Written by Spencer | 05 December 2010

Let me unite Thursday night's TV viewing with Friday night's thusly:

(A) LeBron James scored 38 points in three quarters, preened in front of the other team's bench as he did it, and never landed on his back once.

(B) That would never, ever, ever happen in Utah.

Suffice it to say the Jazz play with a bit more of an edge than the Cavs showed against Miami, something we can see for ourselves when Utah takes on Dallas in Friday's late national-TV game (ESPN/ESPN3.com, 10:30 ET). Surprisingly, the battle matches the teams with the second- and third-best records in the Western Conference.

More generally, between the rise of Utah, Dallas, San Antonio and New Orleans, and the Lakers' recent vulnerability, we've been left with a far more interesting chase in the Western Conference than we anticipated. While L.A. remains a heavy favorite, the strong starts by those other four squads have left the Lakers tied for just the fifth-best record in the conference, despite a very favorable early schedule for L.A.

Utah's emergence, in particular, seemed far from a sure thing at the start of the season. With Carlos Boozer gone in free agency and Mehmet Okur rehabbing from a torn Achilles suffered in the first round of the playoffs last season, concerns about Utah's frontcourt loomed large. And remember, this was the same team whose front line was absolutely bludgeoned by L.A.'s in a four-game sweep in the second round last season. Doubts mushroomed when the Jazz were hammered in their first two games. Deron Williams seemed unhappy, angrily firing a ball at rookie Gordon Hayward and questioning the team's lack of film work. They scored only 78 points against Golden State, a feat previously thought impossible, and trailed at home by 18 to the lowly Clippers the next game. With a four-game road swing against Eastern playoff teams looming, a 2-8 start didn't seem out of the question. But the Jazz came back to beat the Clips, setting off an amazing streak of comeback wins: seven times in the first 20 games they've rallied from 10 points or more behind to win. A full third of the league -- 10 teams -- hasn't won seven times in any fashion, let alone with theatrics like this. Don't look now, but Utah is 12-2 in its past 14 games; the only losses were to the Spurs and Thunder. The list of victims is impressive, too: Already, the Jazz have beaten the defending champion Lakers, Miami, Orlando, New Orleans, Atlanta and Oklahoma City. If they beat Dallas on Friday night they'll have beaten three of the other top four teams in each conference, and they a have a good excuse for not beating Boston -- they don't play the Celtics until January. The question remains, however: How exactly are they doing this? Minus Boozer, Okur, Kyle Korver and Wesley Matthews, Utah figured to lack the depth and size to hang with the West's upper crust, even after trading for Al Jefferson. Here's the funny part: They actually don't have the size. The Jazz are just 28th in the NBA in defensive rebound rate, pulling down a meager 69.8 percent of opponent missed shots. This is even worse than it sounds, given how often the Jazz send opponents to the free throw line -- missed foul shots are generally easier for the defense to rebound than missed field goals. The fouling, of course, is a long-term staple of coach Jerry Sloan's teams. They annually either lead the league in fouls and opponent free throws or come very close, so the fact they've surrendered .297 free throw attempts per field goal attempt -- tied for 28th -- comes as no surprise. Unless, that is, you're surprised that their mark is slightly less awful than usual. Before we go further, look at those last two items again. If I told you about an undersized team that can't control the boards and fouls with abandon, you'd presume that this team was horrid defensively. Bottom five, for sure. Amazingly, Utah has been good despite those shortcomings. The Jazz rank 10th in the NBA in defensive efficiency, almost entirely because nobody can make a shot against them. Utah ranks first in both opponent field goal percentage and opponent 3-point percentage, with the latter mark being particularly notable given that the Jazz allow more 3-point attempts than the average team. Even if one assumes the law of averages will even out the 3-point shooting (it's hard to imagine Jazz opponents making just 30.7 percent all season), the 42.5 percent opponent shooting mark overall is harder to dismiss so breezily. We have a sample of 1,585 shots saying the Jazz, despite their short frontcourt and rampant fouling, are really difficult to convert against. In particular, Utah has enjoyed tremendous defensive success with a bench that looked very weak on paper entering the season. Earl Watson and Ronnie Price won't contend for the scoring title, but they have been absolute pests as a small, quick backcourt tandem. Meanwhile, Francisco Elson has proved surprisingly competent at backup center, Kyrylo Fesenko impacts games with his sheer size and C.J. Miles has given the group enough scoring to survive. While Williams' exploits, and to a lesser extent those of Paul Millsap, get all the attention, it's the bench that has been the real catalyst. Each member has a shockingly good plus-minus (a team-leading plus-19.5 points per 40 minutes for Watson, plus-16.3 for Miles, plus-15.1 for Fesenko, plus-13.0 for Price and plus-9.2 for Elson; all numbers from basketballvalue.com), and the second unit has sparked most of Utah's comeback wins. Statistically, Utah has played better with the bench on the floor than the starters. Of course, with any successful team, health is an unstated factor, too. Utah's rotation players have missed just one game to injury (Watson also had two early DNP-CDs), helping keep the groove going and keeping the offensively limited bench players in roles they can handle.

Nonetheless, the biggest factor here is likely the one I mentioned at the top of the story. Utah is overachieving on defense because Sloan demands nothing less, particularly from the subs who aren't expected to contribute heavily on offense. Essentially, the overt physicality on D is a means to an end: The Jazz will give up lots of free throws, but you'll never see what we saw in Cleveland on Thursday night.

The Jazz's second unit scores less than the starters, but their defensive numbers are phenomenal; despite sky-high foul rates for all except Elson, Utah gives up less than a point per possession (league-leading caliber) with any of those five on the court.

As long as Sloan can get elite-level D from a bench made up of castoffs and second-round draft picks, he'll get enough first-rate offense from Williams and Millsap to stay near the top of the West's upper crust ... and in doing so, may finally end his inexplicable Coach of the Year drought. In the wake of the total surrender we, um, Witnessed on Thursday night, watching his squad should provide a refreshing counter-example.

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