Utah Jazz: 3 takeaways from a battle with the champions

The bench outplayed the starters… big time

Remember towards the beginning of the season when the Utah Jazz bench was allowing teams to decimate them on a nightly basis? That’s long gone now. Utah’s bench had another phenomenal showing last night against Toronto.

The unit featuring Jordan Clarkson, Joe Ingles, Georges Niang and Tony Bradley has been on fire lately. Typically playing along with Mike Conley, the second unit is pushing the pace, hitting from the perimeter and even playing some defense.

They played significantly better than the starters last night, which doesn’t happen often. The starting unit combined for 50 points, 21 rebounds and 14 assists on 17-51 shooting. Most fans wanted to see the Jazz close with the second unit, but it didn’t happen.

The bench combined for 42 points, eight rebounds and 10 assists on 16-32 shooting and were led by Joe Ingles and Tony Bradley. We’ll get more into Ingles soon (spoiler alert), but can we take a second to talk about young Bradley?

This is a kid who spent the first two seasons of his career primarily playing in the G-League, and started this season out of the rotation. He’s worked incredibly hard, stayed devoted and his major improvements are paying off.

Bradley has arguably been Utah’s best bench player over the past few games. He rebounds, runs the floor, finishes around the rim and looks a lot better defensively. Shout out to the big man for his efforts.

Since acquiring Jordan Clarkson from the Cavaliers, Utah’s second unit has been on fire. It feels relieving being able to count on them for production. Moving Ingles to the bench makes it even more deadly. I love what I’m seeing from these guys!