Thunder’s Lu Dort does better with Donovan Mitchell for three quarters – then Mitchell laughs one last time

1. Donovan Mitchell – finally – realizes the Lu Dort match in the last 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 field, Mitchell made five of the next eight shots to lead Jazz to victory. Indeed, those baskets and a few free throws were the only 12 points Jazz scored in the last six minutes of play, keeping them on the offensive line of the floor.

Over time, he was largely defended by Lu Dort, the second-year man of the Thunder, already considered one of the most important defenders in the NBA. And Dort really locked him up, as far as I could see that any defender contained Mitchell. I mean, it’s beautiful – Mitchell gets to get under it for a stretch, but it’s far enough from the basket to be very difficult.

I think the turning point came when Dort started to get a little tired. Check out this piece: Mitchell is just jogging on the field, but so is Dort. He never fully reaches the front, and the imbalance means that Mitchell ends up with a light open shot.

Dort also became a bit careless about the winner of the game. Conley leads, and Dort pulls his body away from Mitchell, opening a little separation for him. Mitchell gets a shot from Conley, and Dort must jump far on the perimeter to try to stay attached. Even as Dort steps forward, Mitchell takes advantage of the lost balance by leading to the paint.

There were convincing things, with things to learn for both players. Mitchell clearly tried to do too much on Dort early, even passing a few open glances to get some contested. But Dort’s skid in the last six minutes ended up costing the team the game, even 42 minutes before.

2. Mike Conley, saving Jazz

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

Remember, Jazz hasn’t had one of these since Carlos Boozer did it in 2008 against Seattle Supersonics, which remains my current favorite Jazz statistic. I mean, the NBA saw players averaging triple-doubles, and some really terrible players took one. Somehow, he avoids another Jazzman in regular season action.

However, Conley seemed to be the only guy who wasn’t disappointed at first, as Mitchell and Bojan Bogdanovic struggled to open the game. With the ball in his hands, Jazz got very good goods, like this Gobert alley-oop:

You can see Conley easily installing Theo Maledon. Make a move to the baseline, lose it on the screen, you know it will delay rotation and bam, an alley-oop.

I think Conley will have a lot of such situations during the season. The truth is that it is very difficult to protect all Mitchell, Bogdanovic and Conley with good defenders; and Conley will likely get a series of matches against the third best perimeter defender of a team. (Royce O’Neale will probably get the fourth best defender.) If Conley can consistently win these games, Jazz will always have an answer to go offensively.

On Monday, Conley’s game was the difference between holding the rope and losing it completely, giving his colleagues time to climb with him. Finally, the result was another result once a decade: the first win of the regular Jazz season in Oklahoma City in 2010.

3. Risk Vs. reward in defense of aid

One of the reasons Jazz had a real risk of losing this game was a lightless perimeter defense. Sometimes it was considered that it could be a strategic choice – the Jazz are not the only team that chose to try to ignore Lu Dort to help against the actions of the Tunder, and other teams will undoubtedly try, too.

But I think it’s a calculation that Jazz was a little too keen on, repeatedly giving up the Thunder in threes. Yes, Thunder has some weak perimeter shooters, but giving up three open ones even for dubious shooters could be mathematically worse compared to some contested inside stuff.

Thunder took advantage of this in their first game of the game. Darius Bazley sets a very low screen on Mitchell for his teammate Dort, and even though it would be much easier to get over him and follow Dort, Mitchell enters anyway. The result is an open three.

Or this play, in which all Mitchell, Rudy Gobert and Royce O’Neale collapse on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Eventually, O’Neale and Mitchell end up colliding, but Mitchell was probably too far from the strong corner to compete in a solid contest anyway. Al Horford is also open to the game and even Jordan Clarkson takes a step towards SGA in response to the drive.

Now heck, maybe I’m overreacting to a 5-7 3-point shooting night from Dort; it may not happen again. But it was a 3.7-point shooter with 35.7% open shots last year, which means 107 points per 100 goods – good enough for half the field! The additional rotations from it seem counterproductive.

I once had an NBA coach who told me that the name of the league’s defensive game was to minimize rotations: obviously, units open to the rim are bad, but if you can reduce the number of times you need to help from the outside, you will be in better shape throughout your tenure.

The key advantage of having Gobert on your list is the protection of the paint, so the boys on the perimeter don’t have to leave their man. Gobert did his job inside, but I think too often the Thunder found space outside because of Jazz’s decisions.