Jazz Fade Late in 114 – 102 Bucks Loss

A game Raul Neto of the Utah Jazz fights for the ball with the Milwaukee Bucks’ Eric Bledsoe in Utah’s 114 – 102 loss in Milwaukee. (Bill Michaels Sports)

Story of the Game

The Milwaukee Bucks have a reasonable claim to the title best team in the NBA at present. The Utah Jazz entered the night with as many wins as losses. Thus the Bucks’ 114-102 home win was predictable — but how hard they had to work to get it was anything but.

Utah’s ability to stay in the game was largely a product of reigning Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert’s ability to check this season’s MVP frontrunner, Giannis Antetokounmpo. In a fascinating clash of freakish athleticism and otherworldly length squared, the Greek Freak and Stifle Tower clashed over and over in a bruising joust near the rim.

The Jazz would take the result of that individual matchup every night. Antetokounmpo, the league’s most devastating post scorer, required a massive 30 shots to get his 30 points.

Without the presumptive MVP’s typical offensive efficiency for the Bucks, the Jazz were able to more than stay with the home team, leading much of the game, including by as much as 11 points at one point. Into the third quarter, Utah’s own burgeoning star was the one making noise.

Donovan Mitchell, who has struggled mightily with his efficiency this season — in particular his three-point shooting — was in the midst of a night where he caught lightning in a bottle, much like so many games last season. Midway through the third quarter, he was six of 10 from three and had already matched his scoring total in Detroit with 26 points.

But as the game wore on, Milwaukee’s star got sustained help from an excellent supporting cast — four other players scoring 14 or more points — where Utah’s didn’t. Mitchell, who ended up playing 40 minutes, fatigued down the stretch and missed all five of his fourth-quarter shots. With Ricky Rubio lost six minutes into the game with a right thigh injury and Dante Exum still out with a sprained ankle, the Jazz offense collapsed without Mitchell carrying it. 

The Jazz scored only 16 fourth quarter points to the Bucks’ 31. 

But if a 12 point loss can look respectable, this one certainly did for the Jazz.

Stars of the Game

Superstars: Rudy Gobert (14 points, 15 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 block) and Donovan Mitchell (26 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 6 threes)

There’s a reasonable argument for Gobert being the best player in this game despite the loss. Anyone who can hold likely the greatest physical specimen in league history, Giannis Antetokounmpo, to 30 points on 30 shots has been a defensive monster. Remember, the dude’s scoring nearly 27 a game on 17 shots! 

It’s a shame that Mitchell’s final stat line of 26 points on 24 shots is similar to his season’s poor efficiency, because he was so much better than that early. Before the lack of ball handling around him and weariness against a great team on the road enervated his teammates, Mitchell had all 26 of his points on 16 shots. But he simply didn’t have enough help driving the Jazz offense with both Rubio and Exum out, as illustrated by his seven turnovers on the night. But he carried the Jazz offense for a long time against one of the best teams in the league on the road.

 Secondary Star: Ricky Rubio (9 points, 1 assist, 1 steal, 5 minutes), Derrick Favors (12 points, 7 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 3 blocks), and Raul Neto (10 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 threes)

Rubio came out of the gate ballin’, scoring nine points on four of five shooting in only five minutes of play. If he’d continued with anything like that type of firepower in addition to Mitchell’s night, the game’s outcome just might have been different. But he immediately took himself out of the game after an innocuous-looking play where an offensive player bumped his hip. It honestly looked to be a fairly gentle tap. But Rubio slammed his fist into a table walking through the tunnel to the locker room, so it’s clear he knew something was wrong almost instantly. His loss really hurt the Jazz.

Favors shot wasn’t falling as he missed all three threes and both free throws. But he was a physical presence the team desperately needed with Gobert tilting so frequently against the Greek Freak. Favors managed three blocks and got his hands on a number of other potential offensive rebounds only to be out-fought by two or three keyed up Bucks players, but even that stopped the pace that so hurt the Jazz. 

With Exum out for an estimated two weeks and Rubio’s status uncertain going forward, Utah will desperately need Neto to provide quality minutes, as he did tonight. His toughness helped him a lot against the long and physical Bucks. He continues to shoot the three well and is currently making 41-percent of his long range attempts on the season.

Secret Star: Royce O’Neale (8 points, 4 rebounds, 2 threes)

O’Neale has seen his time diminish in the presence of Kyle Korver, but he continues to make positive contributions in time allotted him. Both of his makes were threes, making him a super-impressive 39-percent sniper on the year.

Stats of the Game

17 – Milwaukee’s advantage in fast break points, 19 to 2, which was decisive this game.

71-percent – Three point shooting by Brook Lopez and Thon Maker, the Bucks’ centers, who were five of seven.

68 – Points in the paint by Milwaukee to Utah’s 36. They commanded the paint.

25/Minus-10 – Utah’s shooting percentage and shot disadvantage in the fourth quarter, where the Bucks got 10 more attempts and Utah made only one in four of the shots they did get.

Sundries

• The Bucks are as good as people say — yet there’s no reason Utah should fear them. The Jazz are a bad matchup for Milwaukee because Gobert is probably the best player in the NBA to check Giannis¹. To keep perspective, Brook Lopez, Thon Maker, and Malcom Brogdan combined for 51 points on 28 shots. It’ll be interesting to see this return matchup in Salt Lake in March where that certainly won’t happen again.
• The Jazz have recently lost to the class of the East — Toronto and Milwaukee — on the road despite playing well. But it took career games from opponents both those games: Kawhi Leonard and Pascal Siakam for the Raptors and tonight Thon Maker for the Bucks. If moral victories exist, these count. 
• I love Brogdan’s game, especially how comfortable he is with physicality in his drives. He’s controlled but really forceful and finishes well from different launching points. Kind of reminds me of Shandon Anderson in that way, before the poor guy blew those layups in the finals and never mentally recovered.
• Utah allowed 44 points to Antetokounmpo and Kris Middleton on 45 shots. That means Utah’s game plan worked. They got beaten by shots they wanted to give up in the half court. It was the open court opportunities and unreal shooting by several players that killed them.
• Utah is playing much better than earlier in the year, but their offense is still problematically reliant on highly variable pieces. Joe Ingles had two points on only six shots. That simply can’t happen if this team is to be as good as they can be. He’s become too good a player to shoot the ball six times in a game. Simultaneously, Jae Crowder missed seven of his nine threes. Korver is going to go one of five like tonight sometimes, and the team can’t rely on him getting 12 points on seven shots every night. When Ingles and Crowder combine for 14, the team will almost always lose. 

At 20 and 21, the Jazz are — once again — under .500. Yet this doesn’t feel like the same team from a month ago.

They’ve only had one truly poor game in weeks, the loss in Philadelphia. Since mid-December they’ve had a number of big wins without the blowout losses of earlier in the year, which has helped them climb into a tie for 10th best point differential in the league, despite their murderer’s row schedule.

The injuries to their guards are worrisome, especially if Rubio misses time, but the team is playing good ball just in time to hit their easiest stretch of the season so far. Five of their next six games are against the Magic, Lakers (sans King James), Bulls, Pistons, and Cavaliers — and all those games are at home.