Ingles’ Season High Helps Jazz Beat Wolves

December 12th, 2019 | by Jake Gochnour

Ingles’ season high was an important ingredient in the Jazz’s Wednesday win. (David Sherman via espn.com)

Two struggling teams met in the Target Center on Wednesday night, and it was the Utah Jazz who were able to seize the oportunity to get back on track. Utah scored an impressive 127-116 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Both the Timberwolves and the Jazz came in looking for a chance to turn things around; Utah had lost six of their previous eight, while the Wolves had lost five in a row. Utah was able to play effectively on both the offensive and defensive side and overcome their recent slump, led by the trio of Donovan Mitchell, Joe Ingles and Rudy Gobert.

The Jazz have struggled by giving up large runs to their opponents in the third quarters of their previous couple of games. The Jazz have been able to stay with opponents fairly well until they go minutes without scoring and the opposing team piles it on. The opposite was the case on Wednesday: the Jazz finished the third quarter on a 28-14 push, setting themselves up with a 14-point lead for the fourth quarter.

Another recent offensive struggle the Jazz obviously addressed in Minneapolis was ball movement, especially after halftime. Utah managed to finish with the first half with only five assisted field goals, the result of isolation plays or pick-and-roll pull-up jumpers from a hot Mitchell.

The second half was a different story. The Jazz assisted on 15 of 24 field goals in the final two quarters. The increased ball movement for the Jazz allowed for open shots and a high shooting percentage. The Jazz finished shooting 56.6% from the field and an impressive 45.7% from three. Bench players Jeff Green, Emmanuel Mudiay and Georges Niang tossed in a combined eight 3-pointers on only 11 attempts. Hopefully the Jazz can continue to incorporate the ball movement into their gameplay to create more offensive proficiency.

“It was good to see Donovan cutting back and Joe as well being able to find people on the perimeter,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder commented. “I think we had more catch-and-shoot threes tonight than we did in a while.” Even Coach Q recognized the impact that ball movement had on the Jazz’s success.

A nice exhibition from last night:

With Mike Conley (hamstring) out for a fourth straight game, Ingles started for Utah. He was the secret weapon of the game finishing with 23 points, shooting 9-for-14 from the field and 3-for-6 from downtown. This was Joe’s first game of the season scoring more than 20 points and it was great to see him knock down some shots big time shots.

And of course, Donny dropped the hammer a few times:

He finished with the team high 30 points and 6 assists. He continues to dominate night in and night out.

Rudy added 20 points and 16 rebounds in the Jazz victory. He is averaging 13.7 rebounds per a game putting him at the third place in the league.

Interesting stat of the game: Green, Niang and Ed Davis finished the game with a +12 plus-minus, and Mudiay had a +15. Impressive night from the Jazz bench players.

Although the Jazz played well as a team on Wednesday. questions still linger. Can the Jazz beat teams that have a top ten defense in the NBA? So far, the answer has mostly been no. Recent wins have come against the Grizzlies, Warriors, Pelicans, Nets, Bucks and of course the Timberwolves. All of these teams struggle defensively. The Bucks are the 11th best defensive team in the league but all of the other teams the Jazz have beaten are in the bottom half of the league. The Jazz can win games, but can they beat teams that play good defense? Only time will tell.

Finally, if the Jazz want to win, the need to have bench presence. This season Donovan, Rudy, and Bojan Bogdanovic have been reasonably consistent, but the wild card has been the bench. If Utah hopes to continue to win games, Ingles and the other role players need to be better and more consistent.

The Jazz face the Warriors on Friday the 13th. The good sign for Utah is that the Warriors are another of those teams that struggle defensively — and for that matter, to win games.

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