SALT LAKE CITY — Here are the storylines from Monday's Utah Jazz practice, as the team prepares for its home opener on Nov. 4.

Derrick's outburst

Perhaps the biggest moment in Saturday's matchup with the Pacers was the initial stretch of the second half, when the Jazz went on an 8-0 run culminating in an open Gordon Hayward three. That's when Jazz forward Derrick Favors did something exciting.

"G (Gordon Hayward) hit a big shot, and they called timeout. Derrick just blew up, just got excited," Jazzman Rodney Hood told us Monday.

"That was the first time in my year and a half that I've seen him do that. It meant a lot to us, especially us younger guys who haven't seen that, it meant a lot."

Why the emotion then?

"Especially in a game like that, where a lot of stuff is not going our way," Favors started to explain. "I just took it upon myself to get things going. I wasn't having a good offensive night in the first half, I just took it upon myself to get myself going."

When is it time to evaluate stats?

The early returns for the Jazz have been positive. The team has, again, the best defensive rating in the league, and the offense has looked pretty good too, currently ranking about average in the NBA rankings. They won the last two games by 20+, only the second time in franchise history that the Jazz have won back to back road games by that margin or more.

But, it's early in the season. So the media asked some Jazz players when those numbers start to really matter.

Rodney Hood said, "It's just three games, just the beginning of the year."

Derrick Favors said, "It's just three games. Ask me that at the end of the season and I'd be satisfied."

Quin Snyder said, "Andy's going to tell me."

Okay, okay, so I've gotten a reputation for being the geek around the team, and fairly so. But Snyder, luckily, continued his answer.

"No, it's when does it become salient for you personally? Like, when does your team have enough opportunity? You've been working on something enough, that you should see a difference. And then, obviously, the sample size. Is it 10 games or 20 games, when does it become relevant statistically speaking?"

I'm happy to provide those p-values whenever, coach.

Late game execution

One item worked on at practice today was the Jazz's late game execution, on both ends of the ball. While the Jazz won the final two games of the road trip, it could have been a full sweep had the Jazz performed better in the final 30 seconds in Detroit.

I asked Snyder what the key was to better execution in the clutch.

"Making shots," Snyder replied. "Our execution has been good, we just gotta make them. I think the more situations we work on like that, the more comfortable people are in those situations, and the percentages will go up."

So what happened last year? In 2014-15, the Jazz were 17-24 when games were within 5 points with 5 or fewer minutes left to go. That was the 8th worst winning percentage in the league in such situations. Again, Snyder explained.

"You focus on offensive execution, but the defensive execution wasn't good at the end of the game. Even when our defense was good, our end of game defense wasn't very good."

"That's what happened in the game the other night in Detroit. Our offensive execution against Detroit was good. We didn't get a stop, and we lost the game."

Rudy Gobert back

Rudy Gobert has been impressive during the first three games, a good sign after he started his preseason slowly after a grueling summer with the French National Team. What's been behind Gobert's recovery?

"I think there was a point around mid-October where he started to rejuvenate, as much mentally as anything," Snyder said.

"Rudy likes to play, too, so I think as the season progressed he started to get his legs, his mental legs too."

Gobert's been great so far, with 11 blocks in three games. Against Philadelphia, the Sixers scored just 38 points during the 32 minutes he was on the floor. That sort of defensive performance makes Gobert one of the unique threats in the NBA.

Free throw bell

Us media types get to watch just the last 15 minutes of practice, which means, unfortunately, only seeing the free throw shooting at the end. But there's been a new wrinkle this year: players going over and ringing a bell on the wall.

So what's the bell for? The first player to makes 25 consecutive free throws in practice gets to go over and ring the bell.

It's a competitive way to practice free throws, and keeps the players focused on important free throws at the end of practice, just like they would be in game situations.

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