Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz and head coach Tyrone Corbin keep tinkering with lineups, and it keeps working.
The Jazz are slowly getting better and are now .500 over their last 20 games. When they have their current starting lineup, the Jazz actually have a winning record — and the team is starting to believe they can win and are having fun doing so.
“So much more fun,” Jazz center Enes Kanter said. “Losing is not fun. When you are winning like that, there is a different atmosphere on the team.”
The Jazz are winning games they should win and losing games they are expected to lose. They are winning close games and being blown out by superior talent. However, coming from a little over a month ago when the Jazz were 1-14, this team has been extremely different.
The Jazz have won on the road, which has always been a problem, and won at home. Even when they've lost, there has been a lot of fight in the team. In a year where the teams in the West are really good and tanking is a goal, the Jazz look like a team content to fight — much to the chagrin of fans hoping for the No. 1 pick.
It started with the return of point guard Trey Burke, but the healthy return and contribution of the whole team — from forward Jeremy Evans to forward Marvin Williams — has allowed Corbin to fine-tune this team.
Corbin said he has a better idea of which players and lineups are working, though everything is still a bit in flux with less than 20 games for this starting lineup and young players starting to find themselves.
Shooting guard Gordon Hayward is the leading scorer for the Jazz, but he has struggled shooting for more than a month. Against Milwaukee Thursday night Hayward shot 50 percent from the field, and Corbin didn't think he necessarily played as well as he could have.
“I didn't think at the beginning of the night he had one of his better nights," Corbin said. "He had 18 at halftime.”
Normally Corbin had been letting Hayward play most, if not all, of the first quarter before resting him early in the second. Against the Bucks, Hayward was subbed out for point guard Alec Burks six minutes into the game before re-entering with a minute left in the first.
This allowed a few things to happen. First, Burks got to get into rhythm early. he didn't have a great shooting night, going 4-12, but he got 13 points and was able to attack early to get teammates open and finished with three assists.
Second, it allowed Hayward and Burks to play a lot of minutes: Hayward played 40 minutes and Burks played the next highest at 31; no one else played over 30. However, both players weren't too overworked because of strategic substitutions.
Hayward got four “game minutes” of rest during the first quarter, then played to finish the half. The second half he came out at the quarter break and came back in after four minutes. The quarter break rested him for the final quarter of each half. He seemed energized all game.
Burks played his 31 minutes in two stretches — basically 15 straight in each. The first was from the six-minute mark in the first until about the three-minute mark the following quarter. The second half he played from the last three minutes of the third until the end of the game.
Lastly, it allowed a leader to be on the floor all night. Right now Hayward and point guard Trey Burke lead the Jazz. The rookie guard was having a bit of an off night — not that he was terrible, but he wasn't great. Point guard Diante Garrett was playing very well Thursday night, and he was able to spell Burke longer while Hayward could run the team.
Garrett went 4-5 from the field with two 3-pointers. In 20 minutes he had 10 points, four rebounds and two assists. Burke played 28 minutes and went 3-9 from the field. He added five rebounds and four assists to his 11 points.
Six players scored in double-figures for the Jazz: Hayward scored 22 to lead the Jazz while power forward Derrick Favors is quietly coming into his own as an offensive player with a 21-point, 11-rebound performance.
“Early in the season I think I was trying to do too much, going too fast on the offensive end,” Favors said. “I talked to the coaches, talked to some of the players, and they just told me to slow down and play my game. When I'm open, shoot it, if I can create something, do it, but overall just slow down.”
Actually, Favors has been a fairly consistent offensive player over the past month. Since missing his two games with a back injury he has scored at least 13 points in all but three of the last 12 games.
Over the last 12 games Favors is averaging 13.8 points per game. Without the few single-digit games against he L.A. Clippers, Atlanta Hawks and San Antonio Spurs his average would be 16.6. For perspective, Hayward leads the team with 16.4 points per game. Just like the rest of the Jazz, Favors' game is solid most nights, but he still struggles against the better teams in the league.
A 96-87 win over the worst team in the league isn't something to write home about. For most teams it would be a burn-the-tape game where you learn nothing from it, but for the Jazz it was a great night to tinker with the team.
A month from now the Jazz could look totally different with the trade deadline looming. Games against the Bucks are nights to tinker and discover what the Jazz have in their young players. The second team was solely young players: No one with more than four years of experience came off the bench.
The Jazz have played more games than any other team in the NBA. The Jazz played 34 games over the first 62 days of the NBA schedule. They will play only 18 from the start of January to the All-Star break, which is 44 days away.
The Jazz will still tinker with lineups, but the rest and practice will allow them to know how to best use them for this year and the future.
