DENVER — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 99-91 loss to the Denver Nuggets from KSL.com's Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Ugly third quarter sinks Utah

The Jazz lost the third quarter 38-16. If you lose a quarter by 22 points, you're probably not going to win the game.

What happened? Watching it live, it was hard to pinpoint exactly what was going wrong, maybe because so much was going wrong.

Maybe the most obvious was turnovers. The Jazz had seven turnovers in the quarter and from a variety of different sources. Joe Ingles had the first one, an ill-advised cross-court pass that Jamal Murray intercepted for the pick-six. Thabo Sefolosha committed a charge two plays later. Then Ricky Rubio had two in a row: a rebound that was cleverly stolen by Mason Plumlee and a deflection off of his knee on the next play.

Two plays later, Derrick Favors had two consecutive turnovers: a butterfingers moment on a sure dunk and a travel on the next play. Two more plays later, Joe Johnson lost the ball easily, giving Lyles a layup three seconds later. In the meantime, the score went from a four-point Jazz lead to a 12-point Jazz deficit.

But that wasn't all. The Jazz showed a lack of connectedness and focus on the defensive end. Rodney Hood got back-cut while ball-watching. Rubio missed a box-out opportunity, as did Johnson. The Jazz missed a switch, and left Trey Lyles wide open for a three.

The Nuggets made some nice plays too: Gary Harris' swooping reverse layup, for example. They made a lot of shots and the Jazz missed some open ones. But the Jazz have to be more worried when the other team goes on a run.

"We need to be determined, get to the foul line, get a defensive rebound," to end runs by an opponent, Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. "There's a level of mental toughness."

That level of mental toughness has been repeatedly missing this year on the road, and it's kicked the Jazz's road record to 3-16.

2. Donovan Mitchell playing PG

This wasn't among Donovan Mitchell's best scoring games: only 15 points on 6-13 shooting.

But I loved his passing. He only ended up with five assists, but he had several passes to his teammates to get them open looks that they just ended up missing.

This is one of my favorite plays from Mitchell, even though it looks so simple: it's in semi-transition, so the Jazz have opportunities. But Mitchell uses his eyes to freeze the defense, and make them think he's passing to Hood for the three. But then he hits Sefolosha on the cut instead.

Thabo with the left.#UTAatDENpic.twitter.com/Bvj3rmxFb0 — Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) January 6, 2018

That play really reminds me of Rubio, who uses head, eye, and arm fakes all the time to move the defense to where he wants, then finds the open man. The problem when Rubio does it is that the defense doesn't believe he can score. That's definitely not a concern with Mitchell.

Overall, I'm starting to believe that Mitchell's best position is point guard, not shooting guard. His size points to that, first of all, standing at 6-foot-3, though his length and athleticism allow him to play the shooting guard position without much of a problem.

Early in the season, Mitchell's decision making would have prevented such a switch. But that's improved greatly, to the point where I believe it would be a net positive if Mitchell had that responsibility foisted on him.

It's not important that the Jazz make that move now; Rubio is still on the roster. But I think the Jazz have finally found a long-term solution to the point guard woes they've had ever since trading Deron Williams to the Nets in 2011.

3. Jazz in a lot of blowouts

Two years ago, the Jazz finished just short of a playoff spot thanks to a bad performance at the end of close games. For whatever reason, their very good defense didn't translate to the clutch.

This year, they've completely avoided that problem by never playing any close games at all. They've only played in 12 games all season long that have been within five points within the last five minutes of each game. Philadelphia, on the other hand, has 27 games. And it's only been seven games that have been within a possession in the game's final minute.

Both numbers are dead last in the league. Why are the Jazz so feast or famine?

I have a couple of ideas:

Maybe how good the Jazz are wildly depends on player availability. Rudy Gobert is the Jazz's best player, he's now missed 21 games. Joe Johnson and Raul Neto haven't played in that same number, 21 games. Hood missed nine games.

When you're missing players, especially really impactful ones, it makes it hard to stay in games. The Jazz would probably be better if more healthy. But of course, they've won some games in big fashion despite not being healthy, too.

I wonder how much of it is that they have a majority of the roster with uncertain futures in Utah. Favors, Johnson, Sefolosha, Dante Exum, Jonas Jerebko, Ekpe Udoh, Hood, Raul Neto, and Royce O'Neale all are either free agents or have non-guaranteed contracts for next year. Maybe the speculation means that when the going gets tough, the players aren't willing to go that extra mile to help their teams to stop, say, a 28-7 run.

On the other hand, Gordon Hayward was a free agent last year and had the best season of his career. In general, people think that being in a contract year makes players play more hard, not less hard. It also might make them more selfish, but I haven't seen a ton of that.

One more idea: the Jazz have a pretty defined set of strengths and weaknesses. Maybe teams who have skillsets to take advantage of those will just win those games by a lot, and the Jazz will easily beat the other teams? But if basketball really were this simple, this much like rock-paper-scissors, why are the Jazz now 2-2 against the Nuggets?

So I don't really know what's going on, in the end. I'm happy to hear your ideas.

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