NEW YORK — The Utah Jazz beat the New York Knicks. That’s what was supposed to happen.
It makes it a little more difficult for the Jazz to reflect or review film and gain any sort of grand insight when they beat a bad team. It makes it difficult, but not impossible.
There were two things that really stood out on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden for the Jazz in their 112-104 win — their ball movement, and Mike Conley’s progress.
“We want that to be who we are,” Jazz head coach Quin Snyder said after the game. “We talk about unselfishness... It requires more than just being willing to move the ball — it takes work to space, to re-space sometimes, you have to use fakes sometimes; there’s a lot of nuances to being able to move the ball. It’s not something you just kind of decide to do, and magically do. Our guys are committed to it, and it’s good to see.”
The Jazz closed out the night with 26 assists on 41 made shots, marking the third straight game with more than half of their shots assisted.
It’s no coincidence that those three games have all been wins for the Jazz and that in the three games leading up to their current win streak, 50 percent or more of their shots came from unassisted plays.
“I love it,” Rudy Gobert said of ball movement the Jazz have displayed as of late. “I think that’s the way that we should play every night, that’s Jazz basketball, that’s our brand, and we’ve been able to do it against teams that maybe are not contending teams and now we have to do it every night and we have to keep doing it even when things get tough. I think if we keep trusting one another and keep communicating on the defensive end and moving the ball offensively, we’re a very good team.”
For the Knicks, a young team that seems to be consistently in turmoil or controversy, and who are currently trying to find some semblance of culture under interim head coach Mike Miller, the silver lining is that when you play a team like the Jazz, who execute and move the ball with ease, it can become a teachable moment.
“There are some things we can learn from that execution-wise,” veteran forward Taj Gibson said Wednesday night. “They were real patient, you can tell with how they were moving the ball, constantly getting to their spots, getting to their plays... You can see it, they are a playoff team trying to sharpen up.”
As far as ball movement goes, Conley was a huge part of that against the Knicks. He finished the game with 17 points and six assists with just one turnover.
One of Conley’s assists came on a drive around multiple defenders before throwing the ball up to a trailing Tony Bradley, which was a play that Snyder pointed to as his favorite of the night.
Conley’s continued progression in finding his way with the Jazz not only helps in tangible ways on the court but gives the rest of the team something to feed off of.
“He really starts the game looking out for his teammates and as a point guard he gets us all going,” Gobert said of his teammate. “Then when the second unit comes in you can see that he’s attacking the rim, shooting his shots, and that’s what we need. I think he’s really controlling the tempo for us and finding his groove again. I think the injury probably took out his rhythm a little bit, but tonight we saw the real Mike.”
Even though the Jazz improved their record to 39-22 on the season and won their third consecutive game, the fact remains that each of those three wins have come against subpar teams and though there are positive things to glean from those wins, Donovan Mitchell is leaning toward tempering confidence gained from beating the league’s lower performing teams.
“I think the biggest thing is just continuing to play aggressive. I said in Cleveland I don’t want to get too high, no disrespect to teams we play, but these are games where we should come out on top,” he said after topping the Knicks. “We have a test coming up against Boston, and we’ve got to keep the same energy, we’ve got to continue to play the same way even against tougher teams especially a team like Boston.”
Mitchell noted that he can tend to be overly critical sometimes but it’s a sign of leadership and maturity from the third-year player that he has expectations for himself and of his team that even when they are winning he believes they can do more and be better.
That’s the kind of attitude that it’s going to take, especially as the schedule moves away from lottery teams and toward the league’s postseason contenders.