Whew! That was close. After the Jazz beat the Bulls Monday in Chicago to notch their first win of the season, we thought they might be losing their focus. I mean, Cooper Flagg is the prize and we didn’t want that first win to give the team any crazy ideas.
Not to worry. The Bulls had failed to read the scouting report, as it turns out, and gave the young Jazz a break by not pressuring them in either court. The Bucks, however, needed a win badly and although they did not harass Jazz guards bringing the ball up, they did get up into the Jazz’ predictable hand-off motion game with expected results as the Jazz eventually disintegrated into their now signature non-offensive-execution fiasco.
Utah turned the ball over 22 times; they forced the Bucks into only 11. The Jazz remain the worst turn-over team in the league giving up 19.5 per game. They are last in opponent turnovers per game at 10.6. That means the Jazz give their opponents about 9 more shots per game than they take because they’re handing the ball off to them, usually at the 3-point line. Lower the Rim’s crack staff of statisticians is checking to see if this as ever happened before—a team that is the worst at giving the ball away and the worst at taking it away. We see our minions in their cubes working away on this question… we’ll keep you posted.
The Bucks scored 39 fast-break points, the Jazz… seven.
Milwaukee shot 51% from the field (that’s from all those transition and fast-break baskets) and the Jazz a mild 42%.
And so it goes. The Jazz have, fortunately, returned to form to remain at the front of the 2025-draft sweepstakes. Gone were the flashes from Keyonte George and John Collins. And Markkanen could do little as the Jazz had trouble breaking the circle let alone the paint on the offensive end—the Bucks had 20 more points in the paint than the Jazz.
Of special note is the Jazz achieving this 23-point lose with veterans Markkanen and Clarkson back on the court and with muchos minutos given to Sexton, Collins, Mills and even Eubanks. We feel strongly that if you’re going to lose big every seven out of eight games, Jazz fans would prefer seeing Filipowski (four minutes), Sensabaugh (three minutes), and Collier (four minutes) than Jordon Clarkson and Drew Eubanks at this stage.
Keep Markkanen on the floor, yes. But let’s see less of the guys that are just filling in during this rebuild and more of the guys that might have a chance of being here in three years.
A 1-7 record has its advantages this season. We just need to have more fun while we’re losing. And do we have to be last at everything? Pick a team statistic and try to get out of the cellar in that one.