Utah Jazz: Game 3 was lame-town, but how ’bout Royce O’Neale?

The positives to glean from the Utah Jazz’s Game 3 loss to the Houston Rockets are few. However, the play of Royce O’Neale was incredible.

Friday night’s Game 3 bout between the Utah Jazz and the Houston Rockets was about as bad an effort as you’ll ever see as a Jazz fan. At times, it took me back to the team’s 54-point dud against the Chicago Bulls during the 1998 NBA Finals.

At least with that game, though, the Jazz were setting a new standard for futility. Their output was so historically bad that you could almost revel in the utter suckatude. One could enjoy it in the same way people get their kicks screening The Room or Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Or, if you’re me, Hard Ticket to Hawaii is probably the best example —

Game 3 largely wasn’t that; it was about as fun as a stick in the eye or a urinary tract infection. Simply put, it was a total dissection of a team still getting its playoff feet wet by the best squad in the Association. The Jazz suffered a litany of self-inflicted wounds, but James Harden and Co. essentially dictated the action.

One of the few exceptions, and the thing that I clung to throughout the entire sordid affair, was the play of Royce O’Neale. While the Jazz stumbled through one of their worst performances in recent years, the undrafted rookie had the game of his life.

In 29 minutes of play, O’Neale scored 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting and 3-of-5 from 3-point range. He also added five rebounds and continued to make life just a little bit harder for Harden defensively.

His shining moment came during the second quarter. With the Rockets leading by 24 and Utah looking listless, O’Neale scored seven straight points, keying a 9-0 run that brought the Jazz back to within 15.

In a way, it was inspiring. The sequence was like a glorious oasis among a depraved and desolate waste.

At that point, the crowd was re-energized and you almost felt like the Jazz could make a game of it. Alas, it wasn’t to be. The lead ballooned back to 30 and the Jazz lost by 21 in the end, falling behind 2-1 in their second-round series in the process.

Unquestionably, Friday was a bad, bad night in Jazzland. But let’s not lose sight of the impressive way in which Royce O’Neale continues to defy the odds.

A year ago, nobody outside of Baylor fans knew who he was. Anybody who says different is probably lying. Now, he’s making a name for himself as one of the league’s best perimeter defenders and high-energy players.

Next: Utah Jazz legend John Stockton talks to Dan Patrick

Game 3 was a debacle, but O’Neale’s effort all season long is low-key one of the stories of the year for the Jazz. At the least, it’s the only story from Friday worth telling; my bazooka attack to a blowup doll moment during an otherwise awful night.