DID UTAH WIN? 6th Edition
Welcome to the Lazy Utahn’s recap of the most recent Utah Jazz game. Do you want to talk to your friends about the game, impress them with cool stats, and act like you watch all 82 games like a true die hard even if you didn’t catch the big game last night? We got you covered in this simplistic breakdown of each topic that may arise from the latest Utah Jazz showdown.
Did Utah win?
No, they didn’t. Utah lost to the Orlando Magic 115-113 in a gut-wrenching defeat in Salt Lake City. The Jazz fall t0 2-4 on the season and remain 13th in the Western Conference standings.
The Jazz built a double-digit lead, lost that, went down by double digits and overcame that. Either way, for all the ups and downs the end result was a Utah loss.
With 2:03 on the clock and down 7, Utah would engineer an 8-0 run, capped by a Lauri Markkanen three to take a 113-112 lead with 19 seconds remaining that would send the Delta Center into a frenzy.
The Magic would answer with a Paolo Banchero bully ball drive where he got to the cup for the lay in to put the Magic back up 114-113.
Talen Horton-Tucker would proceed to miss a go ahead wide open three-point attempt with just under 5 seconds to play that would result in a Wendell Carter Jr rebound and immediate foul by the Jazz.
Carter was injured on the ensuing madness and had to go to the locker room, allowing the Jazz to force Anthony Black to attempt the resulting free throws. The 50 percent free throw shooter stayed true to form and split the pair.
The scene was set for Utah to get one last try with a bit over a second remaining on the side out inbound. The Jazz executed the play to get Keyonte George free for a solid look, yet alas the shot was never meant to be as Kelly Olynyk’s inbound bounce pass never hit George and bounced right into the hands of Franz Wagner to guarantee the Magic victory.
We lost to the Magic? Like seriously? Why was this even a game?
Somehow someway Orlando was actually favored coming into this game, which Jazz fans and myself laughed at.
No way the Magic, on the tail end of a 4-game road trip out west, should be favored in Utah.
Even though the Jazz were playing for the second night straight, many didn’t see it.
Not only were we wrong, but we also didn’t picture it being one of the more exciting games of the year right next to the win over the Clippers, which it was.
I gained a ton of respect for Orlando in this one, and maybe its just to justify a loss to a team who has posted one winning season in ten years, but the Magic looked spicy.
The rebuild that Orlando has been tinkering with since the days of Dwight Howard and Hedo Turkoglu may finally be paying dividends.
I cited this as a team who didn’t have a go to guy in crunch time before the game and was absolutely proven wrong. I thought to myself, Orlando doesn’t have a Lauri Markkanen or Jordan Clarkson to take and make those big-time shots.
Apparently, you were wrong on that one, eh? So, who were the dudes for Orlando that you counted out?
Oh ya, I was wrong.
Paolo Banchero is the main dude I didn’t give enough thought too. Last season’s rookie of the year outscored every other player in the 4th on both sides knocking down 4 more than Markkanen and 2 more than Clarkson for 10 4th quarter points.
This of course includes the muscled up lay in that ended up being the game winner. Banchero finished with a game high 30 points, which is impressive, but it becomes even more awe inspiring when you realize he only took 13 shots.
Jazz fans aren’t really familiar with star players getting to the free throw line, but Banchero gets the assignment. Paolo had 15 free throws, 2 more than shot attempts, in which he hit 73 percent of those.
Add in 9 rebounds, 5 assists and you can see Orlando feels confident building around the young man from Duke.
Franz Wagner had a couple big moments for Orlando with 21 points, 5 assists and 4 boards but took 21 shots to get there.
Wendell Carter Jr had 14 and ten. Mo Wagner chipped in 10 points. Anthony Black had 9 points and was 4/4 from the field.
Former Jazz legend, current washed Magic bench player, Joe Ingles, jingled his way to 4 points in 23 minutes, which nearly doubled his season average in playing time. Ingles was 1/5 with 2 boards and an assist.
The juice for the Magic bench came from Cole Anthony who closed the game. Anthony had 18 points and led the team with 7 dimes and 7 boards in an impressive outing, especially when compared to starting guard Jalen Suggs.
Seems the Magic are scrappy, ill give them that. So, should I be bummed out about the loss?
Your allowed to be a bit bummed out here. Utah built a solid lead at one point only to let you down, and then mounted a crazy cool comeback to ultimately let you down. A very winnable game in which Utah had shot after shot to secure a big fat W.
Instead, they fall two games below .500. But be of good cheer, Utah is still clearly a massive work in progress and Coach Hardy is still tinkering with lineups and fits. We have yet to see the Jazz as their best selves, that can create some blind optimism.
