Halloween comes early for the Utah Jazz

The first back-to-back of the season became a Halloween show of horrors for the Utah Jazz.

The Utah Jazz had reasons for hope in their pre-Halloween matchup against the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night. The Suns were missing two of their star players, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, due to minor injuries, and were coming off a loss to the LA Lakers where they struggled to score in the 4th quarter.

And the Jazz were coming off a thrilling 120-118 win over the LA Clippers on Friday night in which they showed flashes of their potential.

Would a Halloween treat be in store with a 2nd win of the season for the Utah Jazz?

Unfortunately, the Suns had ideas of their own – bringing back ghosts of Utah Jazz losses past, as they unveiled their Ring Of Honor update and had a slew of special guests – Kevin Johnson, Tom Chambers, Steve Nash, and many others present for the show.

As for the Halloween haunted house, Eric Gordon scared the Jazz youngsters early, dropping a spooky 21 first-half points, and hitting several 3-pointers. Kevin Durant did his part as well, scaring up 26 points on the night.

The third quarter was straight out of a horror movie. Grayson Allen played the role of Ghostface, haunting the Jazz with 14 points. Nothing seemed to go the Jazz’s way, as the Suns outscored the Jazz 40-28 to open up a 106-78 lead, as the Jazz simply looked tired by that point.

By the 6-minute mark of the 4th quarter, Will Hardy had enough and waived the white flag.  He emptied the bench to get out of this pre-Halloween nightmare.

It seemed like the pace of the Suns bothered the Jazz, and that has been a bit of a trend the first 3 games – fast-paced games and lots of offense. The Jazz might be better with a half-court style but they will have to improve enough to impose that upon their opponents.

Once again the Jazz shot under 44% and looked less than cohesive on offense and worse on defense.

The Jazz (1-2) will travel to Denver next, to face the defending champion Nuggets on Monday night before returning home for games against the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday and the Orlando Magic on Thursday.