Jazz Nation still reeling from loss to Mavericks

It’s been well over 24 hours since the sweet release of the final buzzer ended the complete and utter nightmare that was the Utah Jazz’s 118-68 loss to the Dallas Mavericks. And yet, the bad taste it left in the mouths of Jazz fans everywhere hasn’t quite been washed out. A game tonight against the 76ers will give fans and media something else to talk about. But given how underwhelming the season has been so far, it may not be something new.

Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune called the loss a “wake-up call” and also said this poor stretch is not longer subject to the small sample size argument.

They haven’t been very good yet through this season. And it’s no longer really that small of a sample size, either. Fully one-sixth of the season has already been completed.

Yes, they have a 7-7 record, which is bad, if non-catastrophic. There are asterisks on many of those wins, though. They beat Houston without Chris Paul, the Pelicans without Anthony Davis, the Celtics without Kyrie Irving. Beyond that they’ve defeated the Mavericks twice, Memphis once and Sacramento once. That’s, well, not a very impressive lineup of teams when you look at it, even if the Kings and Grizzlies are playing better than they did last season.

The full article can be found here provided the link works.

From the other Salt Lake paper we get Eric Woodyard’s article which included a section about Donovan Mitchell’s struggles and an insightful quote from the Darrell Griffith

After a breakout rookie season, Mitchell has returned to average 20.5 points, 3.7 assists and 3.7 rebounds on just 43.7 percent shooting. Sure, his numbers are slightly better than last year’s 20.4 points, 4.3 assists and 2.8 rebounds on 41.4 percent shooting, but former Jazzman and fellow Louisville alumnus Darrell Griffith advises him to expand his game if he wants to become one of the true greats in franchise history.

“Look in the mirror, turn around and look at that bulls-eye on your back because you’re a marked man now and it makes it even harder,” Griffith said of Mitchell last week. “So, you’ve got to work even harder.

“You’ve got to start learning how to diversify your game,” he added. “He needs to work on all facets of his game, especially offensively without relying so much on the 3-pointer and going to the hole. He’s got to develop a midrange game to balance everything out. Once he does that, he’s going to be smooth sailing.”

Again, full article — which includes quotes from Rudy Gobert and Mitchell — can be found here.

If you’d like more of a rant from your sports coverage, you could head over to Deadspin where Patrick Redford took a pretty blunt approach to what’s been going on.

Through 14 games, Utah has been mediocre as hell! They’re 7-7, good for tenth in the Western Conference. That could be worse, given that they have played the NBA’s sixth-hardest schedule, but reaching that level of mediocrity hasn’t been a pretty process.

So in yesterday’s downbeat, Taylor shared a link to an article that asked the question “Is Derrick Favors still a part of Utah’s future.”

Well...Favors noticed that article.

Gotta feel sorry for the guy. This has been a yearly thing for half of his career in Utah.

There’s a new piece of art in downtown Salt Lake City. For Jazz fans there can now see the completed mural by artist Trent Call. His hope was to capture the history of the franchise in the 3,400-square foot mural. Here’s a time lapse that includes a link to a short article with some more details.