Utah Jazz: 3 reasons why Utah has struggled as of late

2. Defense 

During the solid start to the 2017-18 season, the Utah Jazz established themselves as a top defensive team in the league.

With the addition of Ricky Rubio at point guard to join an already defensively talented team, the Jazz ranked near the top of the league in numerous defensive categories during their strong stretch to open the year.

The biggest reason for that? The man in the middle, Rudy Gobert. There’s a reason the center was named First Team All-Defense last season.

In 12 games with Gobert, the Jazz ranked second in the NBA in steals (9.9 per game), second in blocks (6.3 per game), second in turnovers forced (18.5 per game), third in defensive rating (99.7), fourth in opponent points per game (99.1) and 11th in opponent field goal percentage (44.8 percent).

In the last seven games without Gobert, that nearly changed completely.

In those seven games, the Jazz fell back to ranking fifth in steals (9.6), 13th in blocks (5.1), 15th in defensive rating (103.7), fifth in opponents points per game (100) and remain at 11th in the NBA in opponent field goal percentage (45.3 percent).

Of all the reasons you can find in what has fed into Utah’s struggles as of late, the complete turnaround from being one of the top defensive teams in the NBA to a very subpar group has to be right at the top of that list.