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DENVER - There were a large number of problems for the Utah Jazz in their 117-100 loss to the Denver Nuggets Wednesday night, but there were two that stood out when watching the game - turnovers and the lack of transition defense.
The Nuggets were up by two points a minute into the second quarter, but a 21-6 run by Denver to end the half left the Jazz down 63-46. A big part of that run was eight steals by the Nuggets that lead to 14 points.
"The effort we got for the most part today wasn't satisfactory," said coach Tyrone Corbin of the team's overall performance.
The second quarter of this game was much different than the Lakers game, even though both games saw the Jazz slip into double-digit deficits. The first game was about the Jazz missing on offense. In this game the Jazz were 8-14 shooting in the quarter, but the Nuggets were 11-21. That is seven extra shots in a quarter, and the Nuggets only had 4 offensive rebounds in the quarter.
A common thread in post-game comments was a lack of effort and work.
"They came out and worked harder than we did," said Paul Millsap who came off the bench again and added 13 points with 6-9 shooting and eight rebounds in 22 minutes.
Denver ended the game with 27 fast-break points while the Jazz had 12. The Jazz lost by 17, so 15 fast break points was the difference maker in the game. Part of this stat is the assist-to-turnover margin where the Nuggets were up 11 and the Jazz only up three.
Everything else that Jazz did was pretty equal with the Nuggets. The shooting percentage was within five percent, they had a better 3-point production and were down only one free-throw attempt. The Nuggets had six more rebounds, but not an overwhelming gap.
This is the second game where it seemed the Jazz were outworked by opponents. The Lakers game it was about the extra pass that the Lakers made and the Jazz weren't able to recover. This game was more getting back on defense.
The Nuggets had 68 points in the paint and Corbin included the transition defense in the problems the Jazz had. The Jazz had 42 in comparison, but was up by six points from last game.
The entire offense was significantly better than they were against the Lakers making nine more shots on 11 fewer attempts. A particular bright spot in the game was Alec Burks who had 15 points in ten minutes late in the game.
