"You Gotta Love It Baby" Official Jazz thread

[BGRTHNUMEGO]

Rodney Hood. Wow. Gobert was a beast again. Exum was a non-factor, kinda disappeared. Burke played a decent floor game, but 0-6 FGs won't keep a guy in the league very long.

To be fair to Burke, he was matched up against Wolters tonight. Can't really expect a starting NBA PG to get much done against that guy.

Looked like Giannis played 1-4 for Milwaukee tonight, and guarded the same positions regularly. I think he's been the most impressive guy in summer league so far. If Milwaukee thinks they can let him play SG at times, like they say they will, they can put a lineup with Sanders, Henson, and Giannis out there together. They'll be handing out Stretch Armstrong figures instead of bobble heads.

[MarkGrace]

[MarkGrace]

Dante Exum, Utah Jazz | Grade: B
Don’t let the uninspiring stat line 6-and-2 fool you. Exum was quick and decisive in the pick-and-roll, looking more like a veteran practitioner than the “unknown entity” he was labeled as leading up to the draft. While there weren’t nearly as many flashy displays as there was in his debut, Exum showed tonight that there’s some steak with his sizzle. --Foster

Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz | Grade: A
This was fearless rim protection at its finest. Gobert seemingly contested every Buck bold enough to venture into the paint, and even when Giannis Antetokounmpo caught him on a dunk, he came right back down the floor and returned the favor. Jazz-Bucks was one of the best Summer League games I’ve seen in four years from an individual performance standpoint, and the presence of a shot-blocker and athlete of Gobert’s quality only made it feel more legitimate. --Foster

Rodney Hood, Utah Jazz | Grade: A
This might have been the best shooting performance we’ll see this year at Summer League, but there was more to it than just knocking down 7-of-10 from deep. There was a lot of nuance present here as well, as Hood put it on the ground and found open teammates, and when he was off the ball, his ability to float to open spaces and relocate was downright superb. Having a corner shooter like this with a point guard who can penetrate (think John Wall-Trevor Ariza) can lead to some beautiful jazz. --Foster

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...e-day-4-grades

[BGRTHNUMEGO]

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[BGRTHNUMEGO]

Have to fast forward to 1:30 or so to get to the game. But that move at 1:56...wow.

[Commando]

I like our young components- we could even have a new starter or two!

[Donuthole]

I escaped from my second job as a flooring contractor for a few hours to go to the game last night. Hood is silky smooth. He uses his pump fake and jab step very effectively from the perimeter. The defender wasn't giving him any room in the first half, so he pumped and drove from the 3-pt line a handful of times hitting a floater once and setting up some other players with nice passe. This was effective in getting the defender to sag off a bit, and resulted in Hoof getting a few open looks at 3 early in the second half. Once he hit a couple rhythm it was Drano no matter how tight the defender played him.

Exum was a little disappointing in that he didn't attack the rim much after the first 5 mins of the game. I don't know if it was conditioning or a scheme, but he had a few opportunities to turn the corner off high screens and ended up backing out. That spin and crossover in the first half was brilliant, but it would have been a true highlight if he'd found Gobert on the roll (he was wide open).

[cougjunkie]

I escaped from my second job as a flooring contractor for a few hours to go to the game last night. Hood is silky smooth. He uses his pump fake and jab step very effectively from the perimeter. The defender wasn't giving him any room in the first half, so he pumped and drove from the 3-pt line a handful of times hitting a floater once and setting up some other players with nice passe. This was effective in getting the defender to sag off a bit, and resulted in Hoof getting a few open looks at 3 early in the second half. Once he hit a couple rhythm it was Drano no matter how tight the defender played him.

Exum was a little disappointing in that he didn't attack the rim much after the first 5 mins of the game. I don't know if it was conditioning or a scheme, but he had a few opportunities to turn the corner off high screens and ended up backing out. That spin and crossover in the first half was brilliant, but it would have been a true highlight if he'd found Gobert on the roll (he was wide open).

During the broadcast last night they interviewed Snyder; he mentioned how they are teaching the young guards in Burke and Exum to lob the ball towards the rim in some of these pick and roll situations. He said yes at times it might go over the backboard or it could be fumbled out of bounds. But when you have guys like Gobert and Favors who can go get it, if you lob it towards the rim it makes the job of the big man a lot easier as they don't have to put the ball on the floor or make any sort of move. Catch it and flush it.

I thought that was interesting and actually made sense.

[BGRTHNUMEGO]

During the broadcast last night they interviewed Snyder; he mentioned how they are teaching the young guards in Burke and Exum to lob the ball towards the rim in some of these pick and roll situations. He said yes at times it might go over the backboard or it could be fumbled out of bounds. But when you have guys like Gobert and Favors who can go get it, if you lob it towards the rim it makes the job of the big man a lot easier as they don't have to put the ball on the floor or make any sort of move. Catch it and flush it.

