The Utah Jazz got pounced on early and often by the Orlando Magic in this game. And there's a lot that we can learn from this. The first, most obvious point, is that it's hard to win a game when you are missing three starters: Dante Exum, Rodney Hood, and Rudy Gobert. It's also hard to win when you are on the second night of a back to back, when the other team was at home waiting for you. It's also hard to win when it's the third game in four nights, but, hey, these are professionals. So let's stop making excuses for them. No, I am not done making excuses for this team yet. The Jazz committed 8 turn overs in the first quarter, and Derrick Favors picked up two cheap fouls early -- and really the team was back on their heels for most of the game, falling behind by over 20 in the second quarter.
Sure, you can call this one a disappointment after losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers by only four, and losing to the Miami Heat by just one. But, with all the situational issues here -- the on court production had to be almost perfect to make this a game. It was not. Alec Burks, in his first start of the season, shot very poorly -- 2/13. In addition to that I don't think that he can guard Evan Fournier. Fournier had a great game. Burks just isn't making the layups he is used to making. I don't know why that is. His quickness is there, or perhaps it's even faster than normal this season -- but he's just not getting it done in the paint. Gordon Hayward had a solid game, but to what end? He was a -17 in +/-, worst on the team. He and Alec combined to shoot 2/8 from deep in a game where perhaps they needed to make a few more.
There were bright spots, of course. Trey Lyles started his second game of his career, and he got a little loose in garbage time. Jeff Withey also got into the game, and responded with some very productive minutes off the bench -- 8 points, 7 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 1 steal in 24 minutes. Trey Burke continues to be a scoring reserve, dialing it up for 16 points and 4 assists, though he left a few at the line tonight. Starter Raul Neto had a number of nice passes, but most of his work came in garbage time as well. Joe Ingles is still capable of making the deep ones.
It was a nice comeback in garbage time (a 7 point game at once point!) that got the final score to be what it was -- but Orlando was up by 23, again, in the early 4th quarter. Quin Snyder played everyone he could in this game and there was a lot of experimenting going on. It's going to be interesting if there are any long-term gains from this game going forward.