SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Jazz's 109-100 win over the Indiana Pacers from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz pick up easy win thanks to Pacers' problems

The Jazz only won by 9 points tonight, but that significantly understates how easy tonight's win was. The Pacers never led, and never even tied the game after the score was at 0-0. The only things that kept them close were:

• They made their tough mid-range looks at a very high rate.
• They made their tough 3-point looks at a very high rate, while the Jazz didn't.

See how they only shot 18 attempts from within the restricted area? NBA teams are averaging 27 shots a game from there this year, the most efficient zone to shoot from. Rudy Gobert deserves a lot of the credit here, but also, the Pacers seemed very willing to settle for bad outside looks.

Let's say the Pacers made all of their various looks at their average. They shoot 61 percent in the restricted area, 44 percent on the other paint shots, 41 percent on mid-range looks, 45 percent on left corner threes, 32 percent on right corner threes, 36 percent on above-the-break threes, and 74 percent on free throws. The Pacers would have scored 90 points, not 100.

Now, you can argue that the Jazz gave the Pacers easier looks than they normally would have gotten from there, but honestly, based on my professional basketball watching opinion, I don't think that was the case. I think the Pacers made a lot of tough shots tonight, and they still got ran out of the gym.

Meanwhile, the Jazz went only 6-24 from downtown, though they were also good from mid-range. But the Jazz got more of all of the good kinds of shots, too, plus got sent to the line more often, thanks to attacking the paint.

2. Alec Burks making an impact

It's been a rough three seasons for Alec Burks, getting hurt in each of them and being unable to play more only 65 games since the summer of 2014. But he finally looks like he's very close to 100 percent, and he's making a big impact on the Jazz's bench.

Tonight he had 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting, and added four rebounds, an assist, and a steal in his 19 minutes. That's the most he's played since December 23, 2015. The only shots he missed were 3-point looks, going 1-of-4 from downtown.

"We went into the game knowing that he was making steps, being able to play longer stretches. That happened in the first half, he looked good, he was comfortable. In the second half, I thought he got a little tired, but he had some open looks," Quin Snyder said.

"I feel like when he shoots the ball right now, I feel like it's going in. He played pretty good defense last night too, but I saw some pride and some focus on the defensive end too, which is something we feel like he can do and he needs to continue to compete in that area."

That defensive point is a good one. He's maybe the Jazz's quickest guard, and might have the best chance in a normal defensive system to stay with small scoring guards like Monta Ellis, J.J. Barea, Lou Williams, and that ilk.

It wasn't for long, but he also played a couple of minutes at the point guard position. In that stretch, the Jazz played with four wings at a time, and it worked pretty well.

3. Let's take a step back

All of a sudden, the Jazz are in a tremendous place in the Western Conference race. The LA Clippers lost in a big way tonight to the Denver Nuggets, and now the Clippers and Jazz have identical 29-16 records.

I expected the Jazz to catch up with the Clippers thanks to Chris Paul's thumb injury, which will sideline him 6-to-8 weeks, but I didn't expect it to happen this soon. The Clippers lost on the first game of a 5-game road trip, and it could be a tough road for the Clippers moving forward. They're also only four games behind the Rockets for the third seed.

Some other trends that are going:

• Jazz have won six in a row now, and six straight at home.
• Gobert had his 30th straight game with double digit rebounds. Only four other players have done that in NBA history, and it's the longest such streak in franchise history. By the way, Gobert is very aware of this streak, and was chasing rebounds hard at the end of the game. It's funny how random rebounding is in the NBA: last night against Dallas, Gobert had 25 rebounds in 35 rebound chances, tonight, he got just 11 in 13 chances.
• Gordon Hayward's now scored at least 16 points in 16 straight games, which is the longest streak of his career.
• The Jazz are 14-1 when Hill and Hayward both play in the game.

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