SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz needed that win against the New York Knicks.
The 128-104 victory on Wednesday night did more than just add another number to the win column for the Jazz — it gave some much needed rest to the starters and a welcomed confidence boost to the bench.
Despite the fact that the Jazz have been on a tear lately, winning 12 of the last 13 games, eight of the games during that stretch have been decided by eight points or less. That’s meant a lot of heavy run for the starting unit and fewer opportunities for the bench.
Before Wednesday’s game, going back to Dec. 11 when the team’s hot streak started, the Jazz’s starters had logged the second highest minutes per game in the league at 34.2, behind only the Houston Rockets at 34.9 minutes per game.
In the blowout win over the Knicks, the only starter who played more than 26 minutes was Royce O’Neale, who clocked in with 29 minutes played.
After creating a pretty wide margin in the score, the reserves were able to put their own mark on the game.
“Whenever the starters can get out there and make that happen you’re very excited,” Georges Niang said Wednesday night. “Anytime you get a chance to play, especially in a situation — I don’t want to say there’s no pressure because you still have to make things happen — but you can get out there and play even more freely than you normally would, that’s exciting. It’s not only confidence for them, but it’s confidence for us.”
The more opportunities the bench can get to have meaningful and long minutes on the court the better for the overall development of the Jazz and, as Niang said, when there is a large lead and less pressure, that gives the players a better chance of succeeding because it’s not incumbent of the reserves to tackle a mountain.
The problem is that the NBA is unpredictable and doesn’t allow for those kinds of games every night. Jazz coach Quin Snyder noted that in the Jazz’s recent win over the Orlando Magic, while some of the starters were on the bench, Terrence Ross came in for Orlando and went on a scoring flurry.
“You’re not always going to have the result you want,” he said. “That wasn’t necessarily that group that was on the court not playing well. That was Terrence Ross.”
In those instances, which happen more often than not, the bench players have come out of the game to allow the starters a chance to regain the edge.
The flip side of that is that an elite NBA team will have a bench that does not balk at a close game and is able to maintain or even grow a lead when they are subbed in. It can become a vicious cycle because in order to have the confidence to play like an elite bench, they need more nights like Wednesday.
“We’re trying to keep our group connected and keep everybody as fresh as we can,” Snyder said after the win over the Knicks. “Tonight we were able to spread some minutes around and that is a good thing.”
It’s also encouraging for the Jazz that even though the bench hasn’t been able to get out and run that much as of late, they have still stayed ready and been able to produce when called upon.
“Our bench is doing a really good job,” Snyder said. “You go into every game a little bit different based on matchups, but our guys are connected.”
With six of the next seven games against sub-.500 teams, including their Friday home contest against the Charlotte Hornets, the Jazz have a really nice opportunity in front of them to get the starters some rest and the bench playing at an even higher level before they take on the tougher part of the 2019-20 schedule.