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I can understand that many fans are upset right now. The Utah Jazz (34-22) were defeated at home by the Los Angeles Clippers (34-21) by the final score of 88-72. I am going to keep this short and sweet. Right now the Utah Jazz are not playing very well. They blew out the Atlanta Hawks and New Orleans Pelicans, both huge wins; and now have dropped games to the Dallas Mavericks, Boston Celtics, and Los Angeles Clippers. The last two games were not even in contention. The first loss, to the Mavericks, came after the Jazz dropped a 20+ lead, ultimately falling in overtime.
Only Rodney Hood has been missing. Not four starters.
It’s not supposed to be like this. But it is.
The Wire “You want it to be one way” scene with Marlo (NSFW Language) — Sometimes the bad guys just end up winning. And that’s just how it is.
This is a Jazz team that is consistently losing to real (TM) playoff contenders. It’s a learning process. It’s not the end of the world. But it’s not great right now. Furthermore, this is a Jazz team that is not playing well in these last three games.
Tonight the team shot .322 / .174 / .667. I don’t think ALL OF THAT is because the Clippers are the greatest defensive team of all time. A LOT OF THAT has to be the Jazz missing. And tonight there were a lot of misses:
- George Hill 2/11
- Joe Ingles 2/4
- Gordon Hayward 2/12
- Derrick Favors 5/11
- Rudy Gobert 5/12
And here’s the bench:
- Dante Exum 4/8 and Raul Neto 1/1
- Alec Burks 3/8
- Joe Johnson 2/6
- Trey Lyles 0/9
- Boris Diaw 2/3
It’s not just about makes. There’s more to winning a game than just making shots. Rebounding. Defense. Communicating. Not making the silly mistakes. Not giving up. But when you simply the game it’s about putting the orange thing through the hoop. And right now the Jazz aren’t doing that at a competitive level.
I’m not going to start pointing fingers, but this team needs to find themselves. They prevailed through harder situations — a bad early schedule with multiple injures. They had that disadvantage and still are in range of homecourt in the first round.
They just need to play better. Losing three in a row hurts. But it’s not the end of the season. It’s not even the All-Star break yet.
Utah has one more game, at home on Wednesday, before the break. They will host the Portland Trail Blazers.