Lackluster bench production
In fairness to the Utah Jazz bench, Jeff Green and Emmanuel Mudiay have had some great games this season. Most recently, they were both instrumental in steering the Jazz to their come-from-behind victory against the Brooklyn Nets.
But Friday in Memphis, and for several other games throughout the year, Utah’s second unit has been awful. Against the Grizzlies, they mustered a meager 14 points total, which was punctuated by Jeff Green going 0-of-5 and Tony Bradley going 0-of-3.
In fact, the Jazz bench has consistently been one of the worst producers in the NBA. They rank 29th in points per game at 26.7 and the bench trio of Jeff Green, Tony Bradley and Georges Niang have a combined average plus-minus of minus-9. In other words, when the Jazz starters are out of action, it hasn’t been pretty.
And perhaps most frustrating, Joe Ingles, who slid to a bench role this season, is off to an extremely disappointing start. Yes, he’s still a jack-of-all-trades type player that can contribute with defense, passing, etc. but that doesn’t change the fact that the Jazz are severely missing his shooting.
Ingles is converting field goals at a 34.6 percent clip and his three-point shooting has dipped all the way to an abysmal 28.3 percent. The hope was that he could add a shooting and scoring punch off the bench, and that couldn’t be further from the truth thus far.
Utah’s second unit struggles on Friday in Memphis unfortunately weren’t a surprise but instead were just a continuation of the norm. Ideally, the return of Dante Exum, who was available on Friday but oddly didn’t play, could help spark that group. But so far things continue to go from bad to worse for the Jazz’s reserve group. That’s particularly true in an area that we’ll address next.