CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A stone-faced Quin Snyder addressed the media following the Utah Jazz’s 119-111 victory against the Charlotte Hornets on Friday night.
As strong as the Jazz’s offense looked, shooting a near season-high 54.3 percent, Snyder chose to dissect the opposite end of the floor.
“I thought they got in the lane too much,” Snyder said of Charlotte. “Obviously, we were focused on some things defensively that we did a good job of, but I’d like to see us just contain the ball more.”
Charlotte connected at a 49.5 percent clip, fueled by a 24-point performance by Jeremy Lamb. All-Star point guard Kemba Walker also added 21 points and seven rebounds but went 1-for-6 from beyond the arc.
Jazz star Donovan Mitchell ended with a game-high 30 points, six rebounds and six assists on 12-for-22 shooting and felt the offense carried the team Friday night to clean up the defensive mishaps.
“Just keeping the ball in front,” Mitchell said of the defensive mistakes. “I think Tony (Parker) got a few drives, a lot of drives down the basket … but you know we can’t keep saying ‘Big Fella’s got it, oh Big Fella’s got it,’ (Rudy Gobert) we’ve got to do our part. We’ll work on it, we’ll continue to fix it, but we’ve got to guard our positions.”
Outside of the Jazz building a winning streak entering the last of a three-game road trip in Miami on Sunday, it was significant, with Kyle Korver making his debut with the Jazz this season. Korver was acquired Thursday after being traded from Cleveland for Alec Burks and a pair of future second-round draft picks.
He helped space the floor with 14 points off the bench on 4-for-6 shooting from behind the 3-point line in the beginning of his second tenure with the Jazz. Korver nailed his first triple off a Rudy Gobert screen/assist at 4:42 in the first quarter, which set the tone for his performance.
“It’s good to get one up early and glad it went down,” Korver said of nailing the first shot. “It kind of sets good tone in the game for me, and I just want to come out and be aggressive.
“I knew what I was doing maybe a quarter of the time, I’ve got a lot of film to watch and a lot of things to learn, but it was a good win for our team, and a lot of guys shot the ball well. Jae (Crowder) was great, and I think we can get a lot better,” he added.
Crowder was big off the bench with 24 points and seven assists, tying his career high of six 3-pointers made as Gobert finished with 20 points, 17 rebounds and four blocked shots.
As impressive as the team looked spacing the floor on offense, with the addition of Korver, Snyder didn’t get too excited about the win.
Prior to the Jazz’s back-to-back wins at Brooklyn and now Charlotte, Utah dropped six of its previous eight, so he knows how things can change.
“Well, we’re just not going to overact, OK,” he stated bluntly. “We’re going to keep playing, and we’ve got to play defense.”