10/30 Utah Jazz vs. Dallas Mavericks: Keys to the Game

Key #3 – STOP WITH THE TURNOVERS!

I’ve addressed it again and again, and fortunately Utah was able to topple the Los Angeles Lakers last week despite turning the ball over 21 times, but the Jazz’s carelessness with the ball has been an absolute area of concern. Their 24 turnovers against the Phoenix Suns essentially lost them the game and their incredibly high rate of giveaways has been extremely detrimental all season long.

The Jazz officially sit at the very bottom of the NBA in turnovers as they’re averaging an embarrassing 19.7 per game. That is furthermore leading to an abysmal 23.7 opponent points off turnovers per game, which is also the worst mark in the league.

Turnovers are typically one of the main factors that allow a bad team to beat a good team, so even though one would suppose that the Jazz should be heavy favorites in terms of talent over the Mavericks, if Utah continues to turn the ball over at the outrageous rate that they have thus far, that will just set the Jazz up for failure.

Fortunately, the Mavs are currently just 25th in the league in points off of turnovers per game (15.0), 21st in steals per game (7.6) and 19th in opponent turnovers per game (15.6), so hopefully the Jazz can catch a break in the turnover department against them and use that to build a rhythm and set a precedent moving forward.