Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 122-103 loss to the Denver Nuggets from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. “Winning is boring”
With Lauri Markkanen, John Collins, Jordan Clarkson, Kyle Filipowski, Taylor Hendricks, and Cody Williams out tonight, the Jazz were going to have a rough time against a good Nuggets team regardless. That talent gap was pretty reflected in tonight’s proceedings.
But despite all odds, the Jazz actually had kept this one close for the majority of the first half — thanks to pretty mercilessly attacking Jamal Murray defensively. And then it all unraveled relatively quickly, and off a seemingly innocuous occurrence.
Michael Porter Jr. had a pretty thunderous transition dunk, with about a minute left in the half. (I wish I could show you video, but the NBA’s play video cuts this out. If you have access to a replay of the game, check out the 1:16 mark of the second quarter.) After he dunked it, he kind of protected the ball from being inbounded, just classic gamesmanship stuff. Keyonte George shoves into Porter to get the ball back.
George then spends the next possession trying to get the switch onto Porter so he can attack. He does, and the result is this shot:
It’s about as low percentage of a shot as you can get, and it passes up an open shooter in Svi Mykhailiuk behind him.
The Nuggets then have the ball in transition, and George picks up Porter. on defense. Porter, recognizing the mismatch, fights George to get position down low. Ultimately, the Nuggets go elsewhere, and miss, but George is no match for Porter on the defensive glass and gets the easy putback.
Next Jazz possession is a quick two-for-one shot from Collin Sexton, it’s followed by a Jokic layup. But on the ensuing, end-of-half possession, George again tries to get the matchup against Porter, succeeds, then takes him on again. This time, it’s a pull-up three that’s missed.
It’s just three possessions, but George went out of what I believe was the Jazz’s game plan three times in a minute. As a result, they found themselves down 10 at halftime rather than right in the thick of it.
George, to be sure, is not the only Jazz’s young player that goes out of system on occasion. But heading out of system is a big part of why the Jazz have these lulls where they lose the plot of the game, and find themselves out of touch.
“I‘ll tell you guys what I told the team, which is that winning is boring,” Will Hardy told reporters afterwards. “And to win, you have to be willing to do simple things over and over and over and over and over again for 48 minutes, and that can become repetitive and frankly boring at times.”
It’s not that George wasn’t trying hard enough — it’s that he was trying too hard, being too competitive. It’s completely understandable what happened. But finding that next level of steadiness and maturity will help young players like George, and by extension, the Jazz.
2. Oscar Tshiebwe gets a chance
Thanks to all of the injuries mentioned above, Oscar Tshiebwe was called up to play for the Jazz today — on his 25th birthday.
Oscar Tshiebwe is famously one of the best people in basketball. He gained this reputation first in college play, where he debuted for West Virginia before playing for Kentucky. There, he was named the Sporting News' national player of the year, thanks for his prodigious point and rebounding totals.
The rebounding, by the way, is absurdly special. In his G-League career, he’s averaging 22 rebounds per 36 minutes. Like, are you kidding me? He only had nine boards today in his 15:39, which is only on pace for 20.3 rebounds per 36 minutes. I joked during the game that Tshiebwe and Nikola Jokic (currently leading the NBA in rebounding) were the two best rebounders in basketball — but there’s a decent chance that’s actually true.
Tshiebwe looked a bit out of sorts today, which was understandable, given that he was informed midway through Stars practice this afternoon and told to stop, because he’d be playing for the Jazz tonight. He didn’t ever actually take a shot from the floor, though he scored three points on three free throws. He had a turnover, but got a couple of steals from his 7-4 wingspan. He was fine.
But the game also presented a chance to speak to Tshiebwe postgame, which is always a delight.
“I always tell people I’m the light, so I bring the light,” Tshiebwe said. “Light is to try to make everybody happy, motivated, doing good. Sometimes, you help somebody just by smiling.”
“I love everything about Oscar. Man, he just makes you feel good. He’s such a good human being. I wish I was more like Oscar,” Hardy said. “He’s, like, the sweetest human being of all time.”
If the season’s not going to matter a great deal, and the power forwards are all hurt anyway — well, I’m glad it’s Oscar getting the chance.
3. Minnesota’s early-season start
The Minnesota Timberwolves are 8-10, good for 12th in the Western Conference. They’ve lost four in a row.
The quotes out of tonight’s loss were rough. Anthony Edwards could not have been more clear about his criticisms of the team. From Chris Hine at the Minnesota Star-Tribune:
• “However many of us it is, all 15, we go into our own shell and we’re just growing away from each other. It’s obvious,” Edwards said. “We can see it. I can see it, the team can see it, the coaches can see it. The fans … booing us. That … is crazy, man. We’re getting booed in our home arena.”
• “We soft as hell as a team, internally. Not to the other team, but internally, we soft,” Edwards said. “We can’t talk to each other. Just a bunch of little kids. Just like we playing with a bunch of little kids. Everybody, the whole team. We just can’t talk to each other. And we’ve got to figure it out, because we can’t go down this road.”
• “We’re just so negative right now. Last couple years, we was like this,” Edwards said, making a motion to indicate the team was close. “And I just feel like we’ve gradually grown away from each other, which is the craziest thing, because most of us have been together. We’ve got two new players, that’s about it. Everybody else has been together.”
• “We got to start doing what the coaches say, we always got something to say back,” Edwards said. “… We supposed to be doing this, and we do something else. We supposed to be in this coverage and we do something else."
• “As the person who’s supposed to help try to figure things out, sometimes it’s tough,” Edwards said. “Because you look at everybody, and everybody got a different agenda. It’s like, ‘What … am I supposed to say?’ You know what I mean. I’m trying to get better in that aspect, figure out what the hell to say to get everybody on the same agenda.”
So, uh, that’s not great for the Wolves. If you felt flashbacks to the 2021-22 Utah Jazz team there, with Rudy Gobert and a young star athletic guard kind of sniping, kind of not through the media as the team underperformed... well, you’re not the only one. This time, though, the chaos is to the Jazz’s benefit, thanks to the Jazz essentially owning the Wolves' draft for the next five years.
Thanks to the pitiful Eastern Conference, being the fourth-worst team in the West is actually only enough for the No. 11 draft slot. Still, that adds 2% to the Jazz’s chances of getting Cooper Flagg at No. 1, or 10% of getting a top four pick, if the season ended today.
It obviously does not, and the Wolves may well turn it around. But in a rough season for the Jazz, the Wolves scuffling, especially long-term, may be the most positive news for the franchise we’ve seen in the last month.
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