The Utah Jazz played a bad game of basketball on Monday night.
It was bad enough that after the game was over, Jazz head coach Will Hardy had this to say:
“This is the first game all season where I just feel disappointed in our focus. There’s always nights where the bounces don’t go your way, you don’t make shots, the other team plays great, and there was a little bit of that in tonight’s game, but I felt like collectively, we just did not have the necessary focus and attention on the little things.”
The Jazz have done a pretty good job this season of at least making it seem like they don’t give up and that no matter the circumstances in a game, they still fight and still try to the very end.
But on Monday against the Dallas Mavericks, who were incredibly shorthanded and dealing with the fact that a trade has changed their roster, the Jazz seemed to kind of hand the other team the reins to the game without any resistance.
Distractions + poor execution spiral = bad
Do the Jazz have reasons that they might be a little unfocused or distracted? Absolutely!
The majority of the players on the roster are understandably and legitimately distracted because they have been in trade rumors for months and there are only a few days left before the trade deadline is here.
The players can say that they try to block out all the outside noise and try to stay off social media, and they can say that they just come to work and do the job and understand that trades are all a part of the business of the NBA, but that’s all easier said than done.
Even players such as Mike Conley, who have dealt with this stuff for more than a decade, have trouble blocking all that out.
“It’s tough,” he said. “I don’t check Twitter and Instagram as often as the young guys, but you get a text from a family member that says, like, ‘Welcome to Chicago!’ or something like that, and I’m like, ‘I didn’t get traded to Chicago.’ But now all of a sudden, I’m thinking, ‘Am I getting traded to Chicago?’ So I go look it up or call my agent. It’s nonstop.”
So that’s what’s been bubbling under the surface for this team. Then they are facing a team in the Mavericks, who don’t have Spencer Dinwiddie or Dorian Finney-Smith anymore (because they’re on their way to Brooklyn), and they have a whole list of players sidelined because of injury (Luka Doncic, Davis Bertans, Maxi Kleber) and the Jazz think that they’re going to be able to sail to a win.
“It’s a good example of the NBA and that anybody can beat anybody,” Lauri Markkanen said. “They have some guys out, but they’re still all good NBA players and you’ve gotta respect that and just come out hard and not expect that they’re gonna give us anything.”
So the Jazz players are distracted and they’re a little too relaxed about the opponent and then you add in that they were not shooting the ball well against the Mavericks and just plain not executing the way they were supposed to on offense or defense.
There’s probably not a team in the NBA that can be unfocused and undisciplined and still win a basketball game. That’s just not how this works, so the Jazz got in their own way on Monday.
Unexplainable rebounding mistakes
One of the ways the Jazz really didn’t help themselves was on the glass. The Mavericks had 17 offensive rebounds that turned into 24 second-chance points.
As with almost any other bad thing that happens on a basketball court, you can explain away some of them, or at least live with them happening.
But for the most part the Jazz just completely lacked physicality and weren’t paying attention to their surroundings or the opposing players after shots went up.
Let’s take a look at some of the more egregious examples from Monday.
When the ball goes up on this shot from the right corner, there are four Jazz players who turn around and just watch the ball.
No one is trying to box out a player, no one is working to protect any kind of rebound attempt and that’s why Theo Pinson runs right into the middle of those Jazz players and grabs the rebound with ease.
One of the things that you might be thinking is that the Jazz, with so many tall players (at least four guys on the roster that are over 6-foot-11), should be able to rebound the ball better.
But this isn’t always about size or length. Honestly, some of the worst offenders are the smaller players, as we see in this next video.
Markkanen is actually one of the only players that is actively keeping a hand on an opposing player, trying to keep him from crashing in. Meanwhile, Collin Sexton has absolutely no idea where his man is.
Sexton just turns his back and literally makes a clearer path for his man to be able to run in and grab the ball.
Sexton does the exact same thing again here:
In this final video, four of the five Jazz players on the floor are in the paint when the ball goes up. Udoka Azubuike is returning from (kind of) closing out on the shooter but he’s still within the arc.
Malik Beasley gets a hand on A.J. Lawson, who is the only Dallas player anywhere near the basket, and still, the rest of the Jazz lineup is just standing around.
They don’t all need to be there. They don’t need five guys to secure a rebound (although with how bad they were on the glass, maybe they think they do). And since all five of them are just staring at the basket, it’s an easy decision for the Mavericks players to just stand on the perimeter and see if they can get a tap-out or a long rebound.
Worst case scenario for the Mavs here is that the Jazz get the rebound and then literally all five of them are still in the back court by the time Dallas is back on defense.
This is the kind of lack of focus that is frustrating. The Jazz players have to be more aware of their surroundings and the situation.
Thoughts on the Kyrie Irving trade
Despite all of his antics and controversy and the distractions he creates and the baggage that he brings to a team, Kyrie Irving is still an incredible basketball player.
I can understand wanting to have him on your team from a purely basketball point of view, and I don’t have a lot of doubts about how potent the Mavericks offense can be with him next to Doncic.
I’ve heard the concerns about having two ball-dominant players on the same roster before and I never think that’s a great argument. Great players are great, and when you put together more than one great player, they’ll figure it out.
But I think the concerns about Irving from a non-basketball point of view are absolutely valid.
The way that things ended for Irving in Cleveland, Boston and Brooklyn are all well-documented and the distractions and problems that he’s caused for his teams is also incredibly well-documented.
There’s no reason the Mavericks should think that they are going to be able to keep Irving on track.
A lot of people have brought up the fact that Irving’s contract expires at the end of the season and that the Mavericks are really risking a lot because he could very easily decide to leave and then they’ll be left with nothing after giving up quite a bit in the trade.
That’s actually not what I’d be worried about if I’m the Mavericks, because that’s obvious. That’s the risk they know they’re taking.
What I would be more worried about is if the Mavericks do really well this season, Doncic and Irving play like the superstars that they are and then Dallas signs Irving to a long-term, very expensive deal and then he does exactly what we all expect him to do (demand a trade, not show up, says something racist, cause some other controversy).
Then they are left with no flexibility and not really a lot of assets to try to move things around and finally there’s no one left who wants to deal with Irving, and so the Mavericks end up stuck.