Utah Jazz at Oklahoma City Thunder: Keys to the Game

Key Match-up – Dante Exum and Russell Westbrook

George Hill has missed two straight games with a lingering toe issue and his status for Saturday’s bout against the Thunder has yet to be revealed. Benefitting from an extra day of rest may very well bode well for Hill and the Jazz, but given the time he’s missed this season and particularly recently because of the toe, there’s no guarantee that he will be in action.

However, regardless of whether Hill plays and therefore takes over the lion’s share of minutes matched up against Russell Westbrook or not, the key match-up that I have pinned for tomorrow’s game is actually between Dante Exum and the Thunder’s superstar point guard.

If Hill is sidelined once again and Exum gets the nod as starter, this is an obvious one as the primary responsibility of containing Westbrook will then fall to Dante. However, even if Hill plays and Exum becomes the first point guard off the bench, his success or failure against Westbrook could still very well determine the outcome of the game.

In Utah’s consecutive losses to the Thunder, part of the Jazz’s issue has been an absolute inability to contain Westbrook with Hill on the bench as well as the second unit’s failure to capitalize on the minutes when the Thunder guard is resting himself. Don’t get me wrong, to be perfectly honest Hill hasn’t done all that great at slowing Westbrook either, but when Exum has been in the game, you can almost sense Westbrook just licking his chops.

In the most recent meeting between these two teams, from the instant Exum stepped on the floor, Westbrook went right at him anxious to take easy advantage of the young Jazz guard. Westbrook had no problem dealing with Exum who quickly got into foul trouble and Coach Snyder was almost immediately forced to pull him. Exum finished the game with just nine minutes played and was a team low -9 in those brief minutes.

Therefore, particularly if Hill is out, if the Jazz hope to have any chance of competing with the Thunder and stopping their prolific star, they’ll need a much better performance out of Dante Exum.

There’s no way to expect Dante to outscore Westbrook or match wits with him on the offensive end, but if he can simply do a better job defensively and prevent Westbrook from getting easy baskets and outright bullying him, then that in itself will provide a huge lift for a Jazz team that has only lost to the Thunder by the narrowest of margins.

To be perfectly honest (and I’m risking the wrath of several embittered Jazz fans by even mentioning this name), Shelvin Mack who only played in the first contest against OKC is actually the Jazz point guard who has done the best against Westbrook defensively (he was a team-high +20 on the night).

https://twitter.com/utahjazz/status/809259931379503104

This could be very well be due more to the fact that Westbrook had an off night than Mack locking him down, but it’s still without a doubt interesting to consider.

Although Mack will likely be out once again with a sprained ankle, the Utah Jazz should still be willing to mix things up if Dante can’t keep step. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing Raul Neto log some minutes defending Westbrook. Having a pesky and relentless defender like Neto on him could very well fluster him into taking poor shots and making ill-advised passes, which is exactly what Utah needs to force if they hope to win.

Thus if Dante falters once again, Neto could prove to be exactly what the Jazz need. After all, following Neto’s two-block performance against the Rockets, Rudy Gobert himself did dub the Brazilian point guard the deserving DPOY: