“Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you”, Big Lebowski. The Utah Jazz, with a healthier roster than in the previous game, easily handled the Lakers last night in a fairly one-sided affair. The Lakers never led, the same starters who shone a couple days ago couldn’t replicate that effort and the Jazz shot the lights out. One to forget because sometimes you just get you ass handed to you.
- Starters get whupped. The same group that all had heady +/- stats in the previous game all had equally abysmal +/- ratings last night. Not surprising really as it was our hodgepodge collection of “starters” competing against the true Utah Jazz starting five, minus Donovan Mitchell of course. As we’ve said several times this collection of guys was not meant to carry the Lakers for a stretch like this. They’re above-average players, a step or two above role-player, journeyman status, but they’re not All Stars. Maybe Drummond has AS potential, not sure about anyone else. Asking them to beat the #1 Jazz is a tall order considering the Jazz had all but one of their players.
- The Gobert Effect. Much has been made of the diminishing role of the true big man in today’s game but Rudy Gobert completely flipped the game for the Jazz. With Rudy patrolling the paint on defense and offering an easy scoring release valve for the guards the Jazz dominated the glass, dominated the points in the paint and that opened up their three point game like it has all season long. Most people point to the French Rejection’s defense as the main game-altering ability he has but his ability to finish in the paint and control the glass is huge, as well.
- The diminishing Montrezl Harrell. Trezz has seen his minutes dwindle as Drummond has asserted himself into the line up. It feels like it’s affecting his game and the staff needs to figure out how to unleash him, again. When Trezz is going we are scoring in the paint, putting a lot more pressure on the defense. That was not the case last night as Harrell only got 4 FGA and no FTA. We’re going to need a lot more from him if we want to pick up a couple more wins.
- THT’s monster game. I give this kid a ton of credit, he’s taken a lot of the adjustments the NBA has made in regards to his ability to get to the rim and added some moves and wrinkles to keep his flow going. By far the best Laker on the court last night, Horton-Tucker is making a case to be in the starting line up now and the starting PG next season. Worse things could happen, given our cap situation.
- Time to give Wes Matthews minutes to Ben McLemore. No more reasons, it’s just time. Make the move, Frank.
Not going to read too much into this or overly bemoan the lack of energy and fight, the Jazz are the better team right now. We’ll see how this looks if we meet in the playoffs and we have James and Davis. This was no playoff preview. Time to prepare for the Mavs on Thursday.
Good fiver, Jamie. Thanks.
1. Starters – Never good to start off a game against a tough opponent behind by 8 to 10 points. Every time we got close, they would hit a three and extend the lead. Then Joe Ingles got hot and that was that.
2. Gobert – Problem with the non-LeBron and AD lineups is we have three players- Drummond, Harrell, and Schroder – who can get negated by a defense that packs the paint or a great rim protector like Rudy.
3. Harrell – Trezz’s problem is he not only couldn’t score on Rudy but couldn’t stop Rudy from scoring on him. Same with Dre. We’re going to need AD to play center at least half of the time to repeat as champions.
4. Great to see Talen adjusting to the adjusting teams have done with him. Excellent game and greatly improved shot selection for him. If he can shoot from outside (and his 80% free throw shooting says he should be able to), then his ceiling offensively is unlimited.
5. Wes still plays great defense and Ben is a sieve on defense. Once we get to the playoffs, neither is going to get minutes other than “in case of emergency, break glass.”