Offense Dries Up Again as Utah’s Woes Continue Against OKC

December 10th, 2019 | by Dan Clayton

A big night from Gobert couldn’t save the offense-starved Jazz. (Melissa Majchrzak via espn.com)

Having lost five of seven games heading into Monday’s home game, the Utah Jazz appeared to get a gift from the schedule makers. There in front of them, in a brightly colored bow, sat a 10-12 team down two starters, and having arrived in the wee hours of game day after playing the previous night in Portland and losing an hour on the way to Salt Lake City. The visit of the road-weary Thunder gave Utah a perfect chance to get back on track.

Ummmmmmm…

Instead, Utah’s recent funk continued, as they allowed the Thunder a 19-4 run in the late third quarter and never recovered. The Jazz would ultimately lose for the sixth time in eight games, 104-90.

Thunder guard Dennis Schröder continued his torrid stretch with a game-high 27 points, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander added 20 to help OKC overcome the absence of both starting forwards. Danilo Gaillinari (ankle) and Terrance Ferguson (hip) were both unavailable, but it barely seemed to faze the Thunder, who have quietly won their last five battles against Western Conference teams.

The Jazz were also without Mike Conley, which again paved the way for Joe Ingles’ promotion to the starting lineup, where he could build on the pick-and-roll chemistry with Rudy Gobert. Ingles added eight more dimes after his 10-assist performance on Saturday, and Gobert had a monster double-double with 19 points and 17 boards. But beyond Gobert’s 9-for-10 shooting night, the Jazz just couldn’t produce enough offense to keep pace with the Thunder.

Excluding garbage time, Utah managed an offensive rating of just 87 points per 100 possessions. That output is in the bottom 5% of all NBA games played this season, per stats site Cleaning the Glass. Leading scorers Donovan Mitchell (26 points, but on 10-for-25 shooting) and Bojan Bogdanovic (4-for-17) both had off nights, while starting forward Royce O’Neale went scoreless after missing all six shots. 

The Jazz didn’t get much help from beyond the arc, either. They shot 25.8% from three for the game, including 1-for-8 from Mitchell and 1-for-7 from the bench.

Despite the shooting woes, Utah managed to keep things close for two and a half quarters, and even see-sawed into the lead on five occasions early on. But after Gobert pulled them to within five on a third-quarter free throw (66-61), the Thunder made their big push. Schröder scored 12 of his points in the ensuing four minutes as OKC extended its lead to 20. During that run, Utah missed nine consecutive shots.

Simply put, the Jazz are reeling. Conley’s return will help, but their current struggles predate the point guard’s hamstring issues. Their only wins since Thanksgiving week have come against the Memphis Grizzlies, and they haven’t beaten a winning team since November 12. 

Stats of the Game

0: For a second straight game, the Jazz went 48 minutes without blocking a single Thunder shot. For context on just how weird a stat that is, it had been more than five years since the Jazz failed to block a shot in a single home game, let alone two in a row.  

15: According to the NBA’s matchup tracking data, Schröder did most of his damage against Emmanuel Mudiay and Georgies Niang. Mudiay was primarily guarding him during that third-quarter spurt, and Schröder also recognized he could engineer switches to get Niang on him and attack. Eight of his points came on plays where Niang ended up on him, another seven with Mudiay. He didn’t score during the 13 possessions that Mitchell had him, but the Thunder’s ORtg on those plays was 138.

+20: Chris Paul didn’t have the gaudiest statline (16 points, 7 assists, 3 steals), but he might have had the biggest impact on the scoreboard. The Thunder outscored Utah by 20 in the wily veteran’s minutes, which means they lost by six in the nearly 18 minutes that the nine-time All-Star sat.

19-6: Utah once again lost the points off turnovers battle, which is disappointing since OKC was the team playing shorthanded and on the second night of a back-to-back. 

100%: Gobert was a beast on offense, but not his usual self in the defensive paint. Thunder players made all five shots at the rim while Gobert was contesting. That is pretty unusual.

Line of the Game

“Schro” and SGA did the heavy lifting on offnese, but Steven Adams had the most eclectic line of the night: 11 poinst (on 4-for-4 shooting) to go with 13 boards, four assists and four blocked shots. The big man also joked with reporters after the game that the charge he drew on Gobert on a second-half drive was “the first one of my career.”

Decisive Moment

Down five, Utah allows Schröder to go off, scoring 12 points in about a 4-minute span at the end of the third quarter. Utah goes 0-for-9 during the same span, and the resultant 19-4 OKC run puts the game away for good.

Highlight of the Game

The Ingles-Gobert connection was one semi-reliable source of offense for Utah. This floating pass to a rim-running Rudy had to be just perfect. He had to allow Gobert time to run into the pass, and if he had put any less air under it, SGA could have gotten there. 

Social

So yeah, things haven’t been going great for the Jazz lately.

Notes

  • Mudiay’s struggles on both ends led to a rare second-half appearance for Dante Exum. It was just the second time since his season debut that Exum got into the second half of a game before garbage time. He played 3:46 before a passing turnover got him the hook. He would return later to lead a bit of a consolation push with the third unit in garbage time.
  • Jeff Green, one game removed from a season high-tying 19 points against Memphis, had just four points on 2-for-5 shooting.
  • Mitchell has now made just seven of his last 25 attempts from deep (28%).
  • Utah tied a season low with just 12 free throws attempted.

    Up Next

    Utah and Minnesota are knotted at 1-1 this season after splitting a home-and-home set in November, with each team scoring a road win. The Jazz will get another shot at Karl-Anthony Towns and crew, but they’ll be hungry after losing their last five.

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