HOUSTON — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 110-96 Game 1 loss to the Houston Rockets from KSL.com's Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Rockets' 3-point attack enough to kill Utah

Houston shot 17-32 from 3-point range, good for 53 percent. The Jazz shot just 7-22, just 32 percent.

That 30-point difference isn't enough to tell the whole story of Game 1, but it sure does play the biggest role. Unlike the Oklahoma City Thunder, who legitimately only had two or three above-average 3-point shooters in their rotation (depending on if Alex Abrines or Patrick Patterson found themselves in Billy Donovan's good graces), the Rockets have eight above-average 3-point shooters in their's.

So 38 hours after coming off a physical six game series in which the Jazz could strategically help from a lot of different places, pack the paint and make it hard for Westbrook to drive to the rim, the Jazz had to change how they played defense Sunday.

"It was much different, obviously," Jae Crowder said. "It's an adjustment for us as a unit, and we try to figure it out on the fly, try to figure out what we can and can't do."

On this kind of play, against the Thunder, the key is cutting off the driver. But against Houston, Luc Mbah a Moute is a 36 percent 3-point shooter, so you need to either have Derrick Favors get back sooner to Mbah a Moute or send help from the next shooter over (Crowder).

Sometimes, the only possible thing to do is switch. I get that Royce O'Neale is trying to get back in front of James Harden, but since he is behind him, Rudy Gobert has to come over to help. That leaves no one for P.J. Tucker (who hit three 3-point shots).

Finally, Harden and Chris Paul are just incredibly good at hitting step-back or pull-up threes, better than any players in the league. Nine of their 10 3-point makes were unassisted, defended, stepback, pull-up long-distance shots. That's insane. Harden shot 40 percent on threes this regular season when he took seven or more dribbles. Russell Westbrook shot 14 percent. It's just a completely different universe.

I guess you could say that on this play, Favors could do more to reduce the airspace for Harden. But let's be honest: if he does, Harden's just driving by him for two points.

That's what makes Harden and Paul so good at this point in their careers: they just make you make impossible choices. No matter how you defend them, if they're shooting this well, you can't win.

2. Jazz start slow offensively, start figuring it out

Again, the Jazz started slow offensively. The Rockets switch a lot, and that has had the effect of getting the Jazz out of their ball-movement oriented offense.

Here's this play, for example, in the first half:

Ingles hesitates when catching the ball, meaning he doesn't ever have his defender on the move. Paul catches up, and forces a mid-range shot from Ingles. He's not good at those.

But on the last play of the game, Ingles kept moving. Tarik Black is definitely a lesser defender than Paul, but you see the difference the hesitation can make:

"Guys can't be tentative. We were too slow in making whatever decisions we were making," Jazz head coach Quin Snyder said. "You have to make quick decisions, and you have to know where you're going with the ball before you get it."

Sometimes, the best thing to do is to cause confusion in the defense by setting slip screens, or pretending to screen without actually making contact. Here, it looks like Favors is going to set a screen for Ingles, but he actually just rolls to the rim, sending two guys to the ball. Favors is wide-open for an alley-oop as a result:

The Jazz aren't like the Rockets, in other words. Where the Rockets rely on both Harden's and Paul's ability to play at a glacial pace and make the right reads, the Jazz have to play quickly and aggressively to have success offensively in this series.

3. Auditioning the guard minutes

With Ricky Rubio out for the next nine days or so, the Jazz will need help at the guard spots. Snyder started rookie guard O'Neale alongside Donovan Mitchell in Game 1. O'Neale defended capably, and stayed in front of Harden on a few occasions, but doesn't offer the offensive smarts nor quite the crafty off-ball thievery Rubio does.

O'Neale's graduation to the starting lineup opens up guard spots in the second unit as well. Alec Burks was the first guard off the bench for Utah in Game 1, and was more good than bad. Burks finished 2-9 from the field, and struggled with his shot and finishing at the rim. He did add three assists and didn't ever turn over the ball, though.

Dante Exum got most of the minutes at the backup point guard spot. Exum had more success driving to the rim than he did in most of the Oklahoma City series, but again struggled with turnovers, adding three in his 15 minutes of action. He also played one spectacular defensive series on Harden, though he made a couple of defensive mistakes off the ball, too.

Finally, Snyder tried Neto in the second half of this one, Neto's first real minutes of the playoffs that didn't come with the game completely out of reach. He performed pretty well, making both of his shots and adding an extra assist in nearly eight minutes.

The Jazz actually saw their most team success in a goofy lineup with all three of the above players on the floor, which outscored Houston's bench by five in a tiny two-and-a-half minute sample. While that's probably not the long-term answer, it does point to something that might have to be played more in this series: small lineups.

Utah was outscored by 11 points in the 14 minutes with Favors and Gobert on the floor, in part because Favors got switched onto 3-point shooters. When the Jazz played smaller lineups for the other 34 minutes, they were only outscored by three. We'll see if that trend continues, but it makes sense against the Rockets, who start the smaller Mbah a Moute at the power forward spot.

The Jazz's depth and versatility will be tested this series. After six games against the shallow and big Oklahoma City squad, they now have to face the deep and small Houston lineups. We'll see how well they can adjust with two days off before Wednesday's Game 2.

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