will reach for it but not be able to deflect the low bounce pass.
It's so uncommon to watch a team hit game number 40-something and suddently decide, Hey, what if we completely realign our offfensive executition to this other thing. When Lauri Markkanen gets back, they still have a potent pick-and-roll combination with him and George, so I'm sure this was a temporary adjustment. But this weird and glorious little vacation from the regular offense has been highly entertaining.
It has produced three consecutive triple-doubles for the Bosnian center, the first time a Jazz player has achieved that. But more than anything it has made the Jazz offense an unpredictable parade of cutting dunks and layups.
Recent competitive stretches by the Hornets, Pels and Pacers have the lottery watch looking pretty interesting lately.
Sacramento definitely has some wins coming with that easy schedule (and with Domantas Sabonis starting to play more). The Hornets look ready to start their climb, with the net rating of a .500ish team and a red hot January. The Pels look pretty competent with their main three guys healthy, and have no reason to ease off the gas.
Now the other side of the coin: Milwaukee and Memphis are going the other direction thanks to star injuries, and Brooklyn and Washington remain bad. (The Nets have eight home games left against this group of teams.) Even Dallas is only percentage points ahead of the Grizz-Bucks duo, and with a tough remaining schedule. So they're not out of theis range either.
For now, the Jazz are pretty firmly in the sixth spot, 3-5 wins ahead of one grouping of teams, and 3+ wins behind the next tier. But there's a lot of basketball to be played, including the 49 remaining games among the nine teams shown here.
"He's feeling more comfortable in his role. He has a better understanding of what to look for and when his opportunities are going to come. He's also gotten in way better shape... There is a conditioning piece to our league that's necessarily, and right now he's in far better physical condition and that's allowing him to play harder for longer... His confidence is coming from all of those things"
Will Hardy on Bailey's recent assertiveness
Beyond Nurkmania and George's career-high explosion (which we covered in the last SC7 since it came a couple days later than usual), the other big story of the week was another confident, assertive week from the Jazz's lottery rookie. He had back-to-back games with 20, including a career night with 25-6-2 against the Spurs.
He's averaging 14.0 on decent .556 true shooting since returning from a brief injury. He's also just daring to do more stuff, and Hardy thinks that's a function of his teammates learning how and where to find him, but also a function of his physical conditioning.
Bailey started the year sick and had some mild injuries early, issues that maybe made it harder to really adjust to the physical rigors of this demanding league. He looks like he's turning a corner now, both physically and in terms of understanding how to unleash his athleticism and instincts on the game. He has benefited from some of the "Lauri actions" while Markkanen has been out with his own illness, and Jazz folks are pretty thrilled with how he's coming along.
"He had really high-level instincts when he got here," Hardy continued. "I think part of our responsibility is to help him channel those instincts."
16.7-13.0-12.0
These aren't baby triple-doubles Nurkic is putting up. As far as I can tell, the only players to record three consecutive triple doubles who were never All-Stars during their NBA careers are Jalen Johnson (very likely to be named to this year's All-Star team) and Elfrid Payton.
.598
That's Williams' true shooting percentage in 14 January games — 54% from the field and 34.5% from three. That's a pretty encouraging month from a young guy who had mostly struggled over his first 69 games to get his outcomes to line up with his effort and smarts.
52.2%
The Spurs were red hot against the Jazz in Thursday's rematch, particularly from the 3-point line. They shot 52.2% from above the break and finished +18 in points off threes.
26
The Jazz gave up 26 offensive boards to the Heat on Saturday, tied for the third most this NBA season. As a result, Miami won the second-chance points battle 23-9. That along with their +36 on points from the perimeter allowed them to blow the Jazz out despite shooting significantly worse from the field.
Last week's SC7 included the MLK Day loss in Texas and Tuesday's comeback over Minnesota. So we have just two games to account for here:
Strong in defeat:
- Jazz 109, Spurs 126: Jusuf Nurkic. Ace Bailey probably played his best pro game yet (25-6-2, but mostly just how decisive and assertive he was), but since we looked past George's 43 earlier in the week because of the rarity of a triple double, we should be consistent. Nurk notched consecutive Jazz triple doubles for the first time in 51 years (!!) with his 17-11-14 night, and also battled with Wembanyama all night. Bailey is a close second, and George was again really solid with 23-4-5.
- Jazz 116, Heat 147: Jusuf Nurkic. Once again, Nurkic and his historic stretch dominated the conversation around this game. Brice Sensabaugh scored more (23), and Isaiah Collier had an impressive 16 and 9. But three straight triple doubles is just silly, especially given how many human bodies the Heat were sending to asphixiate him under the boards.
The homestand continues, and then the Jazz will head east as the new month begins.
Tuesday 1/27 vs. Clippers: The Clips are surging to a level that surprised one writer, giving the fan base a fun little moment as they celebrate a 15-3 stretch. Kawhi Leonard is averaging 32-7-4 over that span, with James Harden adding his own 25-4-8. Past Jazzmen John Collins and Kris Dunn are important pieces for the Clips, who generate the second most free throws proportional to their FG attempts.
Wednesday 1/28 vs. Warriors: The Warriors are 13-7 since mid December, but have started their current trip 1-3. Some of that is due to a rest night for their vets in Minnesota on Sunday, but they're also trying to figure out rotations since Jimmy Butler went down with a season-ending knee injury. All-Star starter Steph Curry will surely keep them interesting, and continues to lead the NBA in threes taken and made.
Friday 1/30 vs. Nets: It's been tough sledding for the Nets, who are 1-10 in the last three weeks, and who will face Utah on the second night of the dreaded Denver-Utah back-to-back at altitude. Leading scorer Michael Porter Jr. is at 24.9 for the Nets, but the next two top snipers from Kings County have both missed recent games: Cam Thomas and Noah Clowney. BYU product Egor Demin is hitting close to 40% of his outside shots.
Sunday 2/1 @ Raptors: Toronto is surprisingly sitting at 3rd in the East, and has won four straight. The three-headed monster of Brandon Ingram, Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett (all averaging between 19.0 and 21.5 points) leads a varied attack for Toronto, but the Raptors' real superpower is at the other end: they have a top 5 defense, and allow the second lowest 3-point percentage.