I thought that was interesting and actually made sense.

There have been a couple of times where Gobert has fumbled a pass because he was pointing for the guard to lob it up, but then they tried to feed it to him low in traffic. With as well as Gobert has played, I can think of 3-4 plays where he probably should've had an easy dunk of those passes had been made right.

[smokymountainrain]

There have been a couple of times where Gobert has fumbled a pass because he was pointing for the guard to lob it up, but then they tried to feed it to him low in traffic. With as well as Gobert has played, I can think of 3-4 plays where he probably should've had an easy dunk of those passes had been made right.

There was one with Ian Clark specifically last night. Clark actually penetrated nicely and left a pretty good pass for Gobert, but it was low, Gobert was expecting hight and it resulted in a turnover. Sure enough, Gobert pointed up and Clark appeared to agree that he made the wrong play.

[MarkGrace]

I escaped from my second job as a flooring contractor for a few hours to go to the game last night. Hood is silky smooth. He uses his pump fake and jab step very effectively from the perimeter. The defender wasn't giving him any room in the first half, so he pumped and drove from the 3-pt line a handful of times hitting a floater once and setting up some other players with nice passe. This was effective in getting the defender to sag off a bit, and resulted in Hoof getting a few open looks at 3 early in the second half. Once he hit a couple rhythm it was Drano no matter how tight the defender played him.

Exum was a little disappointing in that he didn't attack the rim much after the first 5 mins of the game. I don't know if it was conditioning or a scheme, but he had a few opportunities to turn the corner off high screens and ended up backing out. That spin and crossover in the first half was brilliant, but it would have been a true highlight if he'd found Gobert on the roll (he was wide open).

From what I've read Exum sounded pretty gassed. He got tired in the first game, and I'm sure he's not ready to play everyday. Conditioning needs some real work.

[MarkGrace]

During the broadcast last night they interviewed Snyder; he mentioned how they are teaching the young guards in Burke and Exum to lob the ball towards the rim in some of these pick and roll situations. He said yes at times it might go over the backboard or it could be fumbled out of bounds. But when you have guys like Gobert and Favors who can go get it, if you lob it towards the rim it makes the job of the big man a lot easier as they don't have to put the ball on the floor or make any sort of move. Catch it and flush it.

I thought that was interesting and actually made sense.

This is typical CP3 SnR stuff. Catch-and-dunk big allows you to stretch the floor vertically instead of horizontally. It's not the same as having a 4/5 that can shoot it and dragging the opposing big man out on the floor, but the threat of a lob-and-dunk off the SnR prevents the big from helping and still creates valuable spacing on the floor. CP3 has always run those small-big SnR's with a 4, then if he sees the 5 coming out to help, he just throws the ball at the rim for Chandler/Jordan to throw down. Becomes a pretty easy read once both the point and offensive C know what they're looking for. CP3 has always created a ton of easy points this way.

[Donuthole]

During the broadcast last night they interviewed Snyder; he mentioned how they are teaching the young guards in Burke and Exum to lob the ball towards the rim in some of these pick and roll situations. He said yes at times it might go over the backboard or it could be fumbled out of bounds. But when you have guys like Gobert and Favors who can go get it, if you lob it towards the rim it makes the job of the big man a lot easier as they don't have to put the ball on the floor or make any sort of move. Catch it and flush it.

I thought that was interesting and actually made sense.

Funny you say that. One time last night the backup PG (I didn't even catch his name--i wasn't about to shell out $5 for a program) ran a nice pNr with Gobert in tight space. Gobert rolled to the hoop and unnamed PG whizzed a bullet right past Gobert's ear and out of bounds. The speed of the pass was necessary to get it through to Gobert before the big defending Gobert recovered. However, it was a real bullet, and I don't think any Jazz big short of Malone would have caught it. Gobert immediately pointed to the guy and then pointed upwards, as if to say "nice idea, but if you're going to make that pass, lob it up high so I can go get it."

[MarkGrace]

So Gobert and Exum are the most interesting players for the season, right? I could see a lot of the Jazz direction in the coming years being determined on how those two look this year. If Exum's long-term future is as a point and Gobert looks like true defensive presence at the 5 with the ability to catch and dunk, it will be interesting to see what happens to Kanter and Burke.

[cougjunkie]

So Gobert and Exum are the most interesting players for the season, right? I could see a lot of the Jazz direction in the coming years being determined on how those two look this year. If Exum's long-term future is as a point and Gobert looks like true defensive presence at the 5 with the ability to catch and dunk, it will be interesting to see what happens to Kanter and Burke.

Burke is a serviceable backup pg in the NBA.

Kanter is interesting. I actually think he has talent but the Jazz will let him walk and he will end up as a decent role player somewhere, similar to Koufos.