Thunder’s Lu Dort defeats Donovan Mitchell by three-quarters – so Mitchell laughs last

1. Donovan Mitchell – finally – discovers Lu Dort’s duel in the final six minutes

It was one of the worst games of Donovan Mitchell’s career. Well, for three and a half quarters.

After a 3-15 start on the pitch, Mitchell hit five of the next eight strokes to take Jazz to victory. In fact, those baskets, and some free throws, were the only 12 points that Jazz scored in the final six minutes of the game, keeping them afloat on the offensive side of the field.

Throughout the game, he was widely defended by Lu Dort, of the second year of Thunder, already considered one of the main defenders of the NBA. And Dort really closed it down, as far as we’ve seen any defender holding Mitchell. I mean, this is beautiful – Mitchell ends up getting under him for a collective tray, but he is far enough away from the basket that it is really difficult.

I think the turning point came when Dort started to get a little tired. Look at this piece: Mitchell is just running around the court, but so is Dort. He is never fully in front, and the imbalance means that Mitchell ends with an easy open pull-up.

Dort was also a little careless about the winner of the game. Conley drives and Dort moves his body away from Mitchell, opening up a little bit of separation. Mitchell receives the kick from Conley and Dort has to jump away from the perimeter to try to stay trapped. As soon as Dort steps forward, Mitchell takes advantage of his lost balance by going to painting.

It was attractive, with things to learn for both players. Mitchell clearly tried to do a lot on Dort at first, even setting aside some open looks to get some contested. But Dort’s loss of focus in the final six minutes ended up costing his team the game, even with a brilliant 42 minutes before that.

2. Mike Conley, saving Jazz

Mike Conley had 20 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists on Monday night – one of Jazz’s best chances of finally getting a double triple in the regular season.

Remember, Jazz hasn’t had one of these since Carlos Boozer did in 2008 against Seattle Supersonics, which remains my current favorite Jazz statistic. I mean, the NBA has seen players on average double triples now, and some really terrible players have caught one. Somehow, it still runs away from a Jazzman in the action of the regular season.

Anyway, Conley seemed to be the only guy who didn’t get tired at first, as Mitchell and Bojan Bogdanovic struggled hard to open the game. With the ball in his hands, Jazz was getting really good assets, like this Gobert alley:

You can see Conley installing the novice guard Theo Maledon there with ease. Make a move to the baseline, lose it on the screen, know that it will be late for rotation and bam, a dead end.

I think Conley is going to have a lot of situations like that during the season. The truth is that it is very difficult to defend Mitchell, Bogdanovic and Conley with good defenders; and Conley is likely to have a series of clashes against a team’s third best perimeter defender. (Royce O’Neale will probably take the fourth best defender.) If Conley can consistently win these fights, Jazz will always have an answer to attack.

On Monday, Conley’s game was the difference between holding the rope and losing it completely, giving teammates time to climb with him. In the end, the result was another result that occurs once in a decade: Jazz’s first regular season win in Oklahoma City since 2010.

3. Risk versus reward in defending aid

One of the reasons why Jazz was at real risk of losing this game was a lackluster perimeter defense. At times, it seemed like it could be a strategic choice – the Jazz are not the only team that has chosen to try to ignore Lu Dort to help against Thunder attacks, and other teams will also try it.

But I think it’s a calculation that Jazz was a little too anxious, giving up three fully open to Thunder repeatedly. Yes, Thunder has a few weak perimeter snipers, but giving up three open ones even for questionable snipers may well be mathematically worse compared to some contested internal things.

Thunder really took advantage of that the first time they played. Darius Bazley places a super low screen on Mitchell for his teammate Dort, and while it was much easier to just step over and follow Dort, Mitchell sinks anyway. The result is an open three.

Or this play, where Mitchell, Rudy Gobert and Royce O’Neale collapse into Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. In the end, O’Neale and Mitchell end up colliding, but Mitchell was probably too far from the corner on the strong side to get a solid fight anyway. Al Horford is also open to the play, and even Jordan Clarkson takes a step towards the SGA in response to the momentum.

Now, hell, maybe I’m overreacting to a 5 to 7 night shot of 3 points from Dort; it may not happen again. But he was a 3-point pitcher of 35.7% in open shots last year, which means 107 points for 100 possessions – very good for the midfield! The extra spins away from him seem counterproductive.

An NBA coach once told me that the name of the defensive game in the league was to minimize spins: obviously, open attacks to the rim are bad, but if you can reduce the number of times you need help from the outside in. , you will be in better shape during the inauguration.

The main benefit of having Gobert in his lineup is like that paint protector, so the perimeter guys don’t necessarily have to leave their man. Gobert was doing his job inside, but I think Thunder often found space outside due to Jazz decisions.