The Utah Jazz predictably made short work of the rebuilding Houston Rockets last night with a 122-91 victory. In a sense, it’s difficult to gain a single meaningful lesson from this game. The Rockets project to be one of the worst teams in the NBA this season. They’ve got their sights set on the Paolo Bancheros and Chet Holmgrems of the world. If all goes according to plan in Salt Lake City, the Jazz won’t be targeting marquee prospects until they have names like Rudy Gobert Jr. In other words, this beatdown was entirely appropriate.
If there is anything to glean from last night’s proceedings, it came from the doldrums of the fourth quarter when Head Coach Quin Snyder was in a position to give some of Utah’s backend rotation players an opportunity. The time honored tradition of “garbage time” is the moment NBA rookies on contending teams live for, and last night provided it in surplus.
The Utah Jazz looked like a schoolyard bully picking on the weakest kid in a class two grades below them last night. Arguably, either every member of the team was a stud, or none of them were.
We’ll go ahead and identify two studs and one dud from last night’s performance anyway.