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Utah Jazz: Why They’ve Got to Fix Their Offense to Win Big

By DJoumbarey A. Moreau

Nov 23, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward (20) moves the ball as Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant (35) defends during the second half at Vivint Smart Home Arena. Oklahoma City won 111-89. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 23, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward (20) moves the ball as Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant (35) defends during the second half at Vivint Smart Home Arena. Oklahoma City won 111-89. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Utah Jazz have a big problem and it comes on the offensive side of the basketball.

As the cliche goes, offense wins games but defense wins championships.

Defense might win championships, but if you don’t have a solid and efficient offense, you’re not going to defeat anyone. It’s also said that the best defense is a good offense.

For the Utah Jazz, as good as their defense has been this season, they’ve had their share of struggles offensively. We got to see a little bit of their weakness when the Oklahoma City Thunder came into town on Monday. It’s not a surprise that the Thunder looked like the better team simply because they are.

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What was more alarming and surprising was how anemic the offense of the Jazz looked.

For example, in the second quarter of the game against the Jazz scored a game-high 26 points. However, the only problem was that 26 points they scored were outmatched. The Thunder, led by Kevin Durant, put up a 46-point explosion in the quarter

Playing good defense will only get a team so far. Eventually, you will need a reliable offense to keep up. Utah defensively did a good job playing against Oklahoma City since they kept them around their average points per game (109.8).

Nonetheless, what was so disturbing about the game is that Oklahoma City allows their opponents to score 103.8 points per game, which is good enough for 22th in the league, and Utah was only able to muster 89 points.

Nov 23, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Jazz guard Alec Burks (10) goes up for a shot between Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dion Waiters (3) and forward Nick Collison (4) during the second half at Vivint Smart Home Arena. Oklahoma City won 111-89. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 23, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Jazz guard Alec Burks (10) goes up for a shot between Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dion Waiters (3) and forward Nick Collison (4) during the second half at Vivint Smart Home Arena. Oklahoma City won 111-89. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports /

Keeping up in the NBA is a very difficult thing to do because if you can’t score in a league dominated by scoring, then there is a big problem.

The Jazz have cracked 100 points twice this season and in those games they are 1-1. During the games where they score less than 95 points, they are an inferior 2-6. In the games where they score more than 95 points, they are an amazing 5-1. That one loss was an 118-114 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on the road, so it’s more of an outlier instead of the trend.

The bottom line is when this team puts the basketball in the hole often they win games because of their defense. Instead of being built defensively to stop opponents, the Jazz were built to stop opponents until their offense can take them home for the win.

We already know that the game plan of the Jazz is to get after it defensively. There are only a few teams in the NBA that have a stronger defense than Utah and they don’t nearly have the star power of those ranked ahead of them. Right now Utah is ranked as the No. 3 team in the league, allowing 93.6 points per game.

Utah only trails two of the last three NBA championship franchises, the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs.

However, if this team wants to make a statement and finally make the playoffs, it will eventually have to crank it up on offense. Additionally, this year was supposed to be a year where the Jazz would play with a faster pace. This season the Jazz have actually figured out a way to stay exactly the same.

The Jazz are second-to-last in points per game, averaging 95.1 points per game and they are dead last in offensive pace once again.

Though we’ve given praise to the point guards of this team such as Trey Burke, and especially to Raul Neto (click here) for leading this team valiantly starting as a rookie point guard, they each need to push the basketball more. Coach Snyder expected this team to run more and get easier shots because of their running and they haven’t done it at all.

This team is almost at its peak, but it need to iron out its offensive issues if they want to start competing with the big dogs in the league such as Cleveland, Miami, San Antonio and Golden State. Cracking 100 points against the Clippers on the road was a good starting point, no matter how fraudulent the Clippers are.

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The next step is doing it in back-to-back games because in less than a week the Golden State Warriors will come into town and Utah will have to bring their best offense if they want to compete because slowing down the defending champions is near impossible.

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