Utah Jazz: Takeaways From Game 2 Loss To Clippers

Protecting The Paint

The absence of Rudy Gobert was unexpected for both teams in Game 1, with the Jazz scrambling to cover his minutes and the Clippers left unable to gameplan for that eventuality.

Perhaps this explained why, despite Utah’s lack of rim protection, Los Angeles played mostly through Blake Griffin on post-ups, which lead to the Jazz’s small-ball lineup having success despite being a man down.

With time to devise a plan to attack the Jazz’s new weakness though, the Clippers offense proved to be much more effective. No longer did they force-feed Griffin on the low block, but instead, they focused on isolating the less-mobile Jazz bigs in the pick and roll.

Los Angeles isn’t nearly as scared of Derrick Favors as they are of Gobert, and the former doesn’t have they length or leaping ability to deter the lob as seen above. With the conservative way the Jazz play the high screen, that’s a problem.

All told, the Clippers scored 60 points in the paint, shooting 52 percent from the field as a result. Even the 39-year-old Paul Pierce managed to slice though the lane for a layup at one point.

Unsurprisingly, the leaders in this regard were Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, who combined to score 42 points, 38 of which came from inside the lane. For the Jazz, there’s really not much that can be done rotationally to fix this, as they’ve already been running out their biggest lineups available.

Even though they attempted so many field goals around the basket, the Clippers still only shot six free throws all game. This is low when viewed on its own, but when Jordan’s free throw shooting (48 percent this season) is factored in, it’s a downright abysmal number.

Jordan has eight dunks against the Jazz on Tuesday. If he’s forced to earn these points at the line, there’s a good chance he’ll end up with about half the production.