How exactly are the Jazz winning? They lost Boozer, Okur, Kyle Korver and Wesley Matthews. They are 28th in the NBA in defensive rebound rate.

They "annually either lead the league in fouls and opponent free throws or come very close.

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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.

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In particular, Utah has enjoyed tremendous defensive success with a bench that looked very weak on paper entering the season.

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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."

I hate to say it but i've always had a lot of jazz envy. A system that seems to always carve us up for layups on O. A physical punishing D. Maybe they hit a nerve with me because they emphasize everything i see missing from the blazers. Even when they aren't better than us i still feel that twinge of envy every time we play..