SALT LAKE CITY — Monday night’s opening preseason game against the Sydney Kings will be more about discovery than anything else for the Utah Jazz basketball team.
Of course the Jazz would like to win the game against the professional team from the Australian National Basketball League, but coach Quin Snyder is excited to see how his team responds to competition after a week of preseason camp.
“We’re going to use the game to find out more about us,” he said after Monday’s shootaround. “We’re going to be in discovery mode a little bit and adjust and find out more about our team and adjust again and continue that process.”
Snyder didn’t announce a starting lineup, but it’s expected to be one of the groups that started in the Friday scrimmage at Hill Air Force Base with Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors inside, with Joe Ingles and Rodney Hood on the wings and Ricky Rubio at the point.
The fourth-year Jazz coach said he wants to see how his team, which consists of several new players, including Rubio, Thabo Sefalosha and Donovan Mitchell, is meshing together.
“It’s boring sometimes to say I want us to be unselfish and to say I want to see us compete,” Snyder said. “I want to see how connected we are as a team on the defensive end. I want to see where we are defensively.”
The Jazz have also worked on being a little more uptempo this season, which is something Snyder will watch Monday night.
“I want to see us in the open floor,” he said. “There’s some things we’ve worked on and we’ll get feedback tonight.”
Snyder said there will be no minutes restrictions for any players because of injuries, but he may limit the minutes of Rubio, who was playing in international competition in September.