Defense hasn’t traveled with the Jazz this season, leading to lots of losses on the road

Denver • Fresh off logging 11,221 miles on nine road games in December, the Jazz will again be racking up airline points in the new year.

The team estimates that its eight January road games will take them 10,189 miles. Seeing the criss-crossing flight patterns on a map of country doesn’t quite tell the story as much as Quin Snyder’s deep sighs when he talks about trying to keep fresh on yet another road-heavy stretch.

“The distance can have an impact with time zones — that’s the main thing,” he said. “You try to mitigate that with how we schedule things. But that’s the main impact. I think guys end up sleeping on the plane. I know the coaches end up watching a lot of film. In some sense, you get something done, so to speak, but it is what it is.”

Wherever the schedule dictates, the Jazz (16-22) will travel. But one thing that hasn’t always traveled with Utah is defense.

There is no team in the NBA whose defensive statistics fluxuate more wildly than Utah’s depending on where they play. At Vivint Smart Home Arena, the Jazz are elite with a 99.0 defensive rating, which is the best in the NBA against a home schedule. But on the road, they fall to 110.8 — tied for the third-worst.

That translates to these records: The Jazz are 13-7 at home, but an NBA-worst 3-15 in road games — arguably one of the biggest factors holding them back in the Western Conference playoff race. The five teams ahead of the Jazz in the standings each have at least seven road wins, but Utah has struggled to break through.

“We’re going to figure it out,” Rodney Hood said. “We just got to figure it out quickly.”

A few potential explanations leap to mind: Is it missing Rudy Gobert? That probably doesn’t explain the gap, given that Gobert has only played two more home games this season (10) than road games (8).

It’s worth pointing out that Utah has also faced some of the best offensive teams away already, including four of the top five in offensive rating: the Rockets (twice), the Warriors, the Cavaliers and the Timberwolves. But by the same token, the Rockets, the Cavs, the Timberwolves and the Raptors have already come to Salt Lake City.

Two specific games may help skew the numbers: When the Jazz gave up 137 points on the road to Houston, and when they held the Washington Wizards to a paltry 69 at home. But even as outliers, the games represent an issue the Jazz feel they have on defense: At home, they can rise with the energy of the crowd. On the road, they struggle to defend with the same tenacity.

“I think the energy that our crowd gives us at home — our guys respond,” Snyder said. “We’ve got to be able to generate that without the crowd.”

The answer Snyder points to is developing habits that they have at home. The Jazz allow opponents to shoot better, particularly inside the arc jumping from 47.0 percent on 2-point attempts at home to 54.1 percent on the road. That doesn’t necessarily hang on any one player — all Jazz players averaging at least 18 minutes per game have a defensive road rating of 105 or higher (center Ekpe Udoh has the best rating in this particularly category). But there seems to be more breakdowns on the road than at home, leading to easier baskets.

The Jazz know that feeling well from their recent road trip, when both Denver and Golden State started penetrating more in the second half and opening up big leads in two road losses to end December.

Their latest trip begins in Denver, before the Jazz jaunt off to Miami, Washington D.C. and Charlotte. None of the games figure to be easy. They’d like to get off to a better start than their last visit to Pepsi Center.

“We’re a young team that’s growing, man,” Joe Johnson said. “We got a lot of guys that are in new positions and filling voids and doing things they haven’t done their whole career. Obviously there’s gonna be a learning curve or something we can work on and get better at. We’re trying to do that.”