Utah Jazz: Sorting fact from fiction 10 games into the season
By John Keeffer
The Jazz will continue to lead the league in turnovers
The Jazz are second worst in the league in turnovers at 17.4 per game. To put that into a greater perspective, the Jazz average roughly 100 possessions a game, which means they are turning the ball over on close to 18 percent of their possessions.
For an offense like Utah’s, turnovers are absolutely unacceptable. Utah plays at an extremely slow pace, and on average takes the least amount of shots per game. With that being the case, they cannot afford to give the opposing team additional shot opportunities.
Perhaps the most disappointing loss of the season came at the hands of the Phoenix Suns. Turnovers were the main reason for that loss. They turned the ball over 24 times, or 23 percent of their possessions, because of this, they only took 77 shots to Phoenix’s 96 attempts. It is hard to score enough points to win a game, when the opposing team had 20 additional possessions.
The silver lining is that since the Lakers game the Jazz appear to have fixed the issue. Many of their turnovers were unforced turnovers, and those are issues that can be ironed out. If you look at the numbers from October 30th on, the Jazz are eighth in turnovers per game at only 14 per game. As long as they can continue to protect the ball at that rate, Utah’s turnover issues will be a thing of the past.