Meet
Kinda Scary
Posted by: Zach on December 19th, 2011
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.I know this was just a preseason game, but there were plenty of concerning observations to take from it. First and foremost, Devin Harris… He is no Deron Williams. He ended with 10 points on 4 of 9 shooting, but he looked pretty bad passing the ball and running the offense, getting just 2 assists and committing 5 turnovers. He seemed unaware of the defense at times and was not on the mark with his passes. His only excuse is that the off-ball movement of the other four guys was awful. Portland’s defense was stifling and there weren’t many open guys the whole game. Still, he looked as lost as the rookies tonight.
Next was the obvious lack of confidence. We came out like we knew we were going to lose. Sure, we’re really young and probably pretty nervous, but the whole team looked pretty unsure of themselves and their teammates. Getting blocked every time you shoot probably didn’t help Kanter or Burks much in this regard.
No leader. As far as I could tell, nobody took leadership responsibility in this game. I guess we just have to hope Millsap will step up, or maybe Howard. We did only see Howard for a couple minutes.
Offensive movement was not fluent and as a result, just about every shot was forced. We kept running out the shot clock to the very last second. Nobody looked very good shooting the ball and only Favors really had any success inside. Memo looked awful, not being able to shoot, defend, or rebound really at all. It’s way too early and probably unfair to say this, but perhaps we should start shopping a decent PG.
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Yes, it is early, but if they still play the “Sloan” offense they are doomed. You need a robot point guard to play that and they have not had one of those since Stockton. Favors was excellent and will become a star and therefore will not be with the JaZz long. Hayward still under achieves and I fear will always be a wasted pick. CJ looked good, as far as the others…only time will tell but me thinks it will be a long season for JaZz fans….
You can’t really draw any conclusions from a pre-season contest, but a few observations.
The Jazz need Paul Millsap’s “lead by example” approach on the floor.
It’s going to take Memo Okur and Josh Howard a little while to get back into the swing of things again, with both coming off lost seasons due to injury a year ago.
Raja Bell doesn’t belong in the starting lineup.
Gordon Hayward plays better as a starter, then as a reserve. Also, he needs to make better use of his time on the floor. Jeremy Evans was more productive in nine minutes of action tonight, then Hayward was in 32 minutes.
Derrick Favors is going to make a huge leap forward this season, if he can avoid foul trouble, and injury.
Enes Kanter was born to rebound. Also, he has a nice touch from the foul line. With more confidence, and experience, he should average a double double someday.
The Jazz still need a bunch of work on both ends of the floor. Poor outside shooting on one end, and poor team defense on the other end.
This team would have greatly benefited from a normal length pre-season schedule (about 8 games). The chemistry just isn’t there yet.
Devin Harris has to raise his assists numbers, and Watson has to be able to knock down some shots. Between the two, they are like a complete point guard, with one being a better scorer, and the other, a more natural passer.
CJ looked good? Really? Look at the box score. Evans has his numbers beat in half the minutes.
Only caught the play by play as my directv will not be installed until Friday. Thank you Jason for saying most of what I would’ve said, as usual I agree with you. Zach and Jazzman are you really jumping off the bandwagon after one preseason game? Can’t believe we started Raja again, we got off to slow starts in every game he started last year and nothing has changed as he had no stats in all the first quarter. If I remember right. What does he have to offer as a starter? Leadership? How about leading by scoring some points or at least an assist or something? I thought we should’ve gone after Barea aggresively but we didn’t so Watson will have to do. Our youth seems very promising Favors is a monster. We are rebuilding as much as no one wants to admit it and we are missing a young PG. But I think Favors, Kanter, Burks, Evans and Hayward will give us plenty to cheer for and get excited about as long as we stop ringing the dead already Raja Bell to death. I’m excited to see more of this from Favors and if Corbin will just let the young guys play it will be an exciting season, although we probably won’t win a ton of games, next year and after we should be pretty amazing. A team of Kanter, Favors, Hayward, Burks, and maybe Austin Rivers or Harrison Barnes if we can be so lucky, is an awesome future for the Jazz, let’s just cheer and hope for the best and hope our young guys keep getting better.
Team defense will be the “make or break” part of our season. Portland just had open look after open look every time down the floor and we couldn’t get open.
I’m worried, but at the same time, we went 8-0 in the pre-season last year and sucked in our first 2 games. So who knows. Time will tell.
Can’t remember being this happy with the Jazz losing by 20 well..ever. The potential is there, it just needs time to develop. This was the first pre-season game after a bizarre, and frankly awful year for basketball {especially for the Jazz]. Almost nothing can be determined from this game. The team we see on Wednesday is going to be significantly better than they were tonight.
