The Utah Jazz suffered a brutal defeat at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs on Monday night in NBA preseason action. Somehow, the final score of 111-85 doesn’t feel like it sufficiently captures the utter domination by the Spurs in this contest.
It was a hard game for fans of the Jazz to watch. The Spurs were led by Dejounte Murray and rookie Josh Primo, who scored 17 points each (with Primo hitting that mark in an impressive 18 minutes). Meanwhile, the leading scorer for the Utah Jazz was Jared Butler with 16 points.
Inefficiency plagued the Jazzmen in this contest. Collectively, the team shot 31.7% from the field and 23.3% from deep. Ugly doesn’t even feel like an appropriate adjective to describe that kind of efficiency: it was horrifying.
Still, it’s not all bad for the fans in Salt Lake City. Here are 3 slivers of silver lining from last night’s massacre for today’s widely depressed Utah Jazz fans.
Utah Jazz positive takeaway #1: Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley are healthy
We can safely assume that Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley are in playing shape if Quin Snyder opted to put them in the preseason rotation. Longterm, that should be considerably more important to the Utah Jazz than the results of a single preseason contest.
We can also assume that both men will perform better throughout the NBA season than either was able to last night. Mitchell mostly looked himself to the eye test, weaving in and out of traffic, scoring from all 3 levels, getting to his spots and launching his preferred shots. They simply refused to go in.
Spida finished the game a grizzly 5/19 from the field, and 0/6 from deep. That’s bad, but we’re willing to chalk it up to preseason rust: again, he looked healthy, and his mere presence in the lineup of an ultimately inconsequential preseason game leads us to believe he must be.
Meanwhile, Conley was also underwhelming, scoring a mere 5 points in 16 minutes of action. In all likelihood, Snyder opted to limit Conley’s minutes on the basis of his advanced age. Shooting 2/8 from the field, Conley was also culpable for the inefficiency that hampered the Utah Jazz on Monday evening.
Still, it’s at least encouraging that either suited up at all, let alone both.
Utah Jazz positive takeaway #2: Jared Butler’s performance
Throughout the 2021-22 regular season, Quin Snyder will have a serious problem on his hands if his best performer is rookie Jared Butler. In the preseason opener, however, that’s an unequivocal positive.
Butler shined vs the Spurs on Monday, leading the team with 16 points in 20 minutes. The 6/15 he shot from the field may not be the picture of efficiency, but it’s a passable number. Butler also spent large portions of this game being guarded by Dejounte Murray, Devin Vassell and Lonnie Walker IV, all solid-to-exceptional NBA defenders.
The fact that he still managed to lead the Utah Jazz in scoring in a reasonably efficient manner is an absolutely encouraging sign for Utah Jazz fans. If the Baylor product can perform at this level on an even semi-regular basis, and his Jazz teammates can hit their expected levels of production, the Jazz will be a difficult out on any given night.
Unfortunately, only Butler fulfilled his end of that deal against the Spurs on Monday night.
Utah Jazz positive takeaway #3: Hassan Whiteside is a beast
With Rudy Gobert missing in action on Monday night, the Jazz’s prospective backup 5s got considerable playing time against the Spurs. Sophomore Udoka Azubuike delivered a mixed performance: he did grab a solid 8 rebounds in 25 minutes, but the 5 fouls he committed over that same duration of time included some real head-scratchers. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the 22-year-old was too frequently out-of-position on defense, resulting in some mad scrambles to cover shot attempts that led to egregious defensive fouls. He’s definitely still raw, and Monday night’s performance reaffirmed that.
On the other hand, Hassan Whiteside looked every bit the 9-year-veteran.
He posted 6 points, 10 rebounds and a block in only 14 minutes of play, as Snyder opted to mostly let Azubuike play through his mistakes in Monday’s preseason action. For Utah Jazz fans, Whiteside’s performance was tantalizing as a window into what’s to come this season. Gobert will have returned to action by the Jazz’s season opener, and if Whiteside can deliver performances like this on a regular basis, he’ll be among the very best backup centers in the NBA.
Hopefully, the bulk of Utah Jazz fans can take this game in stride. Ultimately, preseason is a time for lineup and strategic experimentation, as the results of these games are arguably meaningless. It will serve any fan of the club more to focus on the positives in the case of this preseason home opener.