SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Jazz 85-77 loss to the Chicago Bulls from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz's offense woeful in otherwise winnable game.

Hi! My name is Andy Larsen. I'm a professional basketball writer, and I'm being paid right now to tell you this: 77 points is not very many points in an NBA game, and certainly not enough to win most of the time.

In fact, there were only six games last year where teams scored 77 points or fewer. Guess what? All of those teams lost. In fact, you have to go back to 2012 to find an NBA game in which a team scored 77 points and won. There have been almost 5,000 NBA games since then.

The well-established formula of scoring points in an NBA game: 1) get good shots, and 2) make the shots.

Whether the Jazz did step 2 isn't up for much debate: they didn't. Here's the beautiful shot chart:

20 percent from 3-pointers is bad, but 7 percent from mid-range is worse. Obviously, if the Jazz make a league-average percentage of those shots, they win.

But there was some disagreement on whether they got good shots tonight, even within single interviews. Here's Gordon Hayward after the first question we asked, for example:

"We got some decent looks tonight, we just didn't knock them down. You know, you start missing some shots, they can pack the paint, which is what they did against us, and it snowballs against you."

And here's Hayward on the last question we asked. "We've got to find more opportunities to get easier shots. Tonight I felt like we took a lot of contested looks, or tough mid-range shots, and look, they're a tough defensive team. But we have to find ways to get easier looks."

Here's where I'll chime in: I don't think the Jazz got good looks tonight. They only got 30 uncontested looks all night, typically, the Jazz average about 37 shots per game that are uncontested. That stat can be skewed by taking a lot of inside shots, but that certainly wasn't the case tonight, when the Jazz were very perimeter-oriented.

It's not a season-long catastrophe: coming into tonight, the Jazz were ranked 13th in the league offensively. Given the injuries, that's pretty good! Quin Snyder's offense isn't broken, but the execution was off tonight.

2. Boris Diaw really struggling

I was willing to give Boris Diaw the benefit of the doubt after he struggled mightily in his initial three game stretch: after all, he was playing through a bone contusion, and the Jazz told us he wasn't playing at 100 percent. But if this is 100 percent Diaw, well, the Jazz are in trouble. Diaw played 21 minutes, and scored just three points, got two turnovers, two fouls, and one rebound.

With some players, the box score stats don't tell the whole story. If anything, though, I felt like the stats minimize the damage that Diaw did while he was on the floor. The Bulls repeatedly left Diaw in order to pack the paint against Hayward, Hood, and Exum. On defense, they repeatedly blew by Diaw due to the big man's lack of speed.

This is Diaw's fifth game, and it's possible that he's still feeling the effects of the injury, or he's not yet melded with the Jazz's starters.

Or, let's be honest, it's possible that the Jazz are doomed to get bad Boris Diaw. Remember, Diaw was so bad in Charlotte for over three seasons that the Hornets waived him outright, after which the Spurs picked him up and he became good again. An unmotivated Diaw is an ugly sight, and furthermore, he's now 34 years old too. It's possible he won't be able to turn it up again, even if he wants to.

Diaw's one of the most enjoyable personalities in the league, and it's been fun to see him around Salt Lake City. But if he wants to be seen on the court in Salt Lake City moving forward, he'll have to step it up.

3. Tip shots aren't always good

The Bulls picked up 14 offensive rebounds tonight, but I thought that overestimated how good they were on the offensive glass. After those 14 offensive rebounds, they only scored four baskets. That's somewhat unusual, but there is an overall point here: tip shots and putbacks are surprisingly not great shot opportunities.

I thought a stretch of play at the end of the first half illustrated this perfectly. After the two minute mark, Robin Lopez and Jimmy Butler missed three consecutive tip shot attempts in the same position, eventually leading to a Jazz rebound.

The Bulls are shooting 0.99 points per possession on putbacks, according to NBA's public Synergy data. Meanwhile, overall, they're averaging 1.11 points per possession.

On the other hand, the Jazz get 1.18 points per possession on putback opportunities, while averaging 1.07 points per possession overall. What's the secret? They take way fewer of them. Exactly half, actually. Coming into tonight, the Jazz had 41 tip attempts that counted as shots, while the Bulls wildly attempted 82.

Last season, teams averaged only 0.94 points per possession on shots classified as tip layups, but 1.74 points per possession on shots classified as tip dunks. So, proposed decision tree for big men: if you can get two hands on the ball and you're above the rim, go ahead and try that putback. If you can only get one hand on the ball, try to tip it backwards to your teammates or to yourself. Know that it's a harder shot than you might think.

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