Utah Jazz-Indiana Pacers: Home cooking never tasted so bad

Just when you thought the team was on the verge of a turnaround, the Utah Jazz got waxed on their home floor by the Indiana Pacers.

If you were lucky, you spent the Thanksgiving holiday at home, with family and friends, eating turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing or whatever it is that your tribe does. It was probably amazing, too, because there’s really few things in life quite like a home-cooked meal.

The Utah Jazz were looking for that proverbial home cooking on Monday when they returned to Vivint Smart Home Arena for a bout with the Indiana Pacers. But instead of feasting on a Pacers squad playing without their star in Victor Oladipo (again), they were left with a bad taste in their mouths (again).

The Pacers dismantled the Jazz to the tune of a 121-88 beatdown. My already-underwhelming math skills haven’t improved much since school, but I think that’s a 33-point differential…and I’m pretty sure that’s not good.

For the history buffs among us, it was Utah’s worst home loss since the Houston Rockets outpaced the Jazz by 45 in January of 2013, making it the second-worst home loss in team history. Again, not good.

Indy pushed 60 percent shooting for the game and knocked down nine of their 18 3-point attempts. They also forced 19 turnovers, which led to 25 points for the road squad. Meanwhile, the Jazz band continued to jack triples to no avail, hitting on just eight of their 31 attempts from distance.

As was the case during the teams’ first meeting, the Jazz frontcourt was neutralized by that of the Pacers. Myles Turner scored 16 points on 7-of-8 shooting over the game’s first three quarters to offset Jazz center Rudy Gobert. Domantas Sabonis logged a 13-10-6 line off the bench.

In turn, Gobert was a team-worst minus-24 in the plus/minus column.

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That said, this loss lies at the feet of the entire Jazz team. Seven Pacers players reached double figures against a soft Jazz D. Doug McDermott led the pack with 21 points in just 23 minutes of play. On the other end of the floor, poor spacing, bad execution and yet another ugly shooting night sunk the team.

Sure, Donovan Mitchell has missed consecutive games, and the Jazz were on the wrong end of a back-to-back set; those were absolutely legitimate factors in the loss. That said, the effort against Indy was inexcusable.

With the setback, the Jazz fell to 2-6 at home. TWO and SIX.

Home cooking has never tasted so bad in Salt Lake City.