Defense will make you a contender and will win you championships, but even the best teams need to score points. Right now the Jazz can't buy a bucket. Part of that comes from this quote from Deron,
We don't know the offense.
Part of that is Deron's own frustration that his shots aren't falling. Through 2 games, he's shooting 27%. The team is shooting just barely over 40%. The only one shooting worth anything is Millsap. You could have used all of the fingers in the ESA last night to count how many bunnies were missed. The frustration comes because none of the players know how to fix it.
Raja, one of the worst offenders on offense, may be finally getting it,
Tonight, I can only speak for myself, but I was just trying to do too much; passing up a shot trying to make the perfect pass. Sometimes, when you do that, it’s worse than if you had just put it up on the rim.
It really looks like they're playing for the first time together, ever. They started playing together a couple of weeks before training camp, then had a month of pre-season and camp, and they still don't look like they have things down. Look, we expected them to take a while to come together but we also expected an improvement on the pre-season where the first team looked pretty good when they were out there.
Millsap admitted after the game that there was no chemistry on the court and that he's at a loss as to why they've struggled so much after a successful pre-season.
The only way that's going to get better is through better practices. We know Jerry will run them ragged.
Right now though, we're in serious jeopardy of falling to 0-3 after Sunday. All we can look for now is improvement from game to game.
Hopefully this will take your mind off things for 21 seconds
Kelly Dwyer (Yahoo!) on the Jazz,
There's no spark, no quickness, and no sense of urgency with this team. The Jazz have sort of let the game come to them over the last two games, with the problem being that the Nuggets and Suns feel as if they have something to prove even this early in the season, and the Jazz just haven't been able to meet the intensity. Meet anything, really. The offense is far from crisp, and the defense is a step slow.
...
[T]he Jazz just seemed to be on the sort of cold medicine you have to show your driver's license to buy.
CutTheMop.com is here.
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