SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Jazz's 108-83 win over the Sydney Kings from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Habits rise and fall during first preseason game

One big focus of Quin Snyder's has been re-establishing his team's core habits: impacting the ball on defense religiously and playing unselfishly on offense. Monday night was the first real test of these habits, and, well, the results were up and down.

First of all, we have to say this about everything that follows in this game: every Jazz player who played Monday night is better than every Sydney Kings player. At peak form, the Jazz could have won this game by 50 points, not 25.

And in the first quarter, it looked like it might turn out that way. Behind the very good play of Ricky Rubio, Rodney Hood and Rudy Gobert, the Jazz got out to a 19-point lead. Rubio and Joe Ingles picked up a ton of deflections and steals, leading to easy Jazz baskets. Hood was making both his shots and excellent decisions with the basketball. And Gobert was scaring the bejesus out of the Kings' players all over the court, and rolling hard to the rim and slamming everything in sight. In other words, all was well.

Things were not as good for the Jazz's second unit. The Jazz's bench is slated to be one of their strengths this year, but in the second quarter, they fell apart on both ends, allowing 32 points in the quarter and scoring just 23. What happened?

"It was awful. Yes, it was awful. Even something we feel like we can be good at, if you're not attentive to it, and you don't honor it, you won't be good at it," Snyder explained. "They got a couple of open looks and they made them, and then they got a couple of offensive rebounds, and suddenly they get confidence."

Allowing 32 points in a quarter to the Sydney Kings is not good. It seemed as if the Jazz bench was happy with their 19-point lead, and then switched off on the defensive end: shooters were just left open for no reason, and the Jazz just got outhustled for rebounded balls consistently. I thought Jonas Jerebko looked a step slow with regards to this in his first game, but it's probably unfair to call out individuals when everyone was at fault.

As Snyder pointed out, the bench mostly solved things later on in the game in their opportunities in the second half. But it really has to be consistent, or at least, better than that.

"If depth is going to be a strength, we have to be able to maintain the same level," Snyder said. "I think we can. The guys who were in there have pride in defense."

2. Player impressions

When it's the first game back after an offseason, some consistency issues are probably to be expected. But let's get on to the questions everyone wants to know about: How did your favorite player look?

• Rubio didn't hit a shot all game, and yet was clearly in control throughout thanks to his length and smarts on defense, and his magic passing on offense. I'm going to have to pull out my thesaurus this season to find synonyms for "magic," because he shows off his best-in-the-world vision time and time again. "He's making some passes I've never seen before," Hood said.
• Hood was the Jazz's leading scorer, but got his in the flow of the offense. Besides hitting 4-of-6 from downtown, Hood found himself in the post a couple of times and had some success.
• The two Joes, Ingles and Johnson, did exactly what you'd expect.
• Derrick Favors scored just six points and wasn't hugely involved in the offense. I think he looked more mobile than last year, but also seemed pretty fatigued by the end of his stints. The biggest problem for Favors is still this: his roll-to-the-rim duties have been taken by Gobert.
• And Gobert wildly deserves them. He finished some nice alley-oops Monday night, even with defenders all over him. Like, he dunks this one!

  Look how high and how far away Rudy is from the rim. #utahjazz#NBA#NBAPreseasonpic.twitter.com/8GDp7UM5LO — Jeremiah Jensen (@JJSportsBeat) October 3, 2017

He finished with 15 points (on nine shots) and 10 rebounds, and it could have been more. Any time the ball ends up in Gobert's hands, it's a great sign for the Jazz's efficiency.

• I thought Donovan Mitchell was better offensively than defensively. He still has some issues with shot selection, but made some pretty plays, like this one:

  .@spidadmitchell, welcome to the NBA.#SYDatUTApic.twitter.com/lpkhP6ee3d — Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) October 3, 2017

But he was way over-aggressive on defense. He helped down on a very simple post-up against Gobert, leaving his man open one pass away. He committed two fouls by being too aggressive and slamming his body into the ball carrier when trying to go over the pick-and-roll. That's a tough line, between aggressive and too aggressive, and Mitchell will have to find it. For what it's worth, Snyder said Mitchell has been a quick learner so far and rarely has made the same mistake twice.

• Dante Exum was good. He was somewhat responsible for the second-quarter swoon, but I liked what he did in finding his way to the basket, and he made his only three to boot. He still drives baseline more than most, but it worked Monday night.
• Thabo Sefolosha was great on defense, no surprise, and was relatively consistent offensively. He'll contribute.
• Jonas Jerebko didn't really help on either end much, and he'll need to be more engaged to earn a spot in the rotation.
• Ekpe Udoh went to the rim well, but also had a couple of embarrassing turnovers. I was surprised that he played next to Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors. Can he play the four in Utah?
• Alec Burks didn't get into the game until the fourth quarter, which shows that he's probably outside of the usual rotation for now. He did get to the rim, and I thought he attacked at the right times.
• I think Tony Bradley's going to be good. He's so young but does the right thing pretty frequently. He'll spend a lot of his time this year with the Stars, though.
• Joel Bolomboy was really energetic and showed off his athleticism. He's making it hard for the Jazz to cut him.
• Raul Neto is still fun, makes the right play frequently, tries hard, and is athletically limited.
• Royce O'Neale was solid on defense and really limited on offense. He also lost a tooth!

3. The threat of two dunkers

Frequently, highlights consist of really difficult plays: high-flying dunks, fancy dribbles, just tough, right-between-the-eyes shot making.

But I think some of the most interesting plays to go back and watch are the easy ones: Hey, how did that guy get so wide open? Here's an example of a play that takes literally four seconds, but is so effective that Hood gets a wide open three. Watch it repeatedly; I certainly had to.

Ricky Rubio finds Rodney Hood for a wide-open 3. pic.twitter.com/lsV10IQAhc — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) October 3, 2017

At this moment, everything is fine. The Kings have someone between their man and the ball at every position, and they look well set up to defend a side pick-and-roll.

Here's the problem: Gobert is so long and tall and effective at finishing that it doesn't really make sense to have Kings forward Perry Ellis try to defend him on the backside. Instead, his teammate (not sure who that is) who was guarding Favors has to come over to prevent the lob pass.

But now Favors is open and cutting to the rim, so someone has to guard him. It has to be Hood's man because there's no one left. And as a result, it all goes to catastrophe in seconds for the Kings, as Hood nails the wide-open corner three.

Of course, the way to defend this is much simpler with game planning for Rubio in the game: just go under the screen, then Ellis doesn't need to help, and the rotations don't ever happen.

There's a kind of solution for Gobert, though: move the screen to meet the defender, no matter how low he goes. Tim Duncan used to do this for Tony Parker all the time, especially early in Parker's career when he was a very mediocre shooter.

Can Gobert get that good at screening? It's something to watch for.

Related topics