How do the Jazz play without Favors and Hayward? Plus more shootaround notes


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SALT LAKE CITY — Notes from Jazz shootaround before the Jazz's final preseason game Wednesday night against the Portland Trail Blazers.

Identity in the time of cholera

Okay, so no one on the Jazz actually has cholera. But the major focus of today's shootaround media session was the impact of the Jazz's injuries (Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors, and Alec Burks remain out for Wednesday's game against Portland, whereas Rodney Hood is expected to play) on the Jazz's style of play.

"All of the enthusiasm and excitement, I don't mean to dampen it, but we're without 3 of our top players right now," head coach Quin Snyder said. "So whatever I'm telling you about how we're going to play, it could be totally different two weeks from now. We really don't know."

And furthermore, due to injuries, the preseason's been less revealing than Snyder hoped. The Jazz had hoped to learn more about which combinations and lineups of players worked together better than others, but without the injuries, that's difficult.

"Do I like Boris and Rudy? Yes. Do I like Fav and Boris more than Boris and Rudy? I have no idea. Do I like Rudy and Fav more than Boris and Rudy? I have no idea. Do I like Joe Johnson at the 4? I have no idea, because we don't have any wings," Snyder said.

"Even in the preseason, we haven't played those combinations as much, because I don't want to play Joe Johnson 35 minutes. I don't want to play Boris Diaw 35 minutes." To be specific, Snyder later said "he certainly doesn't want Diaw more than we've been playing him." Diaw played just over 20 minutes Monday.

So then what does the Jazz's identity look like without their top two scorers?

"Defense. It's the same. That's why we want to have a defensive identity. You may be more or less good at it, but you can at least make a stand there," Snyder said.

And on offense, "As far as who's going to take up Gordon's scoring load, that's something that's not going to happen. Obviously, Joe Johnson's there, but there's going to be no individual person. So the answer to me offensively is efficiency. Which translates to balance, and hopefully good shots, and all those things."

So far, the Jazz have been about 6th defensively and 15th offensively in their five preseason games. Obviously that's not as telling as a regular season sample would be, but it also roughly matches up with where they were last season.

Shelvin Mack working out with Rodney Hood in Atlanta

This summer, Hood and Shelvin Mack worked out every day together in Atlanta (Jazz wing Joe Johnson also visited for a couple of weeks), going one-on-one, plus working on their individual skills. We asked both of them about that experience.

What did Mack work on? "Basically, getting to the rim, and knocking down a lot of mid-range jumpers. The NBA, it's getting to where everyone's giving up the midrange, free-throw line shot, so I'm working on that." Mack said he took advantage of Hood's length as an opportunity to work on scoring against longer defenders.

Mack's been very aggressive in preseason, using 25 percent of Jazz possessions when he's on the floor. He's clearly trying to earn minutes out there by going hard in his limited time, and it's working.

"We've been missing our top 3 scorers from last year, so I'm trying to make up some scoring somewhere," Mack said. And on defense, he's "getting hungry again. Picking up, using my wingspan, and just trying to be aggressive."

Hood enjoyed his time working out with Mack.

"It was fun! More than anything, just getting the chance to know him. He came to the team a little late in the year, and we didn't really get a chance to know each other or spend time with each other, other than on the basketball court," Hood said. "We went to TopGolf together, met each other's families, all that type of thing. It makes us closer on the court. He's a great guy."

Rodney Hood's hand

Since this was the first time in a couple of weeks Hood participated in shootaround, it was our first opportunity to ask him about his hand injury. He specified that it was the pinky finger on his shooting hand that got sprained. The injury first happened over the summer, then was re-aggravated when he got his pinky stuck in a jersey going for a layup against the Portland Trail Blazers. He then further re-injured it against the Clippers in Los Angeles, and that's when it was decided to give him some rest.

"It's feeling a lot better," Hood said. "Got some rest on it, and have been doing a lot of conditioning. I started by shooting on it a couple of days ago."

Hood said the tape that now connects his pinky and ring finger bothers his shooting "a little bit," but not very much since there's no pain. When he shot Monday, Hood seemed like his typical self, making a large percentage of his shots from mid-range and deep.

No TV

Tonight's Jazz game won't be broadcast on TV by either team's crew, meaning it won't be on television no matter how good your cable or satellite package is. The game will be on radio, but with all apologies to David Locke and the rest of the Jazz's radio crew, radio isn't television.

This is silly. I know, it's preseason. I realize that the Jazz's TV contract with ROOT doesn't mandate that they televise all preseason games, and I further realize that many teams broadcast fewer of their preseason games than the Jazz do. But that there are professional sporting events featuring Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum and Rudy Gobert and Rodney Hood and Dante Exum and so on and so forth that aren't televised in the year 2016 is absurd.

Fans want to see their team play. They want to see how their young players are developing and crazy Boris Diaw passes and Gobert dunks and everything else. And it may be infeasible for distance or other reasons for them to get to the arena tonight. So they'll have to rely on word of mouth and still pictures and team-released highlights, like this is Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point game or the 1918 World Series or something.

And so even though this is the fifth consecutive year of me writing this plea and annoying Jazz higher-ups when I do, I'll do it again: hey, powers that be — please broadcast all of the preseason games on TV next year.

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Andy Larsen

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