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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Jazz coach Quin Snyder said Saturday's preseason opener provided some of the young Jazz players to get in "during the meat of the game." Monday, though, was about the veterans.
"I'd like to see them have a chance to play together," Snyder said. "The regular season is right around the corner."
If the preseason is about generating