This game was the icebreaker, the awkward introduction. Baptism by fire for this new, young team. WIth plenty of love from the fans at home, the new guys are going to explode.
That being said, we can discuss what we saw in the game tonight.
We saw extremely sloppy basketball. But we also saw saw flashes of some serious potential. I mean the guys only had a few days to practice as a team, and then they are thrown into the fire with a pretty deep playoff team.
As Zach said, they looked liked they lacked all confidence. Any decent team can sniff that out and exploit it to their benefit. The Blazers rode on momentum the whole game.
After the game, David Locke mentioned the “raw potential” of the newer guys. And I think that’s the positive thing we can take away from this game.
Here are my thoughts on the good and the bad tonight:
Derrick FAVORS:
DAMN!!! This kid is a beast. Pretty weak first quarter, then exploded in the second. He played like he wanted to win. 25 pts and 12 rbs (5 offensive). Also has an improving jump shot–he will continue to get better.
Enes KANTER:
Very impressed! 10 rbs and 4-4 freethrow shooting. He gained a lot of confidence as the night went on. The first few times he handled the ball I couldn’t help but chuckle–he was terrified. But this kid is a natural rebounder. He really battled for possession under the basket. Wouldn’t be surprised if he starts to average double-doubles before the season is over.
Alec BURKS:
Damn he’s fast! What a slasher. 8 pts, 3 asts, and one 1 steal. Could be a real playmaker. Needs to learn to pass better and shoot better. If he works on these skill sets hard enough, he will be an amazing guard. Seems to have a good ball IQ. Very exciting to watch. No way he’s going to be our point guard, though.
Gordon Hayward:
Not impressed with his performance tonight. 3 turnovers and just 2-7 from the field. This is not the Hayward I remember from the end of last season. It’s not the Hayward I expect to see throughout the rest of this season either. I think he just had a rough night.
The thing I like best about all of these players is they have the drive to win. All 4 of these guys played hard tonight. They got gritty. With more time on the floor and more experience as a team, these guys can all become wicked good.
Not so impressed with:
Raja BELL:
Awful performance. Didn’t make a bucket til the 3rd quarter. Team was better with him off the floor. Lots of attitude, very little contribution. This does not bode well for the rest of the season.
Mehmet OKUR:
I was just about to type how disappointed in Memo I was tonight before I realized what I was doing. I can’t emphasize how happy I am to see him on the floor again. He was running and even driving to the basket, moving quicker than I thought I would ever see him move again.
Unfortunately, he’s still not fast enough to play defense. Wallace was having his way with him tonight. I hope that Memo gets his shot back. That three and long deuce are what made him such an asset. I wish him well and hope he get’s back to even 75% of what he used to be. Also have to be realistic, though.
Devin HARRIS:
Not a good performance from him. Harris is better than what we saw tonight. Swear he looks exactly like Deron WIlliams with those chops. He needs to play better. His passing, ball handling, and shooting skills must improve.
Josh HOWARD:
Not impressed. At all. A virtual non-factor.
Al JEFFERSON:
A very disappointing performance.
Jeremy EVANS:
Doesn’t seem any different than last season.
That’s about all I’ve got to say. Am probably already making too much out of nothing. I think a lot of the issues we had tonight can be chalked up to the fact that the lockout just barely ended, this is essentially a brand new team, they were in hostile territory, and they’re rusty from the long break.
That’s why I’m still feeling optimistic about this season. ANd one more thing. I’m impressed with Ty Corbin so far. WHat an awful situation the guy was thrown into last year. I give the man a lot of credit. Love how he’s rotating and experimenting with line-ups. Love how he’s made the positions performance-based. Seems like the coaching staff and him are experimenting with a wide variety of lineups to assess strengths, weaknesses, etc. I’m really excited to watch this team take shape under Coach Corbin.
God it’s nice to have some Jazz basketball!!!
Forgot about CJ MILES! I thought he looked decent tonight. Definitely not good, though. I’m going to go out on a limb and give him one more chance. Super nice guy, super frustrating player. My expectations aren’t too high for him, but they aren’t low either.
He played better than Jefferson, Okur, and Bell, so that much needs to be said.
Nick, Jefferson played out of position and without the help of Millsap. Put Jefferson back at Center where he belongs (top 5 Center last season) and put Favors in with him and I bet you see his game soar.
As far a CJ and Evans, Evans had CJ’s numbers beat in half the minutes. I like what he brings to the floor, much more than CJ tonight. If that continues and they put Hayward back where he belongs at the SG, you could see Evans starting at the SF. Weirder things have happened. Look at what a kid named Mathews taught us. And keeps teaching us. LOL
I agree to put JEFFERSON back to his natural Center position with FAVORS as PF in the first team. And, on the 2nd Team, MILLSAP to play PF alongside KANTER as Center.
