Utah Jazz-Atlanta Hawks: Series sweep complete, both teams unhappy
The Utah Jazz suffered their second setback against the Atlanta Hawks this season and lost ground in the playoff race as a result.
The Utah Jazz had an opportunity to extend their win streak to 10 games on Tuesday. Instead, they lost the season series to the lowly Atlanta Hawks, who picked up only their sixth road win behind 41 points from Dennis Schröder.
If ever a game’s result was a lose-lose situation, this was it. With the loss, the Jazz dropped a few spots in the Western Conference playoff race, while the lottery-chasing Hawks may have lost some pingpong balls.
Beyond that, this was a really hard game to watch. And, consequently, it’s a hard game for me to write about. Sure, there are plenty of things I could point out, but I don’t think a single article would suffice.
Here’s the scariest take of the night, tweeted out prior to the game by this fan:
My irrational fear is that the Hawks are a portal to a separate universe...and two months ago we entered it, and on Tuesday, we will come out of it.
— McCade Pearson (@McCadeP8) March 18, 2018
Assuming this isn’t reality (I hope that’s not too large of an assumption), there are some other more realistic points to consider and some actual truthfulness to the tweet above.
Utah looks awful against the Hawks. In fact, the Jazz haven’t looked this bad since they played... the Hawks.
— Andy Bailey (@AndrewDBailey) March 21, 2018
Following the loss in Atlanta earlier this year, the Jazz reached a low-point in their season and fell to 19-28. From there, they won 11 games straight, lost to the Portland Trail Blazers and Houston Rockets (the two hottest teams in the West not named Utah), won nine straight, and then lost to the Atlanta Hawks.
A few people pointed out that this seemed similar to the Sacramento Kings game that the Jazz nearly lost. They would be wrong.
In terms of 3-point percentage, the Sacramento Kings had the fourth-best 3-point shooting game of any team this season in which there were more than 20 three-point shots attempted.
| Team | Opponent | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Date | Tm | Opp | Result | MP | FG | FGA | FG% | 2P | 2PA | 2P% | 3P | 3PA | 3P% | FT | FTA | FT% | PTS | FG | FGA | FG% | 2P | 2PA | 2P% | 3P | 3PA | 3P% | FT | FTA | FT% | PTS | |
| 1 | 2017-12-30 | MEM | @ | GSW | L 128-141 | 240 | 49 | 94 | .521 | 34 | 73 | .466 | 15 | 21 | .714 | 15 | 22 | .682 | 128 | 50 | 85 | .588 | 32 | 52 | .615 | 18 | 33 | .545 | 23 | 25 | .920 | 141 |
| 2 | 2017-11-11 | SAS | CHI | W 133-94 | 240 | 51 | 85 | .600 | 33 | 58 | .569 | 18 | 27 | .667 | 13 | 16 | .813 | 133 | 40 | 86 | .465 | 34 | 63 | .540 | 6 | 23 | .261 | 8 | 13 | .615 | 94 | |
| 3 | 2018-02-05 | UTA | @ | NOP | W 133-109 | 240 | 52 | 89 | .584 | 38 | 68 | .559 | 14 | 21 | .667 | 15 | 17 | .882 | 133 | 47 | 93 | .505 | 39 | 71 | .549 | 8 | 22 | .364 | 7 | 13 | .538 | 109 |
| 4 | 2018-03-17 | SAC | @ | UTA | L 97-103 | 240 | 37 | 86 | .430 | 23 | 65 | .354 | 14 | 21 | .667 | 9 | 14 | .643 | 97 | 33 | 74 | .446 | 27 | 50 | .540 | 6 | 24 | .250 | 31 | 38 | .816 | 103 |
| 5 | 2017-12-22 | MIA | DAL | W 113-101 | 240 | 46 | 72 | .639 | 30 | 47 | .638 | 16 | 25 | .640 | 5 | 6 | .833 | 113 | 38 | 75 | .507 | 21 | 40 | .525 | 17 | 35 | .486 | 8 | 11 | .727 | 101 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/21/2018.
The fact that the Jazz won the game against the Kings was actually really impressive. In the 3-point era, only two teams have shot 66 percent or higher from the 3-point line on more than 20 attempts and lost, both this season.
Anyway, my point is simply this: this game was not similar to the Kings game. This game was an abomination and may be the worst loss of the season, only rivaled by the previous loss against Atlanta.
There hasn’t been another night where the effort, both defensively and offensively, looked so futile since Utah’s hot streak began. This was an anomaly.
Donovan Mitchell had a great first quarter with
lots of scoring
three assists, three rebounds, seven points and a steal. From there, he was a very cold shooter from three and at the rim, despite his 24 points (on 28 shots).
However, he wasn’t the only cold shooter. Joe Ingles looked way out of sorts at 1-of-8 from the 3-point line, with an airball in the clutch.
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I’d also be remiss to not mention Schröder’s career night. He took advantage of Ricky Rubio in a major way, something that happened with regularity early in the season, but had been cleaned up recently.
The positive? Last time the Jazz played Atlanta, they followed up a listless and lifeless performance with an 11-game winning streak. We now have 11 games left in the season and it only gets more difficult from here.