Although it’s unwise to put too much stock into one game, there were several interesting takeaways to be had (mainly bad ones) following the Utah Jazz regular season opener.
When the NBA regular season comes to a close, they don’t ask ‘how’, they ask ‘how many?’ No matter what it took for a team to get to their particular record, what ends up mattering is the W’s and the L’s. In that regard, the Utah Jazz started out the season exactly how you’d want them to, by defeating the Sacramento Kings to move to 1-0.
Unfortunately, anyone watching that game would agree – the Jazz simply did not look good in the contest. Less than a week after obliterating the Kings in preseason, the Jazz faced a major wake-up call as they started the game flat-footed, falling behind by as many as 16 in the first quarter, and struggled to stay ahead all game long before finally eking out a six-point victory.
Now, to the Kings’ credit, they came out with much more energy than the previous preseason bout and they looked as if they had something to prove. But still, there was no excuse for Utah’s overall lack of execution. They have a lot to work on and improve if they hope to provide any semblance of resistance to the defending champion Golden State Warriors in Friday’s home opener.
Granted, I know it was just one game to start out the brand new 2018-19 season, but there were definitely a lot of shocking takeaways that could be gathered from the contest, both good and bad. As such, while some of these may be a bit of an overreaction considering that the sample size is small and the season is young, the following are six key thoughts I had about the Jazz after their regular season opener in Sacramento.