Many times in the first half of Monday night’s game in Brooklyn, the Utah Jazz seemed on the verge of pulling away a bit, of gaining some needed separation. They just needed one big, extended run.
Spoiler alert: Utah got it! It took awhile, but the Jazz finally cranked out an energetic and frenetic 19-4 blitz in the game’s final minutes at Barclays Center.
Problem was … by the time they’d strung together enough stops and baskets to produce such a stretch, well, they’d already gone down by 21 at that point. And wound up losing 114-106.
Oops.
“That last little couple minutes of the game, it seemed like we were all over the place — guys were finding people, we were getting to the free-throw line,” said Mike Conley. “We have to have that kind of energy and urgency earlier in moments in the game, especially when they make little 6-0 runs, 7-0 runs in the second or third quarter, and be able to nip them in the bud.”
Yeah, about that …
It was a little 8-0 run by the Nets at the end of the second quarter that helped them surge ahead.
Then a little 7-0 run by Brooklyn early in the third that helped stretch their advantage.
About halfway through the third, a little 10-0 run by the Nets threatened to put the game out of Utah’s reach, and by the time it eventually stretched to a not-so-little 19-6 run, that’s pretty much exactly what had happened.
“We spent a lot of those two quarters — especially the third — taking the ball out of the net,” said Donovan Mitchell.
Yup — Brooklyn shot 11 of 22 in the second and 14 of 23 in the third.
And so, all that was left was for the Jazz to make a belated run of their own — just enough to get desperate fans’ hopes up, only to come crashing down again.
That, and, of course, the postgame buzzword drinking game slowly driving the die-hards to liver failure.
That “energy and urgency” comment from Conley.
Drink.
“There were some breakdowns in situations,” said coach Quin Snyder.
Drink.
“We got ourselves in too much of a hole, and it was hard to get out of it,” added Rudy Gay.
Drink.
“We’ll fix it and we’ll be back,” Mitchell contributed.
Drink.
“Our offense didn’t help our defense tonight,” said Snyder.
Drin…
Hey, you know what, issss anyone sssssstill ssssober?
You get the point.
It’s not the end of the world. It’s perhaps not even all that surprising that, on the second night of a back-to-back, the Jazz were lacking the requisite juice at times.
“We didn’t have the energy that we needed, trying to get out and run,” Snyder admitted. “When we run, the ball has a chance to move more — we got stagnant on the offensive end, and that deflates us a bit.”
That lack of ball movement stuck out — Utah had 18 assists on 37 buckets, while the Nets 31 on their 45 made baskets.
“Our offense kind of died a little bit there, and it affects what we do on the opposite end,” Conley added.
Of course, the Jazz did eventually pull it all together.
They just waited until they were trailing 108-87 with 6:09 to play to do it.
Still, with the Celtics, Hornets, Mavericks and Clippers yet to come on this road trip, they’ll gladly take whatever smidgen of positive momentum they can.
Mitchell and Jordan Clarkson got going from beyond the arc … a free-roaming Rudy Gobert finally was located down low for some dunks … Royce O’Neale and Mitchell forced the issue and wound up with trips to the line … oh, and there were turnovers forced and shots challenged.
“We attacked more and were spaced,” said Snyder. “Guys were creating and kicking — the ball moved more.”
That, added Conley, was the byproduct of a collective decision not to devolve into hero-ball, but to trust one another and allow everyone on the court to play a role in turning things around.
“This is a team that is really talented and can do a lot of different things. Sometimes we get away from who we are as a team, and that shows. We’re a really good team, but we have to stick to our principles,” said Gay. “… It’s a long season, things happen.”
They happened too late to make a difference on Monday.
We’ll see if there’s time yet to make a big, extended run in the broader scheme of things.
