In the wake of Game 2 of their first-round playoff series against Dallas, the Jazz should be slapping themselves, slapping themselves hard for what they let happen on Monday night.
Not only did they allow the Mavericks, by way of … who’s this? … Jalen Brunson and … who’s this? … Maxi Kleber, to beat them, 110-104, but, in doing so, they breathed into a gasping opponent, an opponent missing its best player, a most menacing playoff thing.
Life.
Give the Mavs a hand for taking it.
And that’s precisely what the Jazz did. They gave and gave and gave and the Mavs took. Took and took and took.
Took — and made — a stack of 3-pointers to the Jazz’s demise.
It was as though through the game’s crucial stretch, Utah’s players didn’t believe Dallas could make those shots, even after it already had proved in earlier stretches that it could. Sure, you wouldn’t — and they didn’t — think Kleber could kill them. But he did, hitting 8 of 11 bombs, too many of them uncontested, as the Jazz looked out of sorts and looked on with a kind of duuuuuuh expression on their collective face.
All with Luka Doncic sitting on the bench, dressed out in Jumpman gear, gingerly jumping up and down with glee, happy for his ‘mates, and straightaway laughing at the visitors from Utah.
There are two ways, then, we can go with this whole mess.
We can give the injured Mavs credit for hanging tough after a loss in Game 1.
And/or we can blame the Jazz for sitting by and enabling the durn thing.
They did not have to lose this game. But … they did.
Quin Snyder saw and acknowledged his team’s comprehensive mistakes.
Here’s a brief mashup of his postgame quotes:
“We have to do a better job containing,” he said. … We’re not getting to where we need to be quick enough. … Our rotations weren’t as sharp as they need to be. … Our execution wasn’t what it needed to be. … We need to clean some things up. … We need to finish at the rim.”
And, most importantly, the coach, recognizing what’s done is done, concluded: “We need to respond.”
Indeed.
Utah allowed 47-percent shooting, both from 2 and from 3. The Mavericks made 22 shots from beyond the arc. The Jazz’s resistance was regrettable.
And they were fully aware. How could they not be?
“Offensively, we did enough to win the game,” said Donovan Mitchell. “.… Defensively, we gave up a lot of …”
Uh-huh.
He added: “We’ll be better. … This is stuff we can fix.”
Still, if the Jazz know what they were doing wrong and they know what they have to do to make it right, why didn’t they do what they know?
It’s a good question.
As was already indicated, the Jazz couldn’t stay in front of Brunson, a fine player, but not a player anyone would expect to be unstoppable, to go for 41 points on 15-for-25 shooting, six of 10 from 3. That’s not just a player playing great, it’s a slew of defenders playing poorly.
And Kleber? Ach du liebe Zeit!
When the fifth-year German who averages seven points a game plainly displayed to anyone with eyes to see that he was really feeling it on this particular occasion (25 big ones), Jazz defenders still rotated off of him, leaving him completely open and comfortable to do more damage.
“He was ready for those shots,” said Mitchell.
The Jazz were not.
“We’ve got to guard,” said Mitchell.
Ya think?
It’s not as though the Jazz were wholly inept in Game 2. They had some nice moments, just not enough of them to … you know, win. And it seems as though they should have learned from hard lessons in their postseasons past that gaining victory in the playoffs is one mother of a challenge.
A challenge that must be met with force and focus.
And they had ample amounts of neither here.
Coming into the second game, having tasted victory in the first outing, the Jazz seemed to have known they were battling a wounded bear in this series. But not the kind of wounded bear that is hurt just enough to be all angry and ornery and dangerous, rather a wounded bear that has its hind legs blown clean off.
Doncic is those hind legs.
He’s one of the best players on the planet.
Without him, there’s no way the Jazz could lose this series, right?
Well. The Mavs — Mr. Ranger, sir — went ahead and grabbed their pic-a-nic basket on Monday night. And if you don’t get that rather antiquated reference, you have no clue about or appreciation for 1960′s cartoons.
Come to think of it, Doncic looks a little like Yogi Bear.
But, in part, on account of the Jazz’s largesse and the Mavs’ grit and determination, it turns out these Mavericks are nobody’s laughable Yogi and Boo-Boo. They instead are the other kind of wounded bear, the formidable sort. And they appear resolved to put up a wicked fight, regardless of whether Doncic and his calf strain heal up.
In this game, the Jazz withstood an early barrage from Brunson, who started hot. He cooled after a bit, but heated right back up again, the Jazz unable to stay in front of him. That inability twisted their defense, causing rotations to spin out of control, freeing up shooters such as Kleber — others, too — to set up in open space. That defensive shortcoming was never sorted and, ultimately, it caused the Jazz’s doom at game’s end.
Although they had leads for much of the contest, including a four-point margin heading into the fourth period, the Jazz simply could not maintain, could not make shots with equal proficiency. The Mavs doubled up the Jazz, who made just 11 3-pointers, on those long balls, and they outscored Utah by 10 in the final quarter.
Mitchell scored 34 points on 13-for-30 shooting. Bojan Bogdanovic got 25 points, but, whether you put much stock in plus-minus numbers, it’s worth noting that Bogdanovic was a minus-19 for the game, Mitchell was a minus-14. Mike Conley had an abysmal showing, going oh-fer from the floor on seven attempts, and getting himself into early foul trouble.
Mitchell’s charge is what almost every star player’s challenge is in the playoffs — to fit his own game, his own talents into a unified lean forward for his entire team. That’s what the great ones do. They survey important situations and select from a variety of options available to them what’s in the best interest of everybody. The lessers know the vast skillset Mitchell possesses. And he knows it, too. He’s better than they are.
OK.
But how can he make them better, without either trying to do everything himself or laying back in some funky-pouty mode where he disengages?
It’s a tricky balance, and he got not nearly enough help from those around him on Monday night. Jordan Clarkson went for 21 off the bench, but elsewhere the production was limited.
But the Jazz’s real problems came, as mentioned, at the other end, where they made Brunson and Kleber look like Jordan and Pippen. And the supporting cast hurt them just enough to tie the series at 1-all.
Regardless of the fact that the Mavs without Doncic are not as good, not as talented as the Jazz, that matters not as much as you’d expect over a best-of-seven series. Not if proper attention isn’t paid to significant details.
Either way, the affair now heads to Vivint Arena, where the Mavs have lost 11 straight games. Nobody’s saying when or if the bear’s hind legs will be back in place over that span. If they are, Doncic is the kind of player who could push this entire endeavor over the top for Dallas.
Even if he doesn’t return, though, the Jazz had best snap out of whatever haze they were lost in through the second half of Game 2. Already, many of the postgame questions centered on comparisons to what happened 10 months ago against the Clippers. It’s as though observers are expecting the Jazz to crumble and collapse, as they have at critical moments in the past two postseasons.
They want nothing to do with that, chasing ghosts.
But chase them, they must. Chase them away. The only way to achieve that is to quit with the giving and commence with their own taking. Take what is theirs, if that’s what it really is. At this point, that’s fairly in doubt.
Said Mitchell: “I’m hopeful.”
He added that … no, he knew the Jazz would make a stand. But there’s that question again: Will they do what they know?
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