SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 113-92 loss to the Houston Rockets from KSL.com's Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz's offense gets shut down throughout Game 3

It wasn't a good showing by the Jazz on either side of the ball, but let's start with the offense. Over and over again, the Jazz's offense was consistently short-circuited by Houston's defense.

Neither Donovan Mitchell or Joe Ingles were able to get any penetration at all thanks to Houston switching and staying in front on defense. Sometimes, the Jazz forced either difficult, almost vomited up shots. This, for example, is such a forced, ugly look.

Blech. Mitchell shot 4-16 overall and only added 10 points. "A lot of switching, a lot of overplaying," was the key to the Rockets' success, according to head coach Mike D'Antoni. "Trevor (Ariza) is very good at draping him (Mitchell), and we're trying to make him drive as much as we can."

When Mitchell gets in a bad situation on offense, he shoots bad shots. When Ingles gets in a bad situation, he attempts bad passes. Joe added five turnovers to his 2-10 shooting (2-7 from the 3-point line), and gave the Rockets some runouts on the other end.

So why the turnaround? A lot of it was the Rockets raising their level on the defensive end. In Game 2, they made a ton of mistakes in terms of communication on screens. They cleaned all of that up in Game 3.

They also just played with more initial force on the defensive end than the Jazz played with to get open. The Rockets denied Mitchell and Ingles from getting the ball, forcing Royce O'Neale, Alec Burks, Dante Exum and the other Jazz players to make plays themselves.

To their credit, they actually did well in those unusual roles, especially O'Neale, who led the Jazz with 17 points. But because it's so unnatural for those guys to lead the way from a playmaking point of view, the Jazz's offense wasn't good overall. In the 30 minutes O'Neale was on the floor, the Jazz scored just 66.8 points per 100 possessions.

And even when the Jazz did end up cracking the paint, Houston did a terrific job of preventing them from getting all the way to the rim. Clint Capela was fantastic at the rim, and then the wings did a good job of sinking in the paint while still playing passing lanes.

It was honestly very impressive from Houston, who showed why they had the sixth best defense in the league this year.

"They took us out of our rhythm," Mitchell said. "We can't let that happen. They were the aggressor all night.

2. Rockets go inside to find offense

The very top item on the Jazz's scouting report is to stop the Rockets from shooting 3-point shots.

At first, even this didn't go well. The Rockets started the game by immediately hitting two threes in transition, forcing Jazz head coach Quin Snyder to call timeout 90 seconds into the contest.

So the Jazz reacted a little bit and recommitted: they were going to prevent the Rockets from taking 3-point shots. But the Rockets had a clever adjustment to deal with the Jazz's aggressiveness from the outside. They started to space five guys all above the arc, all above the break. There weren't any players in the corners, nor any players in the paint.

Take this play for example. O'Neale is guarding James Harden on the wing, grabbing him a little bit, because he wants to make life tough on Harden, denying him from getting the ball. But that means the backdoor is open, so O'Neale points to Rudy Gobert to cover that.

Here's the thing: Gobert is 20 feet away from this play at this point because he's up near Capela. Capela's not an offensive threat from out there, but the two wing players are, and what if Capela screens for one of them (as he starts to)? Then Gobert has to be there to deter that 3-point shot.

Harden has all the space in the world to backcut, gets the ball, and from there just pinballs it to Capela for the dunk. It's easy.

The Rockets also frequently spaced the floor so that there were only two players on the strong side, Capela and the ball-handler. Then, they ran two-man pick and roll. Usually, the Jazz are pretty good at handling that because the Rockets have been predictable. They love threes and layups, and hate midrange shots. So you just have the screened player go over the screen, prevent the three, and then Gobert takes care of the rim defense, or at least causes the attacking player enough indecision that the screened defender can get back.

Friday night, the Rockets just shot the mid-range without hesitation, which is highly unusual for them.

They ended up taking 28 shots from between the rim and the restricted area. Famous for Moreyball, this is not really a Moreyball shot chart.

What can the Jazz do? First of all, the man at the point of attack just has to be a little bit harder to screen. Secondly, Gobert can afford to step up in these situations more than sometimes he knows: a foot forward means he can contest that shot, or at least think about it. If he does step forward, his length can save him moving backward at the rim.

3. Zero free throw attempts for Utah's starters

Zero is a bad number in many basketball statistics, but when exactly none of your starters can get to the line at all, you're going to have a bad time. I don't think the referees were to blame for this at all, by the way: the Jazz just never put Houston in situations where they felt they had to foul.

First, this is an example of how the Jazz really miss Ricky Rubio. The Spaniard is the Jazz's best foul-drawer and he seems to use it strategically, especially when the Jazz need to start to score. He's very crafty, and the Jazz miss that craft.

It's also just something that Mitchell needs to learn. The list of efficient, high-volume scorers who can do it without going to the free-throw line is essentially non-existent. Mitchell's free throw rate was 21.8 percent during the regular season, and it's been at 16.7 percent in the playoffs. There are no top-of-the-line guard scorers who have anything close.

The thing is that Mitchell is also a crafty scorer, but he uses his moves to get himself free to release the ball. Sometimes, he just needs to do the straight line option.

Mitchell can do two things here. He can slow down, even pump fake, and either force Harden to foul him from behind or Capela to jump into him. If Mitchell chooses this option, it's also much easier to find the open O'Neale in the corner (who Gobert is screening for). This is a good option!

Or Mitchell can use his ridiculous athleticism, jump right at the help defender, and try to dunk it on him. This is a hard task, but it's what Kobe Bryant recommended in his help video series. Such a play might send a message and also might reliably get Capela in foul trouble.

What he can't do is leap early and start dipsy-doodling the ball in traffic. Those are pretty plays when they work out, but they result in some difficult shots. Mitchell certainly had his fair share of those on Friday night.

Of course, other players need to do their part as well, but given Mitchell's sky-high potential, it's an element that sticks out.

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