Is this rock bottom? Utah Jazz embarrassed at home by Indiana Pacers

The Utah Jazz suffered one of their most disappointing losses of the season on Monday night as they were embarrassed at home by the Indiana Pacers.

Coming into Monday’s game between the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers, I had predicted that the Pacers would win in a closely contested match-up. Well, it turns out I was half right. The Pacers did indeed win, but it was far from a close game as instead Indiana ran away with a dominant 109-94 victory on Utah’s home court.

And it wasn’t so much the loss itself that was concerning, but rather the fashion in which the Jazz lost. All night long they seemed out of sync, absolutely drained of any sort of energy and completely lacking in effort.

To put it bluntly, it was a pathetic showing and perhaps their most embarrassing loss of the season. Frankly, I’m struggling to find the words to describe how bad it was, so before I give my thoughts, I’ll let a handful of on-point Twitter reactions tell the entire story:

Yep… these tweets perfectly tell the story. The game was THAT bad.

Donovan Mitchell of course had another superb outing as he scored 23 points on 8-of-16 shooting, Ekpe Udoh provided a nice lift off the bench as he usually tends to with his solid defense and finished the game with a team-high plus/minus of +15, and despite a tough shooting night, Royce O’Neale gave it his all and really helped the Jazz close the gap in the second quarter.

Derrick Favors also had a good outing with 16 points on 66.7 percent shooting, but he was a -30 for the night and his focus seemed to come and go. Other than those things, though, little else went well for the Utah Jazz.

Rodney Hood bounced back somewhat late in the game once it was already out of hand, but that couldn’t make up for his slow start. Ricky Rubio went a dismal 1-of-7 from the field with zero assists and the Pacers largely didn’t even bother guarding him. Joe Ingles, who has been awful of late, put up just one shot on which he didn’t convert. And no one else on the roster really did anything of note.

Utah finished the game shooting 44.4 percent from the field and an awful 27.3 percent from deep. Prior to the game, I gave my three keys that would lead to a Jazz victory – winning the third quarter, defending the three-point line and stopping Victor Oladipo – and, unfortunately, they were unable to find success in any one of them.

The Jazz once again had a poor third quarter showing as they were outscored 27-18, they allowed Indiana to thrive from three-point land as they went 14-of-26 (53.8 percent) from deep and Oladipo absolutely had his way as he finished the night with 28 points on 9-of-16 shooting and 5-of-8 from behind the arc. Many of those three-point shots that he made were either wide open or poorly contested.

Furthermore, Domantas Sabonis (15 points), Thad Young (17 points) and Cory Joseph (15 points) all had big nights for the Pacers as well. In short, the Jazz were thoroughly dominated as Indiana’s up-tempo play in transition, hot shooting and electrifying ball movement were far too much for the uninspired Jazz to overcome.

So after yet another blowout loss, this time in perhaps the most discouraging fashion we’ve seen all year, it’s hard not to wonder – is this rock bottom for the Utah Jazz?

They’re now 17-26 on the season and seem to have more questions than answers. It’s becoming hard not to question if perhaps Quin Snyder hasn’t lost some of his players based on the head-scratching lack of effort they displayed last night and in recent games. Unfortunate though it is, nothing seems to be working for the Jazz.

Their playoff hopes are all but diminished for this season and unless something major changes soon, they could be in danger of some internal blow-ups that hurt them down the road as well. Their current state is far from a good look for any potential free agents and if the frustration from all these losses starts to boil over, it could also lead to locker room issues.

Providing somewhat of a glimmer of hope, following the game, Donovan Mitchell took to Twitter to give some words of encouragement, as well as express some disappointment, to Utah Jazz fans. Here’s what he had to say:

It’s nice to see Donovan’s determination to bounce back and share that the team is better than they’ve appeared. Rudy Gobert expressed a similar sentiment earlier in the season. It’s also somewhat worrisome, though, to see Mitchell’s reaction to the fan treatment of Hood. I’ve admittedly been one of the more critical voices on Rodney Hood, but I’m never in support of booing a player on their own home court regardless of the circumstances, and am disappointed that it happened last night.

Even if you think that Hood deserved it, it’s pretty clear that it rubbed Mitchell and the rest of the Jazz teammates the wrong way and by no means helped them play better. I know his unrestricted free agency is several years away, but that’s probably not the best start to the campaign of keeping Donovan Mitchell around long-term… just saying. Hopefully Hood, Mitchell and the rest of the gang realize that it was only a small contingent taking part in the disrespect and it won’t have any sort of lingering effect.

That aside, the fact of the matter is that Monday’s loss marked a significant low-point for the fans, players, coaching staff and front office of the Utah Jazz. The team is definitely facing a discouraging stretch of the season and all we can hope is that they get it turned around soon and that Donovan’s words end up being prophetic.

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The Jazz should have a great opportunity to do just that as they’ll face the worst team in the Western Conference, the Sacramento Kings, on Wednesday. Even though a win over such a struggling squad wouldn’t be all that impressive, it would at least be a nice step in the right direction.

And if Utah’s woes continue and they instead fall to the Kings, well, then I guess it just means that we still haven’t hit rock bottom just yet…

Stay strong, Jazz fans.