HOUSTON — On Saturday night, Houston Rockets guard Fred VanVleet hit five 3-pointers against the Utah Jazz in the first quarter of a 147-119 win over Utah. But rather than tighten up and stop the 3-point hemorrhaging, the Jazz allowed VanVleet to hit five more treys, Jalen Green to hit seven, and the Rockets to make good on 27 3-pointers.
“This is gonna continue to be part of the learning process for our team — the ability to adjust in a game and understand that when somebody’s hit a few and they’ve got it going,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. “You have to adjust your pickup point, you have to adjust how you’re guarding them, you have to adjust your urgency. It’s not about a scheme. It’s about being present in the game. It’s about really understanding what’s going on around you.”
The reason Hardy says that this will “continue” to be a focus point is because this has become a bit of a problem for the Jazz.
During the 2023-24 NBA season, 14 players have hit seven-or-more 3-pointers against the Jazz in a single game. They’re the only team that has allowed this to happen more than nine times (Toronto, Chicago, Charlotte and Atlanta all have nine such incidents).
Four times this season, the Jazz allowed an opposing player to hit nine-or-more 3-pointers in a single game — they are the only team that has allowed this to happen more than twice.
Fred VanVleet’s big night
In Saturday’s loss to Houston, VanVleet took 14 of his 15 3-pointers from about a foot outside the arc, so it’s not like he was varying much in the distance he shot from.
Had he shot right at the line on a few then bombed a few from the logo then some variance in closing out would have been more understandable, but there was only one shot that was taken from super deep.
But after hitting 5-of-6 from long range in the first quarter, the Jazz still allowed VanVleet to take nine more 3-pointers.
“There’s a lot of things that go on in organized basketball that in a weird way would never happen in a pickup game,” Hardy said. “I promise that if I hit five 3s in a row on a pickup game, our team wouldn’t let me shoot the sixth.”
In previous games where shooters have gone off against the Jazz — like when Sacramento’s Keegan Murray hit 12 from beyond the arc on Dec. 16 or when New York’s Donte DiVincenzo hit nine 3s on Jan. 30 — Hardy has noted that the Jazz players have good intentions on defense and that they have often tried to stick to a defensive game plan with too much zeal when they should have made an adjustment.
“We’re trying to execute perfectly what the responsibilities are and we’re not playing the game,” Hardy said after the loss to Houston. “That’s a balance that we have to find as a team. I think young players go up and down through moments of being hyper focused on the technical plan and being correct...or not being wrong, so they don’t get yelled at.”
With just 11 games left in the 2023-24 season, this is likely a problem that will be focused on not only this season, but throughout the summer and into the 2024-25 campaign.