SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 120-105 win over the Sacramento Kings from KSL.com's Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz's offense does everything right

It had been so long since the Jazz had a good offensive game.

How do you define a good offensive game? Here's one way: let's just look at offensive rating, in other words, points scored per 100 possessions. And let's break up every game in the NBA into three equally-sized categories: bad, average, and good. In order to make the categories have about the same number of games, we'll define bad offensive games as contests where a team scores under 103 points per 100 possessions, and good ones where they score over 114 points per 100 possessions.

By this definition, the Jazz haven't had a good offensive game since Dec. 4. That was the last victory in their six-game winning streak, all of which qualified as good offensive games.

After that, the Jazz had lost 15 of their last 19 games. Nine of those were "bad" offensive games, all losses. 10 of them were average and the Jazz were 4-6 in that stretch against tough competition.

Tonight was a great offensive game: the Jazz scored 130 points per 100 possessions, a 98th percentile performance among all NBA teams. How?

Well, they shot the ball well. 40 percent from 3 is pretty good, but the Jazz shot 18-27 from mid-range: certainly above what you'd expect. They also got into the restricted area for 25 shots, a pretty decent number. When they weren't getting easy looks, they were getting to the free throw line with relative ease.

"We haven't shot the ball well in a while and I think it was good for a lot of our guys to see the ball go in the basket," Jazz head coach Quin Snyder said.

The Jazz's best shooters got the lion's share of the shots. Donovan Mitchell led the way with 19 shots, Rodney Hood took 16, Derrick Favors had nine, and Joe Ingles took eight. That's great! In the half-court offense, they never felt bothered by the Kings, truthfully.

Utah was also helped by forcing a ton of Sacramento turnovers. The Kings turned over the ball 19 times, 15 of those were Utah steals. The Jazz scored 27 points off of those opportunities, many of them just simple 1-on-0 or 2-on-1 fast breaks. With that many chances in transition, the Jazz are a much better offensive team.

Now, is this sustainable? Probably not. Sacramento is literally the worst defensive team in the league and they looked even worse than that tonight. Making two-thirds of your shots from mid-range probably doesn't work long-term either. But the Jazz had gotten unlucky from the 3-point line in recent contests, and Wednesday night's game was a nice return to the mean there.

2. Donovan Mitchell, again

Donovan Mitchell scored 34 points Wednesday night, his fifth 30-point scoring performance of the season. Once again, it was a masterclass of scoring versatility, with Mitchell finding success at getting to the basket in so many different ways.

.@spidadmitchell went into Sacramento and dunked all over the California capital | 🎥 | The rook had 34 points along with 3 assists and 3 steals 📊 pic.twitter.com/mGHEgw6s3P — Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) January 18, 2018

The best highlight play begins at the 30-second mark, his second of three dunks on the night. Mitchell hurries in semi-transition, runs the handoff play and splits the defense. Many players dribble the ball pretty far ahead of them when splitting the defense, giving themselves a chance to catch up to the ball once they're through traffic. That can work, but it also means there's a chance at a strip.

But Mitchell's move is more compact, and his athleticism means that he can take that dribble at the top of the key, take two big steps (no, it's not a travel), and still finish with that kind of ease.

Can I point you to my favorite part of the whole video? Listen to the crowd at the 37-second mark. That's a Sacramento crowd, and it sounds like thousands of Mitchell's supporters came to a New York City outdoor court to watch him dunk on somebody — basically like this. That's a terrific sports sound.

If it were only dunks in Mitchell's repertoire, it'd be a different story. But of course, it's not: he had the mid-range game working well today, he still has the scoop layup that he uses to great success, and he got to the line seven times as well. Mitchell also did a nice job of using his scoring prowess to set up his teammates with good shots, finding Hood in the corner or Favors rolling to the basket.

Mitchell now has 810 points in his 42 games, good for an average of 19.3 points per game. If you want to look at his performances just since he became a starter, he's averaging 20.5 points per game.

Honestly, if Mitchell keeps this up, he has a real shot at ending up in the top 20 in scoring league-wide, which currently has a cut-off at 21.6 points per game. He'd need to average about 23 points per game for the rest of the season, and that's what he's done in December and January already. Certainly very possible.

3. The dangers of misunderstanding your timeline

The Sacramento Kings are an awful basketball team. I already told you they're the worst defensive team in the league, and I have more bad news for Kings fans: they are also the very worst offense in the league. It is a minor miracle that they have won 13 games.

The Kings did not think they would be the very worst team in the league. No, they thought they'd compete for a playoff spot this year. That's why they signed veterans George Hill, Zach Randolph, and Vince Carter to their roster, ages 31, 36 and 40, respectively.

The problem: the Kings are better when Hill and Randolph don't play than when they do. They get outscored by an average of 10 points per 100 possessions on the aggregate, but it's 12 points when Hill's in the game, and 15 points when Randolph is. Carter actually helps, but he's only played 400 minutes this season as he's predictably dealing with the basketball consequences of turning 41 years old next Friday.

There might be some element of veteran leadership that helps the Kings' young players, although that concept is nebulous at best. And it's certainly not helping their defensive effort, the end of the floor where you might be able to point most reliably to those veteran tricks helping.

The problem is that now, the Kings' entire roster is under contract for next year save Carter; they have 14 roster spots. The 15th will probably go to their first-round pick this year, but that's one of their only realistic paths towards getting better. On the other hand, they can't get worse — they're already last.

I'm not sure this parable has a huge impact on the Utah Jazz other than a potential cautionary tale regarding signing veterans to lead the team. The makes sense for the Jazz to find players that match the ages of their own best players, the 21-year-old Mitchell and 25-year-old Rudy Gobert. Beyond that, those upper-30-year-olds aren't always the best idea in the long run.

Related topics