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SALT LAKE CITY — The game was less than five minutes old and the crowd had already reached its peak level.
The reason for the sudden deadening outburst? Mike Conley had just drilled a 3-pointer. After the point guard had struggled from the field in his first two games, the shot was a cathartic — both for the crowd and for Conley. And it was a sign of things to come for the Jazz on Saturday.
When it came to Conley and Jazz’s offensive struggles, coach Quin Snyder said that one of the best things his team could do is not overanalyze it. The Jazz showed why on Saturday.
Utah (2-1) shot 57% from the field, hit 18 of 37 3-pointers and smashed the Sacramento Kings 113-81 Saturday in front of a soldout home crowd. As for Conley, he had his best game in a Jazz uniform, scoring 12 points and dishing out eight assists in just 24 minutes.
“It was good to see Mike just settling and find some comfort running our team,” Snyder said. “I think we were looking to him and it was good to see that from him as well.”
Following Friday’s loss to the Lakers, Rudy Gobert wondered aloud how good the Jazz would be if the offense just cleaned things up a bit. Utah’s defense has played at an elite level — that trend continued on Saturday — but the offense hadn’t quite come around.
“Even with all the turnovers and the fast-break points that we gave up because of that, we held them to 95 points,” he said. “So let’s think about how good we’d be if we didn’t have that.”
Turns out, really, really good.
Bojan Bogdanovic, who was a game-time decision due to a sprained ankle he suffered in Utah’s season opener on Wednesday, poured in 26 points (with 23 coming in the first half alone) to lead an efficient and dominant Utah attack.
“I thought our defense has really carried (us) over the past few games and tonight our offense picked up on that end too,” Conley said. “ So to see it all kind of jell together and guys have great nights was a lot of fun to do in front of the home crowd.”
Bogdanovic showed no signs of the injured ankle, scoring 10 points before the game was even five minutes old. He was 9 of 14 from the field in the first half (he finished 10 of 18) and ended the game with five 3-pointers. His deep triple near the retro mountain center court logo in the second quarter even had him high kneeing in celebration as he backpedaled down the court.
He wasn’t alone though.
The Jazz scored 35 points in the first quarter and led by 25 at halftime as the Kings had no answer for Utah’s suddenly potent offense. At one point in the first half, the Jazz had missed more free throws (3 of 7) than 3-pointers (9 of 12). Utah tied a franchise record for 3-pointer in a half by making 13 in the opening two quarters.
That type of shooting can make you look really good, really fast.
“I thought that we moved the ball a lot better,” Conley said. "I thought the last few games we got a bit stagnant and the guy with the ball had to make plays. Tonight, we just really moved it around the horn. We got into the paint and started the blender, and everyone was unselfish at that point and shots were easy to fall.”
Donovan Mitchell scored 15 points on 6-for-9 shooting, including a perfect 3 of 3 from behind the arc, Conley was 5 of 11 and Jeff Green went 3 of 4 from the 3-point line.
And combine that offense with a suffocating defense and the blowout came pretty quickly for the Jazz. Sacramento (0-3) shot just 37% from the field and scored a combined 33 points in the second and third quarters. It got so bad that the Kings more or less threw in the towel in the third quarter by pulling their stars for good.
“On the second game of a back-to-back, our guys really defended the right way to start the game,” Snyder said. “That really helped connect us. I thought Donovan’s defense in combination with what Rudy (Gobert) was doing was impactful.”
The Jazz will play at Phoenix on Monday.
