Before Tuesday’s win over the Grizzlies, the Jazz had lost six of its seven games and seemed to be sputtering with the playoffs quickly approaching. The team has blown a number of double-digit second-half leads, and fans have expressed significant concerns about the chemistry between stars Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert.
Ahead of Tuesday’s game, coach Quin Snyder went on a 19-minute diatribe addressing the narratives surrounding his team, including the idea that Mitchell and Gobert barely pass to one another.
A Sunday tweet showing that Donovan passes to Gobert just twice per game has gone viral, as has a stat that shows that Hawks guard Trae Young has more assists to Clint Capela than Mitchell has passed to Gobert.
Snyder defended his pair, pointing out that Mike Conley fills more of the point guard role when he and Mitchell are on the court at the same time, driving down those numbers. He also believes other teams are aggressively defending against lobs from Mitchell to Gobert and thinks the narrative only serves to divide the two Jazz stars.
“Let’s just not try to drive a wedge between some of these players, and especially using numbers. We should be more responsible than that,” Snyder said, per The Salt Lake Tribune. “… We’re not playing great all the time. We want to play better. But you don’t get there by trying to say that one player’s not passing to another.”
Snyder addressed one play in particular, in a recent loss to the Warriors. Gobert got a mismatch with Klay Thompson deep under the basket, but Mitchell didn’t look his way.
Snyder rejected the idea that it was an intentional decision and said he believes the relationship between the two players is fine.
“The suggestion that Donovan would look Rudy off when Rudy’s deep in the paint … When it gets to the point where Donovan’s answering questions [about the play], the inference there is that he doesn’t pass to him and there’s a problem between the two. So those aren’t illogical jumps,” Snyder said. “I haven’t seen that. I haven’t seen that at all. They sit at the same table when they eat sometimes. I don’t know if they’re going to practice together—probably not, but anyway.”
The Mitchell-Gobert issues weren’t the only concern bothering Snyder during his 19-minute address. He also discussed the team’s penchant for blowing games, something that has plagued the team as much as any in the NBA this season. Utah has lost 15 games in which it held a double-digit lead this year, with 12 of those leads coming in the second half, and eight in the fourth quarter alone.
“You could also look at this and say, we lost the lead, right, and we got it back three times out of seven, which maybe means we’re a resilient team,” Snyder said. “… It also says we played pretty well because if we’re up double digits in the fourth quarter, for the most part, I’d take that. I’d rather be up double digits than single digits.”
Utah would go on to beat the second-place Grizzlies 121–115 in overtime Tuesday. At 47–32, the team is in fifth place in the Western Conference, two games below the fourth-place Mavericks and a half-game up on the Nuggets. They finish the regular season with home games against the Thunder and Suns and a trip to the Trail Blazers.
