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Thoughts about the OKC Game

I was able to go to the game last night and I wanted to quickly jot down my thoughts on what I saw.

The Good

  • Trey Burke - he was hitting shots and getting to the line. I wasn't always a fan of where his shots came from, but I can't complain about the results. The offense had a much better flow when he was playing point, especially in the second half.
  • Rodney Hood - He had a bit of a slow start, but came on strong at the end of the game. He flat out took over in moments and got whatever he wanted. With a little more experience and consistency, he'll be special.
  • Disruption defense - This was the most evident to me. The Jazz racked up 14 steals, and a lot of them came from hassling the ball-handler. There were a few instances where fouling was also used to disrupt OKC's offensive flow. Hayward and Ingles both had moments where they fouled their man in the backcourt to prevent the offense from building momentum within a possession.

The Bad

  • Rebounding - The Jazz will have to dominate the glass to win games this year because we don't have a lot of offensive firepower, but they didn't do it last night. Steven Adams and Russell Westbrook killed the Jazz on the boards. Favors didn't look interested in getting rebounds, and Gobert seemed to more interested in complaining about getting boxed out than he did about getting good position.
  • Derrick Favors - He was completely invisible on both sides of the ball. His best stretch came when he played center during a period of small ball, but even that was forgettable.
  • The first 3 minutes - The Jazz looked completely lifeless at the start of the game and it led to a 10 point deficit within the first few minutes. The rest of the game the Jazz played pretty well and had some solid runs. If they hadn't gotten into such a hole at the beginning, it likely would have been a competitive game.

The Ugly

  • Rudy Gobert - He was dominated by Steven Adams all game long. Adams pushed him out of position regularly. He took rebounds that Rudy should have held on to, and got wherever he wanted on offense. It's no wonder that Rudy was a game low -27, he was completely out classed on the court.
  • The offense - The Jazz couldn't buy a bucket in the first half. At one point the Jazz were shooting 31% from the field, at the same point OKC was shooting 57% overall, and 55% from 3. The entire offense looked terrible. There was little movement, few passes (only 11 total assists, and I was surprised it was that many), no offensive boards, and no chemistry. Everyone looked like they were just playing for themselves.
  • Westbrook and Durant - This is more on how phenomenal they were than anything the Jazz did. Durant was amazing, he played like he could have beat the Jazz by himself. Any time the Jazz started to run, Durant killed our momentum with a seemingly effortless jumper, despite the defense. Westbrook was the same way. He was the game's leading rebounder from the get go (yeah, their point guard out rebounded Favors and Gobert combined, and it was obvious). Westbrook also blew by anyone guarding him and completely collapsed our defense at will.

Despite all the problems, it was fun to go to the game, and the Jazz played well enough in the second half to keep the game interesting. I saw some good things (the Jazz did really well in forcing OKC to settle for long 2s, OKC just hit all of them), but they were definitely overwhelmed by a very talented Thunder. Even though the game was fun, I'm glad it's only preseason as the Jazz have a lot of work to do if they're going to compete with the top teams in the west.

All comments are the opinion of the commenter and not necessarily that of SLC Dunk or SB Nation.