Is Will Hardy the best coach in the NBA?

Is Will Hardy the best coach in the NBA?

The Jazz started the season with a record of seven and 16 they are now 21 and 20 they have gone 14 and four Will Hardy has been tinkering the lineups throughout the year and I think he’s found some pairings and combinations that have really changed stuff with the

Team and and the guy I want to land on right away is uh the Italian Legend Simone fono who the J Cody the Jazz are 8 and one in this lineup they’re running now with Simone fonio in the starting lineup this is a change in the last

Month he shoots well High release great movement off the ball and then knows when to attack and close out and make the good extra pass that’s all he does and then you put that and I’m so glad you said the 2014 Spurs because I get

The Vibes as well where you don’t have a player really playing over 30 minutes per game you have so many different contributors in different places like they try to play two playmaking guards so ston will play with Clarkson and then Clarkston will play with George they just try to always have

Two of those guys out there moving Walker Kessler to the bench was a huge thing and finding okay Walker Kessler on the bench and let me pair him with Kelly o linck who’s a stretch big and he’s a stretch Pig who can kind of make some

Plays in the middle of the court and supplement the playmaking and so what you end up with is this read and react flow offense that has these hints of a beautiful game element because what coach will hardy wants is he wants the players out there making decisions understanding how to read defenses

Moving and flowing from one set into the next and so if you haven’t seen this team um it’s sort of like not suitable for work basketball level of adult entertainment like they’ll start with like a staggered screen away and then they’re twirl it one the guy who sits

The screen turns around and then he comes over and gets a little pitch and then he goes in the corner meanwhile three other guys are screening on the other side of the Court they’re sprinting in different directions oopsy doopsy Lowry marinin got open you know he’s like one of the best Shooters in

The league so that’s a three Lowry’s kind of the centerpiece of it all and the star and the big name but he because of the way he plays he’s not on ball a lot stuff isn’t built around him they’re augmenting defensive lineups around him I wouldn’t say he’s a poor Defender cuz

He’s so big uh he uses his size really well but it’s like why why start fio why start Chris Dunn those guys are really good defensively it’s like all of a sudden everything is falling into place and you get this team that is way more than the sum of their parts and okay

Something you said about like they’re blending in with a lot of these actions you have a lot of these guys coming off like double staggers but then like an action will happen but then two guys over here kind of bunched up and you’re like wait a second are one of these guys

Going to screen for that person and then just like because they seem to be communicating like telepathically like all of a sudden one of them like Dives to the rim one of them flares out and you’re just like oh my God defense is completely thrown away uh Kelly oin

Throws a lob to John Collins or throws a lob to whoever or John Collins throws a lob to Kessler there’s just lobs all over the place cuz people are freaking out about like the perimeter actions that they’re doing and a lot of it works like you said because lri marinan is

Kind of used as like a Reggie Miller offensive piece in the sense that like they’re not just giving him the ball and they’re like hey go create some stuff for us because he’s not really much of a Creator like the weakness in his offensive game is is the passing chops

But when you set him up in a position where comes off a pin down he catches and he fires like it’s impossible to contest him because he’s a seven-footer with a high release but oh you’re getting up close to him this guy just burns by you with the streaking

Athleticism because he just wants to dunk on everyone like this guy just Dives to the basket with Reckless abandon and that’s a lot to to try and stay in front of and then when you have defenses collapsing he’s a good enough passer that he can make a simple uh kick

Out and then everyone else just kind of knows where to be around that so like he’s sort of the juice that makes the offense flow but it’s not in the sense that like they’re giving him the ball and letting him cook but his ability to just like be decisive in his shots and

His drives and things like that is the thing that really makes the offense as potent as it is well they’ve really weaponized him away from the ball to your point and what I love about the Jazz offense is that the sequences always have options that build on each

Other so the entire wide pin down where they set a screen in the corner for Lowry and he curls off that creates problems for the defense do you send two players to that if you don’t do do you post him up because of the switch like

