Floundering Jazz Search for Answers After Another Loss

Mitchell and the Jazz have lost to Denver twice in the last week, part of an overall 5-game skid. (Melissa Majchrzak vía espn.com)

The reeling Jazz suffered their fifth straight loss on Wednesday night, falling from 15 points ahead in a close loss to a Denver squad with just seven healthy players. The 98-95 loss and the overall malaise over the last week and a half has left the club searching for answers  

It would be easy to point to the stats and imply that the Jazz lost a close game to a tough division rival because of a few missed free throws or poor shot selection by Donovan Mitchell, who made eight of his 24 attempts. Or even a turnover here and there and an offensive board giving the Nuggets an extra possession. And probably any of those things could have changed the outcome of the game. But that doesn’t still address why a game like this was so close in the first place.

Of course, credit where credit is due. Denver’s All-Star Nikola Jokic had a very impressive game, making 14 made field goals with Rudy Gobert as his primary defender and a 30-point, 20-rebound triple double. The big man also drained the go-ahead field goal over Gobert on a one-footed Dirk Nowitzki-esque 19-footer. 

But all that ignores the full context. The Jazz have looked nothing like the 19-2 team we saw less than a month ago. Sure, the opponent strength has increased. But has that really made all the difference? The Jazz have played some of these supposedly superior opponents with rest advantages or missing multiple key starters — and sometimes both.

Collectively, Mitchell, Gobert and Jazz coach Quin Snyder all seem to agree that there’s some component of lacking mental energy or toughness. 

A Theory

Maybe the rotations are to blame. Once starting guard Mike Conley returned from injury, Snyder has had a challenge he hasn’t had before: trying to juggle playing time for too many talented players. Many of those guys need the ball to succeed. Between Bojan Bogdanovic, Conley, Joe Ingles, Mitchell, and now Jordan Clarkson, you have an offensively skilled and diverse lineup, but all work best when they can get their hands on the ball.

As an example, Donovan shouldn’t be checking into close games with just five minutes left to play. That should never happen. But it is happening. Regularly. Because the Jazz have Mitchell playing extra minutes to steady the bench unit, they need to buy him a rest in the middle of second and fourth quarters, when the opposing team is usually going back to its star players. 

With Conley injured, the offense found balance and a rhythm and was tops in the league for a time. The balance seems to have been thrown off with Conley’s return, which really doesn’t make sense. Should the return of a very skilled and offensively talented point guard make a team worse? In the long run, no. We can’t just point to Conley and say “he’s washed” either. Conley led the Jazz in scoring on Wednesday, posted an impressively versatile 21-8-6 line, and is shooting 9-for-15 (60%) from three since being reinserted into the starting unit. 

But with so many skilled players in the rotation, someone is going to suffer, probably dependent on the rotation Quin is running with. Ingles, for example, has struggled with Conley in the lineup. Recently, Mitchell has been expected to roll with the bench unit and carry some of the weight of the second unit. Okay, he’s capable of that, most likely. But it looks like he’s trying to do too much and it’s also throwing off his rhythm because he is getting sent out in weird stretches, and it’s not really working. 

Players like Bogdanovic, Conley, and Mitchell  aren’t touching the ball as often as they need to. As a result, they don’t get into a rhythm. When they aren’t in a rhythm, they make more mental mistakes and lapses and they aren’t as focused. They aren’t as engaged and communicate less often, which has a detrimental effect on defense. These things aren’t happening for a full 48 minutes, it should be noted. The games seem to have 5-8 minutes of really solid, connected play and the Jazz put on a burst of shooting, scoring, and defense. Then a substitution happens, and even though the team on the floor is “solid” on paper, something rhythmically gets thrown off and it all falls apart. It’s actually never as simple as “Rudy left the floor” or anything like that. 

Again, this is only a theory and it’s not entirely Quin’s problem to solve with some magic rotations. It also doesn’t negate the need for a stronger collective effort or focus from the team members, either. The schedule doesn’t get any easier, so let’s hope some soul-searching happens in the four games that remain before the All-Star break.