Jazz couldn’t find three-point shot
Despite being one of the better three-point shooting teams during the regular season at 36.6 percent, the Jazz simply couldn’t find the bottom of the net from long range on Wednesday. Derrick Favors surprisingly went 2-of-3 and Ricky Rubio lit it up by going 5-of-8, but the rest of the team struggled mightily – Utah finished the night just 9-of-29 (31 percent) from distance.
Take away the somewhat rare hot shooting from the aforementioned pair of guys and that clip would have looked a lot worse. Ingles went 1-of-4, Mitchell went a horrific 0-of-7, Jerebko went 0-of-2 while Crowder went 0-of-3.
Once again, Utah was able to thrive in other ways to allow them to overcome their poor three-point shooting, but failing to drop the deep ball certainly isn’t a habit they’ll want to get into. Fortunately, OKC, who is a notoriously bad three-point shooting team, barely did better than the Jazz at 31.4 percent.
The Thunder can be dangerous on offense by relying on their other strengths, though, so if Utah is going to produce the necessary firepower to keep up with them, it will be crucial that they find their touch and convert more efficiently from deep. Fortunately, I don’t foresee Mitchell or Ingles having as off of a night from behind the arc as they did Wednesday, so if the Jazz won without those shots falling, imagine what they can do if those two revert back to the norm.
The Jazz overcame their poor three-point shooting night by outmatching the Thunder in several other ways, which is exactly what I’ll touch on next.