Utah Jazz refuse to quit, come back in 4th to beat Brooklyn Nets

The Utah Jazz snagged a gutsy, “grind it out” win against the road weary Brooklyn Nets. It wasn’t pretty for the Jazz but as the old cliche goes, a win is a win. The Jazz were able to recover in this game after a horrendous defensive showing in the first half and falling behind to the hot shooting Nets 68-53. After a 13-0 run to open the second half, the Jazz seemed to be one step behind the Nets. A 10-2 run at the beginning of the 4th quarter tied the game at 94-94 and it was a back and forth affair for the rest of the way. The Jazz finally eked out the win in the end by putting the clamps down defensively and couple of timely put back buckets by Rudy Gobert.

The Nets showed up to this game with focus and energy after getting blown out by the Phoenix Suns on Sunday. The first half in particular was impressive as they carved up the vaunted Utah Jazz defense for 68 points. They Nets were successful in taking the Utah Jazz out of their offense as well which helped them to go on a 11-3 run to close the first half.

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Rational Reaction #1

This game was a display of how deep the Jazz can be on any given night. On a night when Joe Ingles was largely ineffective on offense and Bojan Bogdanovic stuggled at times, the Jazz got huge contributions from Jeff Green and Emmanuel Mudiay. The fact that this game was another ugly game and the Jazz managed to win should scare a lot of other teams in the NBA. I know the season is still early but I don’t think it’s irrational to believe that the Jazz are going to be very good in close game situations this year.

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Rational Reaction #2

Rudy is a beast! While it was a team effort for the Jazz to get back into this game after halftime, it is not a stretch to say that Rudy saved the Jazz in this game. In the fourth quarter when it looked like the Jazz were going to lose momentum and let the game slip away, Rudy not only saved them on the offensive end but he once again locked down the entire paint.

The Nets had a great shooting night but they were definitely hurt by not being able to get much around the rim down the stretch. Granted DeAndre Jordan got one too many offensive rebounds for most Jazz fans liking but Rudy definitely intimidated Brooklyn’s guards and made it way too hard for the Nets to get easy baskets.

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Overreaction #1

The Jazz couldn’t hit a three. This is a classic case of tired legs from the game last night. The Jazz looked tired after beating the Golden State Warriors yesterday so it’s not surprise that they didn’t have legs and couldn’t find their shot in the first half. They will be fine in plenty of time for their next showdown in Memphis on Friday.

Overreaction #2

The officiating against the Jazz in this game was horrible. This one comes with a twist. While there were some terrible calls that didn’t go the Jazz way, especially in the third quarter, I thought the officiating was rough overall against both teams. It’s hard to watch games where the referees are calling touch fouls and I thought that was the case pretty much all of the first half. We all know that officials have a tough job. The game is quick, the players are elite athletes, sometimes a ref may not have the best angle to see the foul or lack thereof, but this is also the highest level of officiating for referees. So we can expect some of these more blatant missed calls to be caught in the moment.

Underreaction of the game

This is a great win for the Jazz when you stop and think about it. The Jazz were on the second night of back to back after a taxing game the night before and then losing an hour of sleep before getting back out on the court not even 24 hours later. I know it’s only November but if the Jazz can take care of business in games like this consistently over the season then they are a really good team. I think they call this game a scheduled loss and more credit should be given to the Jazz for gutting it out!