Utah Jazz: Game 1 was rough, but it also had some anomalous elements

The Utah Jazz did little to inspire with their Game 1 efforts against the Houston Rockets, but they were also beset by unusual goings-on.

So, that was ugly.

Ahead of the opening bout in their first-round playoff series with the Houston Rockets, the national hoops intelligentsia was completely devoid of pundits giving the Utah Jazz a real chance to compete. And through their 48 minutes of postseason play, Donovan Mitchell and his crew did little to dissuade that thought process.

Utah ultimately dropped Game 1 by 32 points, got steamrolled in the final carom — even when James Harden was on the bench — and were minus-20 in the paint, a number that should never happen with Rudy Gobert manning the post.

And yet, I find myself unshaken in my belief that the Jazz band can be competitive in this series.

Sure, their playoff opener was lopsided, but at least part of the mess was caused by a combination of easily correctable errors and bad luck.

Although the Rockets did some things defensively with their switching to get the Jazz out of their typical game plan, much of the squad’s woes came in the form of missing open jump shots. For the night, the Jazz were just 10-of-29 (34.5 percent) on shots from 10 feet and out where no defender was within four feet. Eek.

They were also hampered by unusually poor finishing down low. Clint Capela may have been a force in the paint, but the Jazz were also just failing to convert on what their offense generated much of the time.

On shots in the restricted area, a zone where the Jazz made 65 percent of their shots during the regular season, the team hit on just 52.9 percent in Game 1. That’s more than eight points off the board right there, with many, many more coming in the form of missed jumpers, and only a portion of it is really attributable to the Rockets D.

Defensively, there are some things schematically that are just going to work against the Jazz versus the Rockets. The attention paid to Harden alone is going to give Houston’s perimeter guns extra time and space with which to fire from deep.

Having said that, Utah’s rotations were rough and the execution with regards to helping on Harden was lacking. At best, it was imprecise, with players coming too early or too late and taking a lot of pressure off Harden to make decisions with the ball.

He literally took everything the D gave him, and either took the ball to the rack or found open shooters in the corners.

There were also way too many times the first line of the defense was broken at the point of attack and little effort was made to shore up driving lanes. For me, that had a lot more of an impact on the paint points discrepancy than some failure on Gobert’s part.

The Stifle Tower may have been a team-worst minus-23 in the plus/minus department, but that mark was often earned by the people sharing the court with him.

As Jerry Sloan used to say, you have to help the helper; it’s basic, but it’s true. Again, there are some schematic things in play here, but at a certain point, you must have the pride to at least throw in some speed bumps on the way to the tin.

Don’t get me wrong, the Rockets may still be the best team in the Association outside of Oakland and the Jazz are over-matched here in a lot of ways. That said, adjustments will be made.

More from The J-Notes

The Jazz D isn’t going to be so soft throughout the series. They’ll still have a tough time containing Harden and company, but look for Snyder to ensure his team actually attempts to deter players in red that are streaking toward the basket. The Rockets scored 62 paint points in Game 1, but were dead last in the league during the regular season, averaging just over 42 a game; there will be a regression to the mean there.

He’ll demand more precision in the rotations and corner close-outs as well.

And, eventually, some shots are going to fall. Kudos to Houston for making life hard, but their defense wasn’t 39 percent from the field and 26 percent from distance good. The Jazz helped them out there.

Also: at some point, Mitchell is going to go off. It is, after all, what he does.

Game 1 was definitely ugly — not an effort to be proud of for the Jazz faithful — but it was also far from the team’s best shot. When that’s finally fired off, the Rockets are actually going to have to work to stay on the winning track.

Home/Jazz News