We Watched It So You Didn’t Have To: Utah Jazz vs Portland Blazers
A career game from Joe Ingles, an emerging Royce O’Neale, and a long pesky team led by Donovan Mitchell
Most people spent Sunday watching the silly Winter Olympics or checking out the new-look Cavs, but a key playoff battle raged late into the evening out West between the red-hot Utah Jazz and the Portland Trail Blazers. Portland led 30–19 early in the second quarter, but the Jazz evened it up by halftime and opened the second half on a 22–5 to run put the game out of reach.
Utah is now on a 9-game winning streak and a 7-game road win streak. They’re still only the 10-seed in the West, but they’re 2.5 back from Portland and right in the mix. This is a very different Jazz team from last year and even earlier in the season, with a pair of rookies starring in Utah’s back court, and a team worth a closer look. Let’s draw some conclusions with the usual caveats on one-game samples…
1. Joe Ingles played a career game and was the best player on the court
Ingles was outstanding. He had a career-high 24 points on 12 shots, and he made six threes and added five rebounds and four assists. He’s going to play a key role on this offense after the deadline deal that saw Rodney Hood and Joe Johnson move on, and it looks like he’s up for the job.
Joe Ingles is such a unique player. He’s 6'8 and can play any position but center, and he uses his length well to be a pesky defender despite not having particularly overwhelming athleticism. Ingles is a lefty with a deceptively slow dribble, and he does that Steve Nash thing where he penetrates into the lane and keeps his dribble alive, waiting for something to develop. He’s not as quick as Nash, but he’s tall and can see and make almost any pass, and he really has terrific creation vision and a high hoops IQ.
Ingles has a slow-developing shot off the dribble but his height and high release mean he can usually get it off, and he’s quicker off the catch and shoot. He’s hitting 45% of his threes, top five in the NBA and in line with his career averages. The shot is slow but pretty, and it’d be fun to have him in the three-point contest, even if he’d only get about 18 of the 25 shots up.
Ingles is just a joy to watch. He can do a bit of everything and fit his game to what’s needed, and he’s got that old man scoop shot when he gets to the rim too. He’s like a taller slower Steve Nash, or a better shooting Kyle Anderson, or that 50-year-old at the YMCA that dominates pickup games against all odds. He’s just fun, a winner, and it was all on display Sunday night.
2. Utah may really have something in Royce O’Neale
Ricky Rubio was sidelined, so the Jazz gave rookie Royce O’Neale his first NBA start. Exactly which position he started is hard to say since O’Neale, Mitchell, and Ingles sort of split duties between the guard and wing spots, but we’ll split the difference and call him the starting two.
O’Neale was really good. At 6'6 with a long wingspan, his length really bothered the small Portland guards on defense. He played good defense both on-ball and in rotation, and the split duties thing allowed Utah to switch their three non-big starters frequently and give the Blazers all sorts of problems on both ends. All three handled the ball, dribbled, passed, and created. All three could stick with anyone on defense.
The ball doesn’t stick in O’Neale’s hands. He’s a good passer and moves the ball along quickly to the open man, and his athleticism stands out. Watching O’Neale Sunday night made it a little clearer why the Jazz may have decided to move on from Rodney Hood. Utah may have a good, cheap 3-and-D guy. O’Neale plays well on or off the ball, is a long defender, and shoots. He fits the Jazz m.o. to a T and looks like someone that works next to Donovan Mitchell.
O’Neale finished with only four points but added six assists, two steals, and 11 rebounds, leading the team in the latter three categories. He was a team best +28 in 33 minutes on the court. This is O’Neale’s fourth game this season playing at least 25 minutes. In those games, he’s averaging 10 points, seven boards, five assists, and 2.5 steals. That’s not much of a sample yet, but O’Neale seems to step right into the Ingles role. He’s shooting 38% from deep, and he made 40% of his college threes including over 45% his final two seasons.
O’Neale is a 24-year-old rookie who will make under $4 million combined these next three years. He played two years for the Denver Pioneers before transferring to Baylor to be near an ailing grandfather, and he was probably only ever the fourth or fifth most heralded player there. Undrafted after graduating, O’Neale played a season in Germany, then one in Spain, before getting his opportunity this season. What a tribute to Utah’s scouting! It looks like O’Neale was worth the wait.
3. This was not Donovan Mitchell’s best game — but he’s still really good
This didn’t feel like a great game from the star rookie Spida Mitchell, on either end of the court, really.
Mitchell scored 27 but took 24 shots to get there, and he had only 17 until the final two minutes of garbage time. His 8/19 on twos was not great, nor the five free throws. He’s shouldering a major offensive load now, especially in creation with both Hood and Johnson gone. Utah’s offense looked pretty good, with plenty of ball movement and good looks. Their worst offense tended to be when Mitchell went iso and played hero ball. He was much better running around screens off ball and playing within the flow of the offense. Otherwise it felt like too many jumpers and long twos. He also struggled a bit with turnovers when Portland doubled him attempting their comeback, trying to dribble through. He’s just trying to do a little too much right now.
Still, that’s a lot of nitpicking for a late-lottery rookie leading a playoff contender’s offense at age 21. The consistency is not there yet for Mitchell, but the flashes really stand out. The athleticism is off the charts. He shot one floater from the free-throw line, then jumped off his back foot over three Blazers for a one-hand put-back dunk he had no business getting to. Mitchell bullied the smaller Blazers guards on the offensive glass, leading the team with five offensive rebounds. He’s great in transition and has that veteran Euro step that helps him dribble into space and create a shot.
