Jazz Lose In Oklahoma 82-97

Nov 26, 2014; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Utah Jazz center

(0) fights for a loose ball with Oklahoma City Thunder center

(12) during the first quarter at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

Tonight’s loss was an ugly one.  This Thunder team had 5 players out, including Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, making them very short handed. Both teams were shooting at a blistering past in the first quarter.

However, the familiar second quarter woes plagued the Jazz tonight.  At the half the Jazz were looking at a 48 – 56 deficit.  Similar deficits have been seen in most Jazz games at the half, but they could not over come this one tonight.

Let’s look into what happened.

• The Jazz bench scored a total of three points.  Yes you read that right.  In comparison, Oklahoma had 44 bench points.  You cannot win if you bench scores three points in 70 minutes of play.  In fact, this was kind of what the Jazz bench looked like tonight.

• Gordon Hayward had a bitter-sweet game.  Hayward racked up 24 points, eight rebounds, three assists, and four steals.  Thats a good line if you ignore the eight turnovers and seven missed free throw attempts.  Seven missed free throws was enough to lower Hayward free throw percentage from to 85.9% to 78.3%.

• Derrick Favors looked like a beast in the first quarter, scoring 9 points.  However, Favors did not score again until the fourth quarter.  Favors only took nine shots, which is about three less than has average for the year.  This team’s offense will depend on him, and we saw that tonight.

• Enes Kanter is showing great improvement on his jumper.  Kanter is shooting 55% on mind-range jumpers, which is far above the league average.  Enes quietly had a great night scoring 16 points and securing seven rebounds.  It was great to see him dish out two assists as well.  Enes was one of two players on the Jazz to have a positive +/-.  Kanter’s defense remains suspect at best.  However, Kanter has been about as good as you can hope for the year.

• Alec Burks was played a lot of his minutes with the bench unit tongiht, as Quin was desperate for some scoring when Gordon was off the court.  Burks was not very effective going 6-14 from the field for 16 points.  Alec is shooting 38.7% on the year and a lot of it is due to shot selection.  He seems to be forcing a lot of shots.  Burks is taking 32.5% of his shots in the mid-range.  It would be nice to see him get to the line more as well.  Four times is not enough for Burks.  That is far too many for Alec to be taking.  Alec did continue to fill the stat sheet with three rebounds, four assists, and two steals.

• Trey Burke went 5-10 from the field for 12 points tonight.  He has now strung together three straight games of 50% or greater shooting.  Trey is turning it around and it is good that Quin stuck with him longer than most fans would have.  At the moment he is the best point guard on the roster and the Jazz need him to play well to win.

• The Jazz had 19 turnovers, which is above the 14 turnover average on the year.  The high turnovers are expected.  The young Jazz players are being asked to play in a read based system, which is much more difficult to play in than last years system.  The high turnovers are expected, but it should be monitored as the year goes on.  Hopefully the players will begin to catch on to the system.  As they learn to play in the system the players will make better reads and cut the turnovers down.

• Jeremy Lamb looked like they player the Rockets drafted him to be tonight.  He had 21 points on only eight points.  His long arms helped him rack in three assists and a block.

• I still believe Reggie Jackson is one of the most overrated players in the league.  Sure he had 22 points, but it took him 18 shots.  That is terribly inefficient.

You can find a boxscore here.