How do you handle that when he comes off that curl or just comes off that screen for a catch and shoot then the next time Utah can just use him as the screener so the two guys are over in the corner he turns around and sets the screen and now

You have a dynamic one of those Dynamic offensive players that I talked about Jordan Clarkson or someone like that curling and if the defense has to respond to that then Markin and just pops out for a little catch and shoot three so the actions are always building

On each other they have another one that I love where they’ll have staggered screens away from the ball and everyone in the NBA runs this and the guy curls off and you can attack from there and get good offense but they’ll do stuff like against the Mavs Cody they came

Down they set up the staggered screen action away from the ball and then it turns out it’s actually not a staggered screen fonio turns and he’s going to set two screens for the ball handler instead so they’re not looking for the off Ball action now they turn it into an on Ball

Action and then fonio is it is it a Spain pick and roll is it what’s is is it a slip and a pop no fonio slides like in between the defender and the other screener flares out to the three-point line just catch and shoot drops it on someone’s head because that’s his skill

Set so all of the X’s and O’s that they have have these series that can develop in in this sort of beautiful way and what they want is continuity so if the first part of the action breaks down where are you going where are you

Flowing to next if I set a screen here the and the action isn’t an easy shot I go somewhere else and I set another screen it’s just not super easy to defend especially relative to what we would think about the offensive Talent they have is out on the court and what

Really does help the off ball stuff happens is the way that they’ve like consolidating a lot of the on Bal juice too like you said I think it’s especially Colin ston and it’s Jordan Clarkson who if you look at drives per 36 in the thinking basketball.net

Database both of these guys are near the top of the league like I think I think Clarkston Clarkston Clarkson yes Clarkston uh Cojo or clarkon is very yes it’s a very potent point guard so CL Clarkson I think is in the top 10 in drives for 36

And you know Colin ston is right around top 15 so these are two guys that like when all this stuff is happening they can still break down their guy I know that Clarkson’s like relative true shooting percentage is pretty underwater like he’s a woefully inefficient uh type

Of scorer but he kind of brings this like irrational confidence Off the Bench like he might be at the top of the like yes yes no kind of guys in the NBA like I think the clearest like yes yes no play I think he like he like drives in

Uh somebody tries I think it’s ol Lin tries to make a pass to him while he’s cutting he kind of bobbles the ball and he like jumps up CU he’s like all right I guess I’m just going to shoot and then last minute he’s like oh wait there’s

Walker KES I’m just going to throw him a lob and just like throws it right over and hits him and so like you kind of have these two guys that are like really Adept at getting by pretty much anyone in the NBA and at least getting paint

Touches and when you have like singular talents that have the ability to do that despite the fact that like Clarkson’s uh efficiency isn’t great um I think that really stir the drink a lot more and opens the door for a lot of the sou off ball kind of stuff because you still

Have to be afraid of the guy that has the ball as opposed to like you know like a classic delay action you got a big guy up top that’s passing the ball you’re not always afraid of that guy beating you off the dribble but when you have a little Speedster off the dribble

You really have to be able to watch like backline defense and rotating around to try and stop somebody like that so I like the role that hard’s kind of like carved out for both Clarkson and ston yeah I mean offensively I just think their their role is perfect for this

Team thanks for listening you can find the full episode of this thinking basketball podcast on Apple podcast Stitcher Spotify or wherever you enjoy podcasts

The Utah Jazz are on fire! In this In this enhanced segment from the Thinking Basketball podcast, Ben and Cody break down why the Jazz have turned their season around, Coach Will Hardy’s “Beautiful Game” Xs and Os that remind us of the 2014 Spurs, his lineup changes and more.

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Ben Taylor is the author of Thinking Basketball, a Nylon Calculus contributor, creator of the Backpicks Top 40 series & host of the Thinking Basketball podcast.

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