A lot went wrong for the Utah Jazz in their disheartening loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday. Many of their issues in that game have been prevalent all season.
It’s hard to be too dissatisfied with the Utah Jazz’s start considering that they sit at 8-4, good for sole possession of fourth place in the West. Given Utah’s tendency to start out slow, their challenging schedule and all the new faces they are incorporating, I’m actually pleasantly surprised to see them at a win percentage of .667, because I figured they’d be closer to around .500 at this point.
What’s been even more pleasant has been their performances against tough opponents such as the Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks, both of which the Jazz defeated. Not to mention a win over a tough, albeit Kawhi-less LA Clippers team and a scrappy victory over a better-than-predicted Phoenix Suns team.
So between some big wins and a better start than projected, there’s more to be positive about than dismayed about when it comes to the Utah Jazz. Nevertheless, they’ve certainly shown some glaring issues that, while they may very well get fixed at some point down the road, remain both debilitating and highly frustrating. No one expects the Jazz to be perfect and go undefeated, but it feels like if they cleaned up a few things, they could be at an even better spot than they are currently.
Perhaps those woes were no better encapsulated than in their recent loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. Sure, there were a lot of emotional factors at play here with it being Mike Conley‘s return to the team he’d played the first 12 years of his career for, but it was still very much a game the Jazz should have won.
That in and of itself has been a reoccurring frustration for the Jazz – an inability to take care of business against inferior teams in winnable games. But if we break this contest down even further, we see glaring examples of some of the most pressing concerns facing the Salt Lake City squad.
In a lot of ways, the loss to Memphis was a perfect microcosm of what has been going wrong with the Jazz this season. Sure, there’s been a lot of good in the early-going of the 2019-20 campaign, but the issues have been notable and glaring. So let’s dive in to each one.