Game Thread Mar 04, 2022 06:00PM MT: Jazz at Pelicans

[LogGrad98]

Oof.

I wonder what goes through Clarkson's head when he responds to stuff like that. I hope he doesn't try too hard to prove people wrong. He would be better to just focus on playing the game the best he can. We know he can do better than he has been. This is an off year for him. His lowest 3 pt percentage since his rookie year, and he has 4 years above 36%, one at 40%. All his other stats are more or less flat to his career numbers. He has regressed to the mean and below. He is just one of the team that needs to do better though. We seem very disjointed and unfocused right now. The brief spurts when we do focus we can generate serious offense and even solid defense. But mostly we just run around out there it seems like. How many of our wins recently have felt lucky, like the Houston game? More than I care to think about. We are still winning, so there is that, but it feels more like a sigh of relief rather than a dominating or even competent performance when we do.

 

[SoUjazzfan]

If we do our usual pitiful start they may just blow us out. They gave us trouble before they got CJ and he could light us up if we're not locked in defensively. This will be a fun one. I think it'll be a close.

Well, I was half right. I missed the game and only got to see the lowlights. It looked like energy, intensity and effort were all nonexistent. We really never had a chance. If we continue to start games like we have, these beatdowns will become a trend.

 

[jom2003]

One thing I liked about the Pels' strategy is if you're going to put someone on the floor who isn't going to take shots and probably isn't going to help your spacing, then make that player a complete mother-hugger on defense and on the boards. The Pels did that with Jaxson Hayes. The Grizzlies do this too with Brandon Clarke. Great energy, great help defense, and extra possessions from offensive rebounds and turnovers.

That's my issue with Royce O'Neale. He's a low-usage guy who normally just moves the ball, but he doesn't rebound, defend or provide energy plays like an elite energy player. He's solid, but he doesn't impact the game all that often.

the jazz is a team that lives on spacing unfortunately.

like you said before in the lakers thread, our guys with exception to Donovan just aren't good enough shot creators. they need spacing to be effective, which is why Royce's been locked to the starting lineup for that additional spacing

if you have two shot creators on the floor then you can get away with having a couple of non-shooters because opponents can't double. Like having both Kyrie and Durant on the floor, whoever has the ball opponents can't double because it's just gonna lead to an easy bucket for the other guy.

but in jazz's case all we have is Donovan. So we have to surround him with enough shooters to avoid teams doubling on him. And even when teams do double team Donovan, it's proven to be effective because teams that play five out can switch quickly enough for the closeout to stop Bogey/Conley/Royce as they can't create shots consistently for themselves against even the slightest defensive pressure, like what we saw vs the Clippers last year or the Lakers a week ago.

Bogey and Conley already struggle to beat their men, could you imagine how much more difficult it would be for them if we put another non shooter like Herb Jones on the floor for the opponent to cheat off on defense?

 

[Thee Idiotic Minivan K]

Well, I was half right. I missed the game and only got to see the lowlights. It looked like energy, intensity and effort were all nonexistent. We really never had a chance. If we continue to start games like we have, these beatdowns will become a trend.

Mitchell in these games has gotten off to fast starts to keep us in striking distance, tonight not so much unfortunately.

 

[Release the Kraken]

I think the Rockets debacle took a lot out of them and the Pels scouting report was Aces. If Quin started the scrubs that played garbage time last night everyone would be urging they all be moved to the waiver wire if they played as poorly as the rotation guys. Just an awful performance.

Yeah we ran into a buzz saw down there. That team is red hot, they won four straight including Phoenix before we beat them and then they rolled out three straight including us, all blowouts. Amazing considering they just got McCollum. (Remember our first year with Conley?).

Anyway, we didn’t have any answers like theLakers and Kings. Our default 3 pt shooting was off and bringing in a net negative like RG didn’t help. I would’ve pounded our bigs in the paint but that isn’t in the Snyder playbook apparently.

 

[homeytennis]

It looked to me at times the Jazz were passing up layups for more difficult shots which they mostly did not make. Who knows what the players were thinking.

 

[LogGrad98]

It looked to me at times the Jazz were passing up layups for more difficult shots which they mostly did not make. Who knows what the players were thinking.

They overpass. It's he the core tenet of the system. Followed closely by hero ball above all. It's a weird paradox, but whatcha gonna do? It's the system.