Jazz unexpectedly shut down Trae Young and Donovan Mitchell had an impressive win over the Hawks

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1. Jazz impresses Trae Young impressively

The Jazz defense was the biggest problem in their losses during the final year of the young season. So when Trae Young came to town, there was reason to worry – Young averaged 30 points per game last year, and while spreading the ball a bit more this year, he still averages 25. , what happens when an irresistible force collides with soft defense?

Apparently not what you would expect.

The Jazz were phenomenal against Young on Friday night, and could only shoot four points at 1-11. This equates to the lowest points ladder in Young’s career – the only other time he had four points was in the second month of his rookie season, playing the Warriors’ offending defense.

So what did the Jazz do so well to turn the script around? The first thing was staff – usually the Jazz Royce put O’Neale on the leaderboard as the first option, but tonight they used Mike Conley straight – Quin Snyder put O’Neale on the much bigger John Collins.

Conley guarded Young with energy throughout the game, refusing him the ball on almost every occasion and guarding him much of the game 94 feet. Conley’s movement patterns, even at the age of 33, are the closest to Young’s water beetle movement – he sometimes plays with the ball in his hands similar to Steph Curry.

What Young does not have that Curry has is the movement gene off the ball. The Falcons do not have many things for him in the playbook, because he is so responsible for everything that their offense does – he is their creative juice. So if you take the ball out of his hands to such an extent, he can not kill you by running off screens and generally causing devastation like Steph can.

Of course, Young has been defended with balloon denial before, but I’m not sure if that happened in the NBA to this extent. The Jazz looked at him differently, but was he just double yards 80 yards from the basket before? Everything was in the playbook for the Jazz.

The other thing Conley did brilliantly on Friday night was to defend Young without darkening. He averages nearly ten free throws per game and he regularly draws great frustration from opponents just because he gets so many easy points. Conley sent him to line once.

“It does help to play 14 years,” joked Conley. ‘After playing for so long, there are guys like Trae who are so smart and can get to the line very easily. For me, it was a bit of a guess the time he would try to do it, and I guessed right tonight. ‘

Finally, placing O’Neale on Collins meant that both of the men defending Young’s great performance partners were able to be defensive. If Collins selected Young, O’Neale could help in situations like these:

And if Clint Capela looks at him, Rudy Gobert can help:

It’s just really nice. The Hawks scored just 91 points per 100 possessions tonight, despite averaging 113 points per 100 possessions, meaning it was probably the Jazz’s best defensive game of the season.

2. Donovan Mitchell’s shooting

Donovan Mitchell was really good in the finish line of the Jazz’s four games:

It is especially noteworthy that its 3-point figures are there, collectively 19-34 for 55%. This is of course very good – probably too good to maintain.

But it’s worth noting what a wonderful catch-and-shoot old Mitchell has been through his career. Coming in tonight, he shoots 51% on catches and shoots tries – wow! But last season he was at 43% on catch-and-shoot, still tremendous, and in his first two seasons he shot exactly 40%.

Here’s an idea of ​​how it compares to other shooters in the league.

Mitchell is very good at hitting the shots. I think it’s reasonable to expect a regression this year – to shoot more than 50% deep on catch-and-shoot would be ridiculous, but it’s a big asset in his game.

This is another thing to consider if you are also deciding Mitchell’s future position with the Jazz: is he better on or off the ball? He definitely develops as a huge threat on the ball, and at the end of close matches he will definitely have it in his hands. But it’s also very nice to have a point guard that Mitchell can also fire these kinds of shots because he’s very efficient at it.

3. The best sign that it’s not your night

To be clear – the Jazz absolutely deserved their victory tonight. They were fantastic on both sides and worked together as a 5-man unit to kick throughout the Hawks, leading the entire game. It was in my opinion their best show of the season.

But man, I also felt that the Falcons had reason to feel a little snake bite. First of all, there is the ugly 3-point percentage: 5-28? The Falcons are full of pretty good shooters who only went 0-fer tonight: Young, DeAndre Hunter, John Collins, Kevin Huerter – I mean, the Jazz defended them well, to be sure, but you would expect the guys to would make at least one of their 14 appearances.

Nothing was more deflating than this play. The Hawks still tried their best at this point in the fourth quarter, down 16, but amid an extremely good defensive possession. They run Miye Oni off the 3-point line and force this kind of out-of-balance look that sounds against the edge.

Except that it clamped so hard against the edge that it got stuck there. A fireproof Hawks setback turned a bouncy ball into midfield. Rudy Gobert won it, got an one-on-one ten seconds later and even made the release this time.

On average, there are about 40-50 “wedgies” like these in the 1230 games we normally play in a regular season, but many of them are shot from tighter angles or up close under the edge. This one came from afar and turned a Hawks transition opportunity into three Utah points.

There are certainly more deflating moments in a game, and if a little misfortune comes to you, you obviously want to be in a 16-point game rather than a close one. But it’s a bit unfortunate that during the pandemic, the NBA tried to reduce unnecessary contact with the players, because the Falcons would have needed a hug after the play.