If I have my wish, for the team to re-sign FESENKO (C) to be our 3rd Center (as Insurance), before other Teams will snatch him away from us.
JAZZ: Please buy-out 1) OKUR’s contract and perhaps, make him our big-Man’s Coach – to give way for Fesenko; 2) BELL’s contract and/or trade him with Okur’s contract to another team and get a Power Forward.
I’d hate to see us resign Festinko. He’s got no heart and he’s awful. Besides, he’d be our 4th string center since we have Jefferson/Kanter/Okur
Why do we need another power forward? 4 and 5 is where we already have the log jam everyone is talking about.
Let us all take a deep breath. There were a few things that hurt us but easily fixable. For one the lineup wasn’t right for playing against Portland. They are athletic, playing our 2 centers wasn’t quite right.
This is the preseason relax.
Fast/Athletic lineup:
C – Favors
PF – Millsap
SF – Hayward
SG – Burks
PG – Harris
Great scoring, fast lineup.
The answer to all of this is COACHING. CORBIN really showed his lack of coaching with not making game adjustments.
The offense wasn’t ran at all, veterans were getting shot clock violations, the defense was non-existnt (the rotaions on defense were not just slow… the rotation never happened) This is like a terrible re-run of Sloans bad defense only worse.
CORBIN if you can’t rotate then switch on picks and stick with your man at all times and deal with the mismatch rather than completely open uncontested shots. Thats just bad coaching, bad defense and for working mostly on defense in training camp it surely has not shown at all.
Portland showed to be the aggressor, passed the ball well, attacked the hoop on both ends of the floor, knocked down their shots and looked like a far better team than us. I know they have many returning players so thats to be expected, but to hear that we all came into camp in shape then why were we lacking aggression? Being in shape allows you to play at a higher level of intensity for a long period of time. Having a deep bench allows you to go play your heart out in the 15-25 minutes you have on the court which didn’t happen.
The other thing quite surprising to me was the lack of fundamentals. The players were not directing the offense where they could go, they squared up and got beet both directions. They didn’t get into a good stance andtheir footwork was very sloppy with poor latteral steps and they didn’t keep a wide solid and balanced base to keep themselves in front of their defenders. These are all things a coach must train his players to be better at. I mean where is the attention to detail?
We also didn’t run the offense at all. There was to much one on one. There were no good pics getting anyone open or running the pick and roll. We didn’t come off the pics and curl hard at all. We didn’t penetrate and dish to bigs accept for a few, and we didn’t kick out to open jumpers either. They need to commit to executing regardless of the outcome so they can improve each time.
Pre-season I know, but an embarrasing display of being totally unprepared.
The hi-lights… Favors of course. Burks was very exciting to watch although he was blocked many times, lost his mandefensively many times and did many rookie things, but he did really good on some things as well. The ability is there big time for burks and I expect bid things with him (can coaching get him there? I doubt these coaches can)… Kanter was exactly what I expected. He may be young but you can always count on his rebounding and I loved the hard foul. I called it 100% with this guy and we’ll be seeing a lot out of him!
Hayward looked terrible, he was lost, his footwork was not good especially on defense. Someone needs to coach this kid cause the ability is there, but he needs help. I suspect he’ll pull it together, but he had enough time on the court last year to not act like a rookie in pre-season. He also had about 6 shots in his face that went in.
Howard had 5 minutes on the court so what can you see from that? Probably not alot but I know he’s going to be a great pickup for us!
Harris was not great either, but I give him a B for effort. He was on the floor alot and coming from a guy that gets injured alot I really didn’t like seeing him inolved in the crashing and bumping. Be smart Harris.
Jefferson… Nothing to talk about, looked like he was treating the game like a pre-season game as was most of the vet players.
I like everyone was very happy to see the youth trying hard, but was very dissapointed in the level of coaching they have received. That needs to change and fast.
Anyway nothing you haven’t already read but my worry is COACHING thats my message. Corbin has the talent now its his job to teach, grow and mold. That did not look good last night. Lets see some improvements tomorrow night and find what got better, and what stayed the same. If we see progress each game, then we’ll I’ll give coaching some credit. If it stays the same from one game to the next then again I will put the blame squarely on coaching.
Dude, the guy has had less than a year as the front man on the bench, give Ty some time. Besides, coaching is only as good as the player’s willingness to use it. You can’t MAKE these guys listen or execute what you want. However, I do think most, if not all, the guys like and respect Corbin as a coach. It’s just going to take some time for this team to gel. One thing is for sure, after last night it can only get better.