So this is the way it’s going to be.
The Jazz actually are going to rely on defense for their offense.
And that counterintuitive mind-pretzel isn’t some manufactured bit of BS a coach likes to say and players like to mock and kick to the curb. It is the Jazz’s reality. It is their way to winning. It is their lonely path forward.
Quin Snyder knows it. Rudy Gobert knows it. Donovan Mitchell knows it. Derrick Favors knows it. The usher in Row 3 knows it.
If the defense sags, the offense sucks. If the offense sucks, the defense had better not sag because it’s the only way to get the offense not to suck. And when the defense doesn’t suck, the offense soars.
That’s exactly what happened against the Denver Nuggets in the opener Wednesday night. And while one game is anything but conclusive, the Jazz’s methodology was and is absolute. The mind-pretzel isn’t going anywhere. It will remain — on account of this important truth: There is no other choice.
“It’s who we are,” said Mitchell.
The Jazz simply cannot outscore twin-turbo’ed teams in the overloaded West, in an offensive-oriented league that’s more out of balance than a Beyonce backflip. It will not work for the Jazz. Teams like Golden State, Houston, Oklahoma City, and, yeah, Denver, a club that was the offensive equal of the Warriors during the final two months of last season.
“They’re incredibly explosive,” Snyder said.
The first half against the Nuggets underscored the point.
The Jazz got sloppy on the defensive end, and they were down 15 at one juncture in the third quarter. Then when they remembered their reality, they punched Denver in the Nuggets the rest of the way, going on a 29-5 run.
The five was more significant than the 29, but not unrelated.
“We improved defensively as the game went on,” Snyder said.
He gave credit to guys like Thabo Sefolosha and Ekpe Udoh and Alec Burks and Derrick Favors, whose defensive contributions he described as “infectious,” as though it were a happy kind of disease.
It is not a disease. It is the Jazz’s deliverance.
As the crown prince of defense, Gobert, put it, it triggers transition points: “We get those stops, push the ball, it’s tough for the other team to come back. It’s demoralizing for them.”
But it also has a transformative power that goes beyond just that. It runs past a singular four- or five-point swing, blocking an opponent’s scoring opportunity at one end and boosting one of their own at the other. It’s a kind of Zen thing, a measure of inexplicable mojo that connects a team, widens shooters’ eyes, gives them confidence, makes real a certainty that it and they repeatedly can slam one door and open another.
It’s weird. I dunno why. Ask Freud.
He wasn’t available, but Drs. Snyder, Mitchell and Gobert were.
Here’s what they said …
“Defense is so much about the group, everybody having each other’s back, doing their job, giving effort,” Snyder said. “When you throw yourself into that, there’s less pressure to perform offensively. The game becomes easier. You’ve heard of guys pressing on offense, trying too hard. I don’t think you ever hear that about defense. For our group, that’s the thing we have the most control over — trying to be disruptive, but disciplined at the same time. If we can generate offense from our defense, that’s a key part of how we’re going to score.”
Said Mitchell: “Our defensive mindset allows us to play off of turnovers. If we get a deflection or steal, we’re all running. We’re quick, long and athletic. We can finish. We spend … what, 75 percent of our time in practice on defense?”
“No, 80 percent,” Sefolosha said.
Added Gobert: “It’s because we feed off of that.”
Give them their soup, then.
There will be times, sooner and later, when the Jazz can’t quite muster the required methodology, not against some teams on some nights, when the truth will be uncomfortable and unforgiving, when the wrong door at the wrong end will be shut.
But they get this.
They seem not just to understand Snyder’s message, but to embrace it, fully grasping that there is no other road to winning, not this season, not with this roster. They cannot rely on just keeping up. They have to throw down, bump guys around, pound and ground on defense then take the feel good and ride the wave the other way.
“It’s our identity,” Snyder said.
It’s who they are.
GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone.