The Triple Team: The Jazz, without Lauri Markkanen, blow out the Blazers by 42 points

Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 141-99 win over the Portland Trail Blazers from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Well, that was unexpected

Two unexpected things happened tonight:

First, Lauri Markkanen was a late scratch before the game, thanks to his back issues. After the game, Markkanen said that, this afternoon, his back felt like it did before the original flareup happened against Sacramento — so not bad, necessarily, just weird. In the end, out of an abundance of caution, he and the Jazz decided he shouldn’t play tonight. We’ll see how his back feels in Sacramento Sunday.

In his stead stepped in Svi Mykhailiuk, an end-of-bench player who has played just four games this year.

Second, naturally, the Jazz won by 42 points. 42 points!

By margin, it was the eighth-biggest win in Jazz history. The 1997 or 1998 Jazz never won by 42 points. Heck, Stockton and Malone, over the course of their 20-year careers, only did it four times — and never on the road. The Deron Williams/Carlos Boozer teams never did it on the road, either, and only once at home.

And tonight the now-5-win Utah Jazz shellacked the Blazers.

Now of course, this is mostly a tale about how the NBA has changed, not a reflection of the Jazz’s overall quality. In truth, I thought that this game, this outcome, was largely about how poorly the Blazers played tonight, with an absolute indifference on the defensive end.

But it’s worth giving credit to the Jazz for the things they did well. On defense, they played well defensively themselves — as Keyonte George said, they forced the poor-shooting Blazers into the long, contested threes that they wanted to.

On offense, they avoided too many turnovers (14, which is about average). That allowed them to get shots at the basket, which Walker Kessler put back with regularity (24 second-chance points). Finally, they also pushed the ball in transition more than they had all season, scoring a whopping 39 fast-break points despite just 11 Portland turnovers. That had been a point of struggle all season, where the Jazz found themselves stuck in half-court. Not tonight.

I’m not sure that this game was the start of a rebirth or anything for the Jazz; I’ll need to see more than this game to really believe in this performance. But it was certainly night-and-day compared to the shellacking they took at the hands of Oklahoma City just three days ago.

2. The perils of DeAndre Ayton

I thought one Portland player in particular was the largest culprit in the loss tonight: DeAndre Ayton. While other players had larger plus-minuses, Ayton’s -29 came in just 17 minutes on the floor. That’s really hard to do.

Or maybe not, because Ayton made losing by that much look really easy. All you have to do is play disinterested, selfish offense and disinterested, selfish defense.

There’s no reason for Ayton to take this shot and then have John Collins beat him down the floor that badly.

There’s no reason for Ayton to airball this floater.

There’s no reason for Ayton to lolligag down the floor and then, once getting the ball, throw up this nonsense with 16 seconds on the shot clock.

Man, it was rough out there. Chauncey Billups agreed, pulling the plug.

It’s a good reminder that even if the Jazz were to get the No. 1 pick, success is not guaranteed after the pick is made. Now, I think the Phoenix Suns made several mistakes in selecting Ayton — I’m not sure I’d take a traditional big man center that high, and certainly not when someone with the resume of Luka Doncic was available. Ayton’s also clearly regressed from even his Phoenix days.

But the draft is necessarily a crapshoot because it’s about predicting human performance. Sometimes, humans react to situations like getting $200 million dollars, or being on a bad team, or both, differently than you might expect.

I generally support the Jazz’s plan to tank and try to get one of the elite prospects in this draft. But even after those picks, there’s a strong chance that the road afterwards will be bumpy.

3. Paul Millsap’s retirement

The exact opposite of DeAndre Ayton was Paul Millsap. The No. 47 overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft wasn’t really projected to be a long-term NBA player, because he was too small to play forward in the NBA. And instead, Millsap simply played extremely hard, worked to get better every year, and became a 4-time All-Star on the back of his work.

From the get-go, Millsap was a very useful bench player, having other-worldly rebounding rates at both the college level and his first few years in the NBA. That, putbacks, and surprising blocks were his calling cards as a young player, but those alone were in such significant supply off the bench that he was named to the All-Rookie team.

He played in that role for four years before the Jazz finally gave him a chance in the starting lineup. He was great in that role in the Ty Corbin years — playing second-fiddle to Al Jefferson in terms of shot attempts, but frequently outperforming him across the scoresheet anyway. By Win Shares, he was the Jazz’s most valuable player in 2011-12, the only Corbin season in which the Jazz made the playoffs.

I first got the sense that Corbin was holding Millsap back after the Miracle in Miami game, the remarkable 46-point performance in which Millsap hit three consecutive threes in the game’s final minute to bring the Jazz back. Clearly, the long-distance shot was newly in his bag. But Corbin never really drew up anything for Millsap to take advantage of it, instead having him play a much more traditional power forward that never took outside shots.

After Millsap left the Jazz to play for Atlanta and coach Mike Budenholzer, things changed. Millsap started taking over 200 threes per season; relatedly, he also became that 4-time All-Star. He then played four good years for the Denver Nuggets, before finally succumbing to injuries and aging at 36 years old.

Jazz guard Patty Mills played with Paul Millsap in his final season, both were with the Brooklyn Nets. Mills remembered that on the team’s very first plane ride, Millsap spilled Tabasco hot sauce all over his white shoes. “Nice to meet you, Paul Millsap,” Mills said.

But Mills took lessons from Millsap’s career, too — he brought up Millsap’s adaptability, too, as the first thing he’ll remember about Millsap beyond the hot sauce incident. “The way that he was able to adjust his game from year to year and from team to team, I think it’s very unique,” Mills said.

As Millsap officially retired this week, I think it’s appropriate to give him that send-off. An incredibly solid NBA career that he had to work incredibly hard to achieve, making it all the more impressive.

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