A big reason for Jazz’s recent success has been the play of Collin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson
There is a lot of praise to go around for the way the Utah Jazz have been playing lately. Will Hardy deserves credit as the head coach and ultimate decision-maker and each player deserves credit for their individual performances.
“Collin has been playing really well and at a high level. He’s really picking his spots — when to attack, when to facilitate, when to slow down and when to use his speed.” — Lauri Markkanen on Collin Sexton
But Collin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson in particular have turned a corner here as we near the midway point of the 2023-24 season.
“Collin has been playing really well and at a high level,” Lauri Markkanen said of his teammate. “He’s really picking his spots — when to attack, when to facilitate, when to slow down and when to use his speed.”
He said the same of Clarkson, who recently broke the Utah Jazz’s 15-year regular-season triple-double drought.
In the last 17 games, Sexton is averaging 21.2 points and a career-best 4.6 assists per game. Clarkson has played in 10 games since returning to the court from a hamstring injury and is averaging 19.7 points and a career-best six assists during that stretch.
Both players are in different roles than they were to start the season. Hardy admits that at the beginning of the year he was trying to force some things with the lineups that just weren’t working out the way that the coaching staff had envisioned.
But since moving Sexton into the starting lineup with Markkanen, John Collins, Kris Dunn and Simone Fontecchio, and moving Clarkson to the bench to play alongside Kelly Olynyk and Walker Kessler and the rest of the team, it has opened up the floor for everyone.
“Collin’s ability to break down the defense off the dribble stands out more with the first group,” Hardy said. “Part of that is Collin is making really good decisions. … The other part of that is he’s playing with John as the five and Lauri as the four and so that’s giving him more space.”
Related
Will Hardy has done a lot of lineup, rotation experimenting, and it’s paying off
Jazz get third straight win by avoiding making a critical error against Nuggets
For Clarkson, Hardy really likes how playing with Olynyk allows Clarkson to get early buckets that are more or less unguarded.
“Playing with Kelly has been really good for J.C.,” he said. “It allows him to move off the ball a good amount before he gets it and that loosens the defense up some. … When you’re a good player and you’re a good scorer, you assume that 75% of your shots are going to be hard in this league. Getting open ones, naked ones, is really hard. But in the pathway to 20 points, if you can get six or eight points that are quote-unquote easy, it makes that pathway a lot more sustainable.”
That’s exactly what Clarkson has been able to do. He comes into the game, gets a couple of quick backcut looks or shakes free in the middle for a couple of open push shots, plays in a two-man game with Olynyk for an easy bucket and before you know it he’s got a few on the board and the defense starts to collapse.
The way that the starting and bench lineups have been playing has been giving the rest of the team a ton of confidence and making everyone feel like they’re on the path to something that could really work.
“It’s been feeling really great, to be honest,” Clarkson said. “I think in the beginning of the year it was just tough. I think we were all trying to figure out each other. … Early in the season it’s hard to put a label on the team. Just credit to the coaching staff and all of us for sticking with it and coming out here and putting a good product out.”
The Jazz are 19-20 on the season and are 11th in the Western Conference but just a single game out of eighth. And that can all change and shift every day.
Though the Jazz started the season on very rocky footing, thanks in large part to the success of Sexton and Clarkson, they seem to be on the right path and trending upward.
