The Great Pick-and-Roll Machine
The Utah Jazz have mastered one of basketball's most elemental actions, and they're pummeling opponents as a result.
The pick-and-roll isn’t new. It’s a simple action that’s been around for basically the entirety of basketball history. All it takes is two players. One sets a screen for the other, and an advantage is created. The defense has to make a split second decision about how to proceed and then execute its scheme perfectly to avoid letting that advantage turn into a bucket.
There is a reason the pick-and-roll has stood the test of time as a primary strategy at all levels of the game. It works. There are LOTS of ways to defend a pick-and-roll, but almost all of them require ceding some kind of benefit to the offense.
No one in the NBA has mastered the play quite so adeptly as the Utah Jazz, whose pick-and-roll ballhandlers finish 24.5% of the team’s possessions, per NBA.com. The Jazz are averaging 1.03 points per possessions in those instances, the best rate in the league by a considerable margin.
And it’s not just one maestro behind the team’s effectiveness. Utah has a deep stable of players capable of initiating a pick-and-roll with elite efficiency. All six Jazz players who have finished enough plays out of the pick-and-roll to qualify to be included in the NBA’s tracking data rank in the 78th percentile or higher for efficiency. Four are in the 90th percentile or above.
The Jazz’s pick-and-roll proficiency isn’t an accident. Utah has built a roster perfectly suited to max out its component parts’ abilities to run the play. Star big man Rudy Gobert is a masterful screen setter and puts a ton of pressure on the rim rolling to the hoop. The Jazz simultaneously dot the floor with shooters on virtually every possession.
Defenses are hesitant to send help, lest they should surrender an open look from beyond the arc. That’s a wise decision, no one pings the ball around for open shots after creating a small crack in opposing defenses quite like Utah. Their 15.7 three-point makes per game is the best in the league.
Teams can opt to switch, but the Jazz will let Donovan Mitchell or Mike Conley attack resulting mismatches in isolation or simply move the ball and run the action again. Switching also leaves opponents vulnerable to Gobert leveraging his size as an offensive rebounder.
The net result is oodles of space to attack the rim, knock in open pull-upjumpers, or toss lobs where only Utah’s 7’1” monster can grab them. Pick-and-rolls have traditionally focused on getting action going towards the basket, but the Jazz have added in some modern twists to their style.
They’re particularly fond of launching from behind the arc and love to get off the ball early in pick-and-roll possessions when they feel opponents might be snoozing away from the action, even just for a slipt second.
Utah is firing on all cylinders through the first third of the season. The Jazz’s 116.8 offensive rating is a full 4.0 points per 100 possessions better thant the second place Atlanta Hawks, and their pick-and-roll game is at the heart of their offensive brilliance.
Unfortunately for Utah, two consecutive uninspiring exits from the postseason after dominant regular season campaigns mean most observers are taking the Jazz’s success with a grain of salt. That skepticism is well-founded. If Utah can shake its reputation and make a deep playoff run this season, the pick-and-roll will be a major reason why.