The Orlando Magic are also at this time, a top 5 defensive rated team in the association so cling onto that tidbit to make yourself feel a bit better. Utah’s 115 is the second highest point total against Orlando this season, so I guess there’s that.
Utah and Orlando had the same number of assists (27) and both shot about 46 percent on the night. Utah outrebounded Orlando by 5 but had three more turnovers. The Magic also had 16 steals to Utah’s 9 giving the slight edge to the away team.
In a game that close those small differences in the turnover game are typically the difference maker.
Oh, and of course free throws. Orlando shot 36 free throws; Utah shot 26. Orlando had 8 more points in freebies alone. Credit the Magic for making downhill basketball a key element of their offense.
That didn’t really help. Any player performances I can be excited about?
John Collins had his best scoring game as a Jazz man with 20 points going 7/10 and ¾ from downtown. Collins raked in 10 board for his 4th double-double in 6 games.
Two other Jazz players reached the 20-point milestone, but in very different fashions.
Lauri Markkanen had 22 points to pair with 7 rebounds and shot 53 percent from the field while netting a clutch shot down the stretch to give the jazz a lead they would relinquish.
Jordan Clarkson finished with 21 points, 6 rebounds and six assists. The downside here is that it took 20 shots to get there. Calrkson would shoot 25 percent on the night.
The upside however is that Clarkson would get to the charity stripe 9 times and hit all 9 tries, whereas Lauri was 0/2 on freebies.
Talen Horton-Tucker continues to provide a mixed bag of good in his starting tenure. THT gave 15 points, led the team in assists with 8, had three steals and hit some tough lay ins as he worked inside often. That’s the good, the bad of course was the missed three ball for Utah’s final full possession and some of the shot selection in the closing minutes.
Omer Yurtseven saw his first meaningful minutes of the season and had 7 points and 3 rebounds in 8 minutes of go time making him a team high +8. Good sign for those who want to see the big fella get more run which has been an ongoing theme since his Miami time.
That’s awesome! Wait… why was Yurtseven getting time? Who was struggling?
One mans opportunity is at another man’s expense, right? Turns out the Nuggets game wasn’t the fixit game for Walker Kessler we had hoped.
Kessler recorded a game high whopper of 5 blocks and turned away a team that was deadest on getting to the rim. He also had 10 rebounds.
As great as that was, Kessler didn’t close the game, didn’t provide the needed offensive flexibility and struggled in other ways.
Walker was 2 of 6 from the field, a rarity for a big man with his skill set. The touch was off enough that Kessler missed a point bank layup at one moment.
Utah’s defensive cornerstone was a team worse -10 and continues to be a poor fit in the frontcourt of Collins, Markkanen and himself.
Coach Hardy seems to be realizing this and thus you see times like Omer Yurtseven getting run in this one. Simone Fontecchio would also see the floor as Utah tries to adjust.
We thought it was the guard situation that was a big fat question mark, but it turns out the frontcourt isn’t quite locked in yet either.
Speaking of guards, Collin Sexton came back down to earth after a spectacular performance against Memphis. The passing lanes disappeared again as Sexton had a 10 point, 1 rebound and 1 assists night. He shot 37.5 percent and was 4/6 from the free throw line.
Kelly Olynyk had more fouls (5) than points (4), which also was a major factor in the frontcourt shakeup if not the premier factor.
Ochai Agbaji has gone the way of Kris Dunn by seeing his minutes continually cut. Neither guard played more than 8 minutes as they combined for 4 points. Dunn did have three dimes in his 5 minutes as a small bonus.
Yo, what about Keyonte?
George didn’t have a notable statistical game, but didn’t have a bad game either. Keyonte keeps showing those flashes that remind you he will eventually slot into that starting guard spot.
Just shy of 17 minutes, with two shots. His one hit was a deep ball, and George was unflappable when it came to attacking the rim. He got to the stripe 5 times, hitting three for a total of six points.
He had three assists to 2 turnovers.
George does seem to see the floor well and makes it a goal to find Lauri Markkanen. Jazz fans tend to appreciate that as Markkanen is Utah’s best player, thus its good for him to get the ball more. See below for an example of both:
George also was on the floor for the final shot, and would have gotten the look himself if he and Olynyk could have connected, which shows a ton of trust towards the rookie.
What’s the Stat Weather boy?
Paolo Banchero is the real deal, but just so your aware, Utah’s defense is not good.
Ew. I don’t care about defense. Show me a sweet offensive play.
Here’s Lauri hitting those clutch threes to give Utah a late lead:
Now to bring you back down to earth, here’s Banchero’s game winner:
That left a sour taste in my mouth, when can we erase it?
The Jazz will go for win number three on the season this Saturday, November 4th on the road.
Rudy Gobert and the 2-2 Minnesota Timberwolves welcome Utah to the Target center for a 6:00 tipoff.
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