Phoenix Suns guard Ricky Rubio (11) reaches for the ball as he falls in front of Utah Jazz guard Mike Conley (10) and Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert (27) during an NBA game at the Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City on Monday, Feb. 24, 2020. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY — In the wake of Utah’s three-game losing streak the Jazz are ready to make some changes, the first of which is bringing Mike Conley off the bench and inserting Royce O’Neale back into the starting lineup according to a report by The Athletic.
Following a 131-111 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Monday, the Jazz knew that something was going to have to be done. By Wednesday, after lengthy film sessions and conversations, that something turned out to be a lineup change and a return to defensive basics.
After a morning shootaround Wednesday, ahead of the Jazz hosting the Boston Celtics, Conley pointed to the amount of change throughout the season as a possible cause for some of the recent lapses, change that will now continue with the latest move to take him out of the starting unit.
“We have a team that has a lot of moving parts,” Conley said. “We’re still getting used to people getting in and out of the lineups and a lot of things have been kind of changing over the weeks and guys are just adjusting.”
Though this is just one more move that the team will have to adjust to, the hope is that the familiarity and previous success of the Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Joe Ingles, Bojan Bogdanovic and O’Neale five-man lineup will ease the transition.
During Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s film sessions the team looked at the defensive problems plaguing it through the recent skid. One of the biggest things that stood out was a failure to consistently play transition defense.
“There were a lot of breakdowns when we shouldn’t have breakdowns,” Conley said. “Transition has been a big key for us the last few days. We’re allowing too many easy buckets. It’s tough to defend when you’re giving up layups and dunks in transition. Getting back and communicating is going to be big for us as we go forward.”
Not only is O’Neale the Jazz’s premier perimeter defender but also their best defender in transition. Shifting him into the starting lineup is a move that signals the Jazz’s commitment to solving their recent issues.
As far as transition defense goes, it’s the little things that each player needs to focus on, like not getting caught watching plays in the corners, not lagging behind to argue with officials, making smart decisions when chasing loose balls, and communicating as the possession changes.
“All these teams these days like to run, they like to push it,” Conley said. “Guards, big men, all of us, we have to try to get back and communicate and get to a man and stop them from getting to the paint.”
It all seems a little elementary but that’s how the team needs to operate in order to pull out of the rut it currently finds itself in.
“It’s on us to focus on the basics, which is transition defense and then communication,” Gobert said. “We have our absolutes — no matter what happens in the game, no matter how tired we can be, whatever, if the sky is falling down — that’s transition defense, physicality, communication. It’s got to be there every night.”
One of the more sobering and uniting themes of the Jazz’s film sessions is that everyone realized that they were collectively playing badly. It wasn’t any one person that was worse than the other. Every single player has made mistakes and they are all to blame for the losses.
Since everyone is to blame, it makes it a little easier to talk through the issues and try and motivate one another. For Conley, he hopes that his actions will speak louder than words and bring back the edge that the Jazz have seemed to lose.
“What can you think about personally that fires you up?” he said. “Things that you’ve done in the past that you’re not so proud of that you can improve on. You can say ‘every time tonight I’m going to box out, every time I’m going to run back, every time I’m going to get a loose ball when I see one,’ whatever it may be. Come in with goals and I think players will respond to the little things that you’re trying to do.”
It is likely that Conley’s move to the bench and how he handles it will also be a motivating totem for the Jazz. If the 13-year vet is willing to take a bench role in order to help the team, then everyone should be willing to step up and sacrifice.
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