Can The Utah Jazz Fix Their Defensive Woes?

The Utah Jazz are a young team that has a ton of potential to have a great season this year. Because they have a lot of youth, the roster will have a lot of growing pains. The Jazz biggest weakness on the court last season was not their scoring, not their bench, not even their coaching, but their defense. 

This season, coach Quin Snyder should emphasize defense much more than offense. The Jazz have the staff to turn into one of the best defensive teams in the NBA for the next few years. 

One day Snyder should take notes from Professor Annalise Keating and mimic her leadership. He should walk into the film room at 9 in the morning while the team is waiting for his arrival, stand at the front of the projector and say:

"“Good morning. I don’t know what terrible defense you played under Coach Corbin, but clearly with your record last year, you had to get assigned under my care. This is a new season, or as I’d like to call it “’How to Get Away With Playing Good Defense.’”"

Snyder should start with getting the attention of his best player, Gordon Hayward. 

He could simply start with a question like this:

"Snyder: “What were our defensive ranks last season Mr. Hayward?” Hayward: *Hayward draws a blank, shrugs shoulders and says, “I don’t know, coach.” Snyder: Let me fill you in. We were the 29th-worst team defensively in the NBA. Last season, we were dead last in opponents’ field goal percentage and our opponents shot the basketball at 47 percent a game. Snyder: How can we win a game when every opponent we play against shoots the ball twice and every other shot is almost almost guaranteed to go in? Don’t answer that Mr. Hayward … the answer is you can’t.”"

Snyder needs to get Hayward on board first because of Hayward’s combination of length, athleticism, strength and quickness, he should become a member of the All-Defensive team. 

Hayward has the physical tools and has more than enough potential to become one of the best defensive stoppers in the NBA. The sooner he gets close to becoming the All-Defensive player that he can become, the quicker the Jazz will become an actually contender for a playoff spot.

When the team follows the lead of Hayward, Snyder should work on making his weaker defensive players on the lineup stronger, such as Enes Kanter. In some cases in games Kanter looks like a rim protector.

Though many people don’t see it yet, the potential is there. Kanter is 6’11″ and 247 pounds. His athleticism makes him one of the best in that regard at his positions at center. However, he needs to learn rotations better and know his assignments more so he does not get caught out-of-place. 

Playing along with Derrick Favors, who has blossomed into a great defensive power forward, will only help Kanter. In addition he can learn from the second-string center Rudy Gobert. Favors can teach Kanter learn how to stay strong on the block and get into position against bigs, while Gobert can help Kanter learn how to play better weak-side defense. 

More from Utah Jazz

• 5 NBA teams on the rise that will surprise everyone in 2023-24
• Grading the John Collins trade for the Atlanta Hawks and Utah Jazz
• Ranking the 10 championship-less NBA teams by closeness to title
• A former lottery pick may have a permanent home with the Utah Jazz
• 3 Teams that dodged a bullet with Russell Westbrook news

We have seen glimpses of defensive greatness from the Jazz bigs during certain times in the game. However, though Kanter might be their weakest link, they need to rally and work together if they want to stand against the wiles of the bigs in the Western Conference.

The biggest trial defensively is going to rely on the feet of starting point guard Trey Burke. In the Western Conference, playing the point guard position is arguably the toughest. In the Western Conference alone there are so many awesome guards that can torch any team on a given night. 

Some of the point guards Burke will have to defend include Stephen Curry, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Tony Parker and Damian Lillard. That list doesn’t even include Goran Dragic, Ty Lawson, Mike Conley, who all can, on a given night, torch opponents as well.

His defensive development is key because he will most likely never shutdown any of these players, but if he can give the maximum effort to slow them down, it will give the Jazz easier opportunities to win games. It’s been said, “If you cut off the head of the snake, then the body will fall.”

For many Western Conference teams the head of the snake is the point guard position. 

This season the Jazz will have to lock in defensively to become the team they strive for. They have all the tools, now they need to put it together. 

This season will the Jazz finally buckle down defensively and turn themselves into a winning franchise?

Contrary to James Harden’s beliefs…there is nothing wrong with playing defense. In fact, let me give you one of the best secrets that many people don’t realize when they play defense … the better defense a team plays, the more points they will score than other other team.

The more points a team scores against their opponent, the more wins they accumulate over a season.

It’s really not a secret … I lied … but it is simple. 

The Jazz started off the defensive pace scorching during their first four games of the preseason by holding their opponents to around 88 points a game. All of those games were wins too.

If they can keep this trend up, they will win.

If they can keep this trend up remains the biggest question.