Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Jazz's 104-98 loss to the Toronto Raptors from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.
1. Kyle Lowry just won this game nearly single-handedly
That's the least upset I've been at a Jazz performance during a loss this season. I thought the Jazz played basically about as well as you could hope for against an excellent team while they were essentially missing three starters.
Kyle Lowry put up the single best offensive performance I've seen from a player in Vivint Arena this season. He was incredible: 36 points on 15-of-20 shooting was absurd. Four of those five misses were from behind the arc, but he was still 4-of-8 from out there. Yes, part of the problem was the Jazz's lack of anyone who could guard him: Lowry could just rise up over Shelvin Mack or Raul Neto, and Joe Ingles might be the slowest player to ever guard Lowry late in a game. But that's who Quin Snyder has to work with right now. And even if excellent defender George Hill is healthy, I suspect Lowry would have ended up with 32 points. He was just ridiculous.
I mean, look at some of these shots:
(insert Vine here)
(insert twitter vid here)
When someone's cooking like that, there's just not a whole lot you can do. It's not a coincidence that the Jazz's comeback in the third quarter happened while he was out of the game, and Lowry finished as a +21 in a game his team won by eight. Heck, even the "hit him so hard he gets knocked out of the game!" crowd doesn't have a response here: he got hit and cut during the game, had his lip sewn up with two stitches, and returned and scored 19 points on 9-10 shooting in the fourth quarter.
Lowry is one of the most underrated players in the game, a legitimate star that is the biggest reason the Toronto Raptors have a 21-8 record. I can't believe the Raptors got him for just Gary Forbes and a first-round pick.
2. Jazz power forwards roundup
I wanted to say something about all three of Trey Lyles, Boris Diaw, and Derrick Favors, so let's just wrap them up into one Triple Team point.
Lyles was great Friday, and was a huge spark plug for the Jazz's third-quarter run when they took an 11-point deficit and turned it into a 3-point lead. That was basically on the back of his shot making from outside, where he went 3-3 from 3 in the third quarter. Insert Schoolhouse Rock here.
"He shot the ball well, but what started it for him was when he got the ball the first couple of times, he didn't shoot the ball and kicked it and kept the ball moving," Snyder says. "Those are the reads he needs to make. Trey's capable of making plays, making the right plays."
I referenced how Lyles has been a little bit selfish in a Triple Team earlier this week, but if he's taking good catch-and-shoot shots, and passing the other times, he can take as many as he likes.
Boris Diaw's usefulness wildly depends on his matchup. Friday, there just wasn't much of a logical matchup for him, as starting Raptors PF Pascal Siakam played only 5:30 minutes, and a perimeter forward like Patterson isn't a great fit for the slower, shorter Diaw. Everything will make more sense for the Jazz when Derrick Favors is 100 percent.
But clearly, Derrick Favors isn't 100%. He picked up four fouls in 15 minutes Friday, and I think a lot of it is because he's just not jumping as high as he's used to: he's getting an arm, not ball on a lot of plays. I asked him if he's back to his peak explosiveness.
"Not yet. Still have to get back in game shape," Favors said. "I missed nearly a whole month, so you lose some things. But it's coming back, I've just got to play through it until I get my explosion back."
For right now, he's playing nearly all of his allotted 15 minutes at backup center, which is probably for the best. The minutes restriction is slated to slowly increase in the month to come.
3. Christmas reset
After the game, Snyder told us that he sees Christmas as a natural end to the first third of the season. In fact, the real third-of-the-season mark was last week, but it's close enough that we'll go with it.
Let's take a little stock of where the Jazz are right now. They've lost three in a row after a four-game winning streak. Rodney Hood was knocked out of all three losses due to his sickness, though, joining George Hill, Alec Burks, and even Dante Exum on the bench.
After Friday's loss, the Jazz have been bumped down to the seven seed, where they safely sit 4.5 games ahead of the Sacramento Kings. (By the way, how bad have the Portland Trail Blazers been? They sit outside of the playoff standings right now.) They're a half-game out of sixth, 1.5 games out of fifth, and four games out of fourth.
On offense, they currently rank 8th in the league, scoring 106.9 points per 100 possessions. On defense, they currently rank 3rd, allowing just 101.6 points per 100 possessions. They're on pace to win 48 games and have had a roughly average schedule in terms of difficulty so far.
Today at shootaround, Snyder gave an impromptu "state of the team" speech that I'd encourage you all to read or listen to. This won't shock you all, but I basically agree with nearly all of it, and Friday was a good example: the Jazz got very solid play from Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert, and even got 17 points from Mack, and 19 points from Lyles. Yeah, Boris Diaw and Raul Neto didn't score any, but who could expect them to?
Yes, this team desperately needs George Hill. But that they're now 10-9 with him out says a lot about the rest of the guys who have been healthy. It's not, perhaps, the start we wanted, but it's good enough that they still can accomplish any of their season goals.
