Jorge Gutierrez: The Un-Point Guard

Gutierrez has the best defensive court vision of any Cal player in recent memory. When he’s on the ball, he plays like a bump-up-and-run cornerback, disrupting his man’s rhythm by bodying directly up against him. When he’s off the ball, he plays like a free-safety, reading the ball-handler and his man, and playing passing lanes and weak-side defense expertly. If my kid grows up to play basketball, I would show him videos of Jorge Gutierrez to teach him how to play defense.

Three of his steals, in particular stood out for me today — I don’t have the game taped, so excuse the total lack of knowledge re: Stanford’s player’s names.

The first one was the steal on a cross-court pass near end of the first half, where Gutierrez was playing weak-side D down near the baseline with the ball out on the opposite side above the elbow near the 3-point line; the ball-handler looked to the post, Gutierrez cheated down, the ball-handler then looked cross-court to Gutierrez’s man and, like a free-safety, Gutierrez read the passer’s eyes, jumped the passing lane, and got a steal leading to a fastbreak.

The second was the steal on a pick-and-roll in the second half, where one of Stanford’s big men set a pick right above the free-throw line, Gutierrez’s man ran him off the pick, and Gutierrez rolled with the picker (as though he were the offensive player), and stole the pass, leading to another fastbreak.

The last was (I believe) also in the second half, when he came out aggressively on one of Stanford’s guards on the sideline on the near side of the court (I watched the game on TV, so the near side from the TV camera’s vantage point), stole the ball, and then Stanford’s player grabbed his jersey for a foul (thwarting another fastbreak).

All three of those steals demonstrated an understanding of something a lot of players forget about when they’re on the defensive side of the floor: how the offense works. On the pick-and-roll, Gutierrez wassn’t just thinking about playing his man, he was thinking about what the offense was trying to do (run a pick and roll), reading that (rolling with the big man into the lane), and then making a defensive play based on his knowledge and instincts of what the offense was doing. On the cross-court pass, he wasn’t just clued in on his own man, instead he read the post-play first (inching down into the lane), then he reacted back to the cross-court pass knowing he had time to recover to the weak-side (where his man was); providing help in the post, while still playing great defense on his own man. (This aspect of Jorge’s game is particularly key on THIS team, which is weak inside defensively. Any sort of disruption the Jorge can cause in our opponent’s post game is extremely valuable to guys like Kamp, Boykin, and Wilkes. Theo, Jorge, and Jerome are all doing a good job of helping when their men are on the weak-side of the court, which is a testament to Monty’s coaching… Jorge just takes it to the Troy Polamalu-Ed Reed level because his instincts are so ridiculous.)

The last thing about Jorge’s defense, a sort of multiplier which makes Jorge’s defense even more valuable than the sum of its parts, is that it gets the team in transition more frequently — 5 steals and I’m not sure how many other defensive plays that led to missed shots and/or turnovers (plus his 8 rebounds) means Jerome Randle (and the rest of our team) gets out in the open floor more, and a spread out defense is Jerome Randle’s best friend.

(Speaking of open floor, great move by Monty shifting our offensive set out to the side of the court in the second half; reminded me of the way Nebraska used to use Tommy Frazier in their option offense when the hash marks were farther apart than they are now; start Jerome on the left-side of the floor, bring Kamp up to run the pick-and-roll; Stanford’s defense now has two options — Jerome’s man can fight through the pick, in which case he’ll be off-balance and probably a little behind Jerome already, in other words, Jerome wins; or, Kamp’s man can hedge out and try to cover Jerome, but that would just be ugly, sort of a Rick Smits tries to cover Chris Paul one-one-one from half court, I’m picturing a twisted ankle or some sort of blooper-reel video; I was a little surprised Dawkins didn’t counter Monty’s all-small lineup with an all-small lineup of his own, might have helped slow down the Jerome Randle Express.)