Jazz Looking For Right Kind Of Threes Versus Lakers

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – It’s been no secret the Utah Jazz are looking to shoot as many three-pointers as possible in Orlando. The team, who won’t have Bojan Bogdanovic for the remainder of the season, needs to connect on the deep ball consistently to maintain a semblance of its old offense without the Croatian sharpshooter. As the Jazz prepared to take on the Los Angeles Lakers Monday night, coach Quin Snyder put an emphasis on the team taking the right kinds of threes against the West’s best team.

“We’re shooting more threes off the dribble,” Snyder said. “That’s a result of our personnel and who’s getting those shots. But I’d like for us to get even more catch and shoot threes as well.”

And the best Jazz triple from the first two games is …#ThreesOfTheWeek | @MountainAmerica pic.twitter.com/hIdZgSlz6j

— utahjazz (@utahjazz) August 3, 2020

There’s good reason for Snyder’s wish to see more catch and shoot threes. The Jazz are the league’s best catch and shoot three-point shooting team this year at 40.5 percent. Without Bogdanovic, the Jazz have found themselves dribbling into more three-point shots, and have seen a sharp decrease in efficiency beyond the arc. Through two games, the Jazz are connecting on just 24 percent of their threes.

While the Jazz have been truly deadly on catch and shoot threes, they see a significant drop in shooing percentage on pull up three-point shots. For the season, the Jazz have connected on just 34 percent of their pull up threes.

Pull Up Threes vs. Catch and Shoot Threes By Player

Looking at individual players, the numbers are even more striking when comparing pull up and catch and shoot threes.

Joe Ingles – Catch and Shoot: 43.9% Pull Up: 35.1% = -8.8%

Donovan Mitchell – Catch and Shoot: 42.9% Pull Up: 31.8% = -11.1%

Royce O’Neale – Catch and Shoot: 40.8% Pull Up: 20.8% = -20%

Mike Conley – Catch and Shoot: 40.1% Pull Up: 35% = -5.1%

Georges Niang – Catch and Shoot: 40% Pull Up: 33.3% = -6.7%

Jordan Clarkson: Catch and Shoot: 36.9% Pull Up: 34.5% = -2.4%

Emmanuel Mudiay – Catch and Shoot: 35.8% Pull Up: 32% = -3.6%

Strangely, and likely due to the small sample size, the Jazz have been a better pull up three-point shooting team in Orlando than they have on catch and shoot threes.

MIK3 with the triple 🏔#MACU3 | @MountainAmerica pic.twitter.com/65LvCi8sGn

— utahjazz (@utahjazz) July 30, 2020

Through two games, the Jazz have connected on 36.8 percent of their pull up threes, an upgrade of 2.8 percentage points from their season average. Meanwhile, the team has seen an enormous drop in catch and shoot three-point shooting average.

Over the last two games, the Jazz have connected on just 19.6 percent of their catch and shoot threes, a drop of 20.9 percentage points from the rest of the season.

The Jazz and Lakers tip-off at 7 pm MT. The game will be broadcast nationally on ESPN, and local on AT&T SportsNet.