It’s that athleticism and particularly the dribbling and Euro step that invite the Dwyane Wade comparisons. That’s a lofty aspiration but might be fair, as well as he’s playing:
The numbers are pretty similar. Mitchell is scoring a bit more and passing a bit less. The steals and blocks are great for a guard and show off that athleticism. Mitchell is a far better shooter than rookie Wade, who basically didn’t have a three, though Wade drew twice as many free throws. That’s one key area Mitchell needs to add to his game with his dribbling and athleticism.
Mitchell also has a lot of room to grow on defense, which is interesting since that was his surest strength coming out of Louisville. It felt like Mitchell was out of position all night on defense. He had a hard time getting around screens and over-pursued at times, and he had a couple poor fouls. Portland’s guards are no spring picnic to defend, and Mitchell has the body to defend much better in this system, but he was poor in this one. He’s expending a lot of energy on offense, but he could maybe help his game on both ends by balancing that energy more and letting the offense flow through him better.
This was not Donovan Mitchell’s best game. Damian Lillard won the battle, but the Jazz won the war. But there’s no shame in a rookie in an unfamiliar role losing a battle with an All-Star. He’ll see better days ahead once the skills stop flashing and start getting more consistent. The Jazz got a good one.
Ten other parting shots…
1. It’s hard to overstate how much Rudy Gobert affects everything defensively. Guys just won’t even try to take shots near him because they fear him so much, and he forces bad pump fakes, non-shots, and turnovers that don’t show up in his numbers. Offensively, Gobert doesn’t set great screens, and the high handoff they run a lot often leaves him stranded 20 feet from the basket with nothing to do. But Gobert is really good, looks healthy, and is on a bargain deal at $19 million three more years. The Jazz were 4–11 without Rudy but play at a 48-win pace with him, which would put them right in the mix for the West 3-seed.
2. Jae Crowder looked excellent, and you’d never know this was his first game with the team. He was a natural fit, moving and cutting well off the ball and moving the ball along quickly when it got to him. He defended C.J. McCollum and really pestered him, and he looked engaged and valuable, like he always was on Boston. All the talk Sunday was how re-energized LeBron and the Cavs looked, but don’t sleep on how much Isaiah Thomas and Jae Crowder wanted their fresh starts too. Just ask Crowder:
3. Damian Lillard had a quiet 39 points. He scored in bunches but was quiet in other stretches, and his scoring totals were buoyed by going 13/13 on free throws, many on questionable calls. He was much better than C.J. McCollum, who struggled with five turnovers and went 6/17 on twos. Portland’s guards had a hard time with Utah’s length, but Dame could create his own space while McCollum just couldn’t get anything going.
4. It’s amazing how different the two offenses felt. The ball moved quickly in the Jazz offense, and the spacing was great with someone almost always open in the corner for a three. All five players were involved. Portland’s offense felt like two star guards taking turns, like if you put two Russell Westbrooks on last year’s Thunder, with the occasional Nurkic record scratch post-up mixed in. They had only 16 assists and rank last in the league there. Utah’s offense feels modern. Portland’s just feels predictable.
5. It will be insanely impressive if these Jazz make the playoffs. Only two of last season’s top nine Utah contributors are still on the team. Hayward, Hill, and Mack left in free agency. Diaw went to Europe. Exum is injured. Hood and Johnson were traded. Gobert is the constant, surrounded by a rookie and a flurry of team-friendly contracts. The Jazz are young and will keep getting better, and they’ll have half the cap available in 2019 with their entire core intact. They’re in an enviable position, an incredible statement for a team that just lost Gordon Hayward for nothing.
6. Derrick Favors is still really athletic and great in transition, but he seems much more effective as the lone big, rather than next to Gobert. Favors has a career-best 56% twos and 115 offensive rating. But he averages 17/10 on 61% true shooting without Gobert and just 12/6 at 50% with him. He’s a free agent this summer and doesn’t seem to fit this team’s best lineup.
7. Zach Collins looked miles better than early in the season. He doesn’t assert himself on offense yet, but he flashed some of the skills that made him a coveted draft pick with a couple excellent interior passes and a good pump-fake dribble drive. He seems more effective next to another big.
8. Alec Burks looked good for a brief second-quarter stretch running the bench offense. He can create space and find his shot, and Utah will need that now without Hood and Johnson. It’s weird he got only eight minutes.
9. Utah had a massive rebounding advantage, and you felt it all game. The Jazz out-rebounded the Blazers 58 to 37, including 16–6 on the offensive glass. Seven Utah players had at least five rebounds; only Ed Davis did for Portland. Another advantage of simply being taller and more athletic.
10. A strange uniform combination, especially with so much red on the court and two red-based jerseys. It’s nice of the Jazz to honor the World Champion Houston Astros with their City Editions, but it just feels like they should be Suns or Heat jerseys, not Jazz. But they grow on you.
If you enjoyed this piece, give it a few claps 👏 👏 so others see it too! Follow Brandon on Medium or @wheatonbrando for more sports, humor, pop culture, and life musings. Visit Brandon’s writing archives here. H/t Basketball Reference.
