Utah Jazz vs Sydney Kings Recap: Utah rolls to a 25 point win.

The Utah Jazz gave Joe Ingles a wonderful birthday present as they start the preseason 1-0 easily beating the NBL Sydney Kings 108-83. Starting out the 1st quarter the Utah Jazz got out to a big lead through alley oops to Rudy Gobert and hot shooting from Rodney Hood.

Joe Ingles and Dante Exum looked great playing a team from their home country. Joe Ingles played great defense while showing that irrational confidence that made him so much fun to watch last season. Dante Exum continues to display his improvement as he easily can get to the hoop and find the open man as he forces the defense to collapse on him during his drives.

The night, though, truly belonged to Rudy Gobert and Rodney Hood. These two truly benefited from Ricky Rubio’s spectacular court vision. Rudy Gobert scored on alley oop after alley oop. One of which looked like he reached above the backcourt to slam it home.

Before the regular season, Quin Snyder had challenged Rodney Hood to take on the scoring mantle left by Gordon Hayward. Hood did not disappoint. He scored over 20 points in just over 20 minutes. For comparison’s sake, Gordon Hayward only scored 5 points tonight in 17 minutes.

Game Notes

Donovan Mitchell most likely pushed himself into the early Rookie of the Year conversation with just one preseason game. Mitchell was actually Quin Snyder’s first substitution off the bench and played well in this game. He had a jab step three and this amazing spin cycle.

Derrick Favors played well tonight, but spacing was an issue. Derrick Favors got the first points of the preseason with a nasty dunk to start out the game. This will be an interesting storyline to watch as the season goes on.

Ricky Rubio’s playmaking was on full display. Unfortunately, so was his shooting. Ricky Rubio had a rough shooting night as it didn’t look like his shot was falling. That might not be an issue against the Sydney Kings but against the brutal Western Conference teams will exploit that weakness.

The stats at Vivint SmartHome Arena were not updating. At the time of writing this, no official sports site actually has the box score of the game posted. That’s why you don’t see any official stats in this post. It’s even preseason for the stats people in Utah.

New #TakeNote Hub

On the front page of SLC Dunk you’ll notice a new section called #TakeNote. #TakeNote will be the go to place for any quick social media hits from awesome highlights of the most recent game to social media posts from Utah Jazz players throughout the week. They can even come from Dunkers like you. We’ll pick the best Fanshots (Fanshots can be a quick link to a social media post, quote, picture, or video) and add them to our #TakeNote Hub.