Some more observations:
- Kessler is quietly having a fantastic rookie season for a relatively unheralded young big who's something of a throwback. His timing is uncanny - something you definitely can't teach - and the few warts he has (FT shooting, handling contact in low post defense against other bigs) are certainly nothing he can't improve at. This kid should be playing a LOT the rest of the way.
- I don't really understand any complaints about Lauri not getting enough touches. With Markkanen, it's not the number of touches... it's the quality. As someone pointed out, his points-per-touch stats are out of this world. A lot of it has to do with hot 3pt shooting lately, of course, but until recently he was also getting the ball to his "spots" very well. With Lauri, that usually means he's on the move toward the basket, with a step on his defender... or deep in the paint, having sealed off his guy. That's the stuff we should be focusing on, not giving him the ball on the perimeter against a set defense.
- I'm eating some crow on Sexton and I'm fine with it. He still makes too many mental mistakes for a PG, dribbles into the trees for no reason, lets his emotions get the better of him and wastes energy. BUT... at a point in the season where some guys on this team seem to have lost the basic ideas of unselfishness and ball movement that made the Jazz great early on, Sexton is trying hard to go the other way. And you have to remember that he's pretty much fighting the very core of who he used to be as a basketball player. I have to respect that if he's able to keep it up.
- I'm not loving Clarkson's aimless dribbling adventures into the teeth of the defense. It seems like every time there's at least a 50% chance of him losing the ball, and he rarely creates a real advantage - that stuff is so easy to anticipate and contain for NBA defenders. Like I mentioned recently, it's also a fact that Clarkson is passing less and shooting more these days. He's racking up counting stats but it's not really translating to wins. I think it's fair to say that he's playing with one eye on his free agency.
- The rep Olynyk has with the refs is just ridiculous. It's almost like he's not allowed ANY contact on defense these days. Sure he has a big bag of veteran tricks, but still, the whistle he gets is straight up unfair and harms the team as well. I'd like Hardy to draw some attention to it in the media.