The Utah Jazz are in the midst of a stretch of brutal play that should have them looking to make whatever changes necessary to improve.
Make no mistake about it, the last three games have been far from pretty for the Utah Jazz.
After a lackluster effort against the Toronto Raptors last Friday which saw the Jazz drop their first game at home this season, they went on to be blown out by the Houston Rockets on the road on Sunday. Then, rather than bounce back once returning to the friendly confines of Vivint Smart Home Arena, the Jazz fell in perhaps their worst loss of the season to the Philadelphia 76ers who were without arguably their best player in Joel Embiid.
The trio of losses have featured dismal performances from the Jazz across the board as they’ve been unable to get going on either end of the floor. Their shooting efficiency has been putrid – 38.6 percent from the field and 31.3 percent from deep as a team – and several individual performances have been simply atrocious. For an example, look no further than these shooting numbers from the loss to Philly:
Jazz lose 104-97. Man, what a catastrophe. Some selected shooting nights for your perusal:
— Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) November 8, 2017
Donovan Mitchell 3-21 FG
Ricky Rubio 4-16 FG
Rodney Hood 4-13 FG
Joe Ingles 6-16 FG
Derrick Favors 2-7 FG
Raul Neto 1-5 FG
Alec Burks 0-3 FG
That’s pretty indicative of how the Jazz have looked in general lately. We knew that the offense was largely in question coming into this season, but especially after Utah showed promise early in the year on that end of the floor, I don’t think any of us truly believed it would get this bad. Nevertheless, here we are with the Jazz under .500 after 11 games and with several worrisome issues to work out.
It’s certainly early in the year – too early to panic – but the Jazz have displayed enough problems that there’s definitely reason for alarm. And while there’s no quick and easy fix for the Jazz to break out of their offensive struggles or instantly reignite their defense into the indomitable force that it was last season, it’s clear that Quin Snyder and Co. have to start experimenting right away to attempt to rectify what’s quickly turning into a dire situation for the team.
And although in no way do I claim to be wiser or more qualified than an experienced Jazz coaching staff, the following are items that, based on my observations, I believe the Jazz ought to attempt in order to jump start the team and hopefully spark some different results from what we’ve seen in recent outings.