The Jazz lost by 50, now what?

If you took time out of your night to watch the Utah Jazz play basketball yesterday, let me just say this: I’m sorry. I don’t wish that type of evil upon my very worst of enemies. The Jazz lost 118-68 to the Dallas Mavericks, in what was the worst loss in franchise history since moving to Utah. Their 68 points was the 10th fewest points ever scored in the history of the franchise, and fewest since January 2006. The Jazz lost by 50. FIFTY. FIVE-ZERO. How in the name of Jerry Sloan does that happen? They scored 22 points in the second half. TWENTY-TWO. They scored 9 points in the fourth quarter. At one point they had gone 10+ minutes without making a field goal. The scored 3 points off of 20 Dallas Maverick turnovers. Their shooting percentage splits of 31/17/63 was some of the worst shooting we have seen all year.

Not only did the Jazz get beat by fifty, literally every single player on the roster got punked at some point or another during the game last night. Whether it was Rudy Gobert air-balling free-throws and getting ball-faked to oblivion by Luka Doncic, or Dante Exum getting toasted by JJ Barea down the lane, or Ricky Rubio giving up a wide open 6-footer and throwing the ball straight into the stands; everything went wrong last night for the Utah Jazz. Joe Ingles was passing up wide-open threes for Jae Crowder fadeaway shots in the corner. Derrick Favors was dribbling balls off his knee with nobody around him. You name a player last night and I’ll tell you when they got fooled.

This was supposed to be the year the Jazz solidified themselves as the second best team in the West and the only legitimate threat to the Warriors. This was supposed to be the year the Jazz put a complete season together, winning all the games that they are supposed to. Yes, it’s early. It’s mid-November. But last night struck some serious worry into me for the first time this season. Thiis doesn’t mean that the Jazz can’t finish second in the west and still advance on to the conference finals. All of that is still definitely in play. But the odds of that happening are sure a lot less than they probably were before the season started.

Alright. Now that we have that out of our system, let’s move on. What in the world do we make from this loss last night? The Jazz are 7-7 and obviously there is plenty of time to get going. But how long does it take to accept that the Jazz aren’t the team that we thought they might be?

There is zero percent chance that I’m counting this team out. We know their potential and what they can do, because we literally saw it come to pass last season with the same personnel. Quin Snyder is too smart to not succeed. Rudy Gobert is too tough. Donovan Mitchell is too talented. They’ll figure it out. To quote the ever-wise DPOY Rudy Gobert himself “We will be fine”.

A recent piece on Dime Uproxx looked at Derrick Favors’ apparent struggles this season and whether or not his future remains in Utah.

The Joe Ingles head bandage game was still receiving it’s proper glory a few days following the event.

Raul Neto is making progress on his return, and has been working out with the SLC stars recently.

Ricky Rubio has had his fair share of struggles this NBA season, but that hasn’t stopped him from being a good person. Rubio recently shared his motivation to help cancer patients and what drives him to do good.