LOS ANGELES — Three thoughts on the Jazz's 88-75 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz offense broken

The Jazz's offense was absolutely broken from the start tonight against the L.A. Clippers. 75 points on 39 percent shooting does a good job of telling the story. George Hill (who finished with 18 points) was the only Jazzman who made more than three shots; only Dante Exum joined Hill in getting double digits.

So that's what happened, but why did it happen? A bunch of reasons:

• Too many mid-range looks. The Jazz took over half (37) of their shots tonight from the mid-range, and made only 11 of them. Then, they only took 13 free throws after taking 40 against the Lakers the night before. The result? Inefficient offense. Now, that's probably shouldn't be surprising given the players the Jazz are playing: Rodney Hood and Joe Johnson are probably best from mid-range, and run off wing pick and rolls looking specifically to get those shots and floaters. But the truth is that, even though those players are good, those shots shouldn't be the desired end result of an efficient Jazz offense. Hood shot 43 percent from mid-range last year, and Johnson shot 45 percent. Those are good marks relative to the rest of the league, but if your whole offense is based on them, it'd be a sub-90 offensive rating. That would obviously be last in the league.
• Too many turnovers. The Jazz had 18 turnovers tonight, including four each from Boris Diaw and Rudy Gobert, and three from Shelvin Mack. Gobert's obviously aren't good, but given what he does for the Jazz defensively (including tonight), it's a little bit easier to excuse. Diaw's and Mack's are much harder to excuse, because those players aren't contributing unless they're playmaking. While they're giving the ball to the Clips, they're a net negative when on the floor.
• Turning down open looks. This was actually less of a problem Sunday than it was in the last two games, but the Jazz's offense has to start shooting the open 3-point shots that they get. That's especially true for the Jazz's spacing players, Trey Lyles, Joe Ingles, Diaw, and Exum. Too frequently, those players are turning down relatively-open 3-point attempts to try to force things inside, playing directly into the teeth of the opposing team's rim protection. Just shoot the ball.

It does just feel like the players haven't figured out how to play with each other yet. There were times, especially in the first half, where the Jazz's spacing looked awful in flow situations. Players were running into each other and getting in the way on offense, forcing the Jazz to back it out and start over again. Everyone's also just holding onto the ball too long: Johnson will hold it to set up his iso game, while Diaw will hold it to set up his post-up passing game. Both Hood and Johnson work to get the defenders on their back in pick and roll, but that also allows the rest of the defense to get set. Hill's the only one introducing real dynamism, and it's not a coincidence that he leads the Jazz in scoring.

A lot of this will be solved with Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors back healthy. Favors' cuts to the rim will force defensive attention, and Hayward's all-around versatility means he can get to the rim and get fouled, or take outside threes if the defense is sagging. But in the mean time, the Jazz are really struggling, and it's not likely to get better against the Spurs in San Antonio tomorrow.

2. Jazz's power forward rotation problems

Yes, the Jazz strengthened the bench this offseason with the signings of Diaw and Johnson. But with Hayward out and Favors on a minute restriction, we're seeing the limitations of both the starters and the bench when everyone is stepped up a spot or two in the rotation.

I'll say it: Diaw's been really bad. After starting three games and playing 69 minutes, he's made only one shot all season long, missing ten. In total, he's picked up two points, seven rebounds, and only two assists while having six turnovers. When he gets the ball, he's going for the highlight pass rather than the smart pass, which results in a ton of turnovers against starting-caliber defenses. When he's off the ball, defenses are sagging way off of him, hurting spacing for everyone else. He's okay positionally on defense, but offers no rim protection or rebounding, so it's not really helpful.

The problem is that Lyles hasn't been especially better. He's scoring more, I suppose, but he's now a combined -35 over the first three games. Against the Clippers, he was dominated inside. Griffin got early excellent position against Lyles, making it easy to score. When that wasn't happening, Lyles was getting worked on the glass, giving the Clippers multiple extra possessions. He needs to be tougher. In the preseason, it seemed he took offense to the Clippers' bully ball, but today he was very passive.

Favors' return to full time should help these problems, but it probably means he'll play more at the power forward position than Snyder would have liked. Snyder would generally prefer Favors get nearly all of the Jazz's backup center minutes, but he was needed more at the four today.

3. What happened to Shelvin Mack?

Last year, Shelvin Mack really helped the Jazz after his trade deadline acquisition. I thought he was clearly the Jazz's best point guard, ahead of Raul Neto and Trey Burke.

I know it's only three games (although the preseason trends weren't good), but Mack hasn't been good for the Jazz this year. Tonight, the Jazz scored only 77 points per 100 possessions while he was in, in part because of his three turnovers. He's making the wrong read frequently, which is bad because the ball is in his hands more than any other player on most of the possessions when he's been on the floor. Today, he airballed an open corner 3, which was weird.

I'm maybe most worried about his defense, where he's making more weird assignment errors and then also being blown by in some individual situations. Again, it may just be a cohesion thing, where he's expecting help where it's not coming, or leaving his man to help when he's expecting a dose of "help-the helper". He's playing next to another point guard frequently with Dante Exum, and so I wonder if some of the mistakes in picking assignment are due to that confusion.

I'd like to see more Neto and Exum, but Snyder's decision is hard here because it's only game three of the season. Given that Mack helped the Jazz significantly last year, do you give him much more time to figure out how he can make himself a useful player in a backup role? Or are these games too important now to waste on finding out the answer to that question? I might start with an in-between solution: keep Mack on the court, but have the ball in the hands of Exum and Ingles more often.

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