The last time the Jazz were in LA playing the Lakers, a certain player in purple and gold who-shall-not-be-named went off for an obscene amount of points on a stupid amount of shots. (Alright, it was Kobe, and he scored 60 points on 50 attempts.)
On Monday in the very same Staples Center, another Laker wearing 23 instead of 24 went off on the Jazz. Lou Williams — who had 40 points against Memphis on Saturday — dropped 38 on 13-27 shooting. Though the Jazz came away with the victory, 107-101, it wasn’t pretty watching the former sixth man of the year blow through the Jazz’s guard lineup.
With George Hill missing an indeterminate amount of time with a sprained toe, the guard lineup of Dante Exum, Shelvin Mack and Rodney Hood had a tough time staying in front of someone whose name gets dropped in a Drake song.
Lou Williams’ shot chart via NBA.com
Here’s what the Jazz did well: The Lakers only took 14 shots from 3-point range, which is a really low number in the modern NBA. Utah did well at chasing LA off of the three-point line, but struggled to keep the young and swaggy Lakers from getting to the rim. George Hill is good at staying in front of his man once he gets him to the midrange. Dante and Shelvin are not as seasoned.
As a result, the Lakers scored 58 points in the paint in Monday’s contest. Yes, Rudy Gobert had five blocks — two on one possession — but you can’t always rely on blocks to stop buckets. As a result, LA shot 55.1 percent in the restricted area.
“You get tired obviously, the lateral movement is a little bit slower, and then it is harder to
contain the ball,” acting head coach Igor Kokoskov said after the game. “I think they have to take some pride and accept a personal challenge, because the whole concept of Coach Snyder is the team and five guys working together, but at the end of the day, you have to take a personal challenge.Obtain the ball better, contest without fouling, and that individual challenge makes the team better collectively too.”
What the Jazz were able to do successfully was score the basketball in a more evenly distributed manner than the Lakers. Though it wasn’t another 30 point game, Gordon Hayward did have 23/6/5, and the fact that that line has become ho-hum for Jazz fans goes to show how good everyone’s expected G-Hay to be.
. @gordonhayward had 23 points in tonight’s win over the Lakers #UTAatLAL pic.twitter.com/BYNZAnJwXK
— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) December 6, 2016
He’s found all sorts of ways to score: spot up threes, cutting to the rim, catching alley-oops, and bullying his way to the basket to draw fouls. It’s made him a versatile player that can be relied upon to carry the offensive load, especially missing George Hill, who averaged 20 points a game before missing time with both his thumb and toe injuries. Seriously. What do we have to do to ensure the safety of the Jazz players’ fingers and toes? Does he need a donor? I’d start that GoFundMe right now.
The Jazz had a similar game to the Denver matchup in the sense that they had one dominant third quarter and then let that lead slowly get trimmed. On Saturday, it was No Jameer Mortal Nelson (sorry) who kept bombing threes and shrinking the Jazz’s once 23-point advantage. Tonight, it was the aforementioned Lou Lou which turned a 19-point Jazz lead into just three when a Lou Williams jump shot went down with 3:26 left in the game to make it 100-97. Somewhat luckily for the Jazz, Williams would miss his last five attempts of the game, and Rodney Hood would pick up the offensive burden for Utah, scoring five points after Williams’ last make.
Without Quin Snyder on the sidelines due to illness, Igor Kokoskov was put in charge of tenting his fingers and combing his fingers through his hair for the Jazz. Just kidding. No one can replace Quin’s ability to do that.
We’ll see how well Kokoskov managed the rotations when we see how fresh the Jazz’s legs are tomorrow back at the Viv to face the young gun Suns and Earl Watson. Rudy did play a team-high 38 minutes against the Lake Show, and he had a nice line of 14/17/5.
The refs destroyed an incredible play by @rudygobert27. That was awful call. #UTAatLAL pic.twitter.com/HhrBXOtEsE
— Jeremiah Jensen (@JJSportsBeat) December 6, 2016
PS: The fact that Bennie Adams called off this Rudy dunk made at least one friend text me using non-website friendly language.
The refs destroyed an incredible play by @rudygobert27. That was awful call. #UTAatLAL pic.twitter.com/HhrBXOtEsE
— Jeremiah Jensen (@JJSportsBeat) December 6, 2016
To which Rudy responded:
The arm in question:
(Yes, I used a screen shot in case Rudy deletes his admittedly *fire* tweet for check writing purposes.)
BTW: Rodney Hood had a monster dunk in this game, and I am the opposite of mad at it.
Even better the second time
Rodney Hood with your @AFCU Instant Rewind ⏪ pic.twitter.com/hXu2N7YXHD
— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) December 6, 2016
Are Rodney Hood dunks overtaking Gordon Hayward chase down blocks in a battle for my affection?! Tune in next game recap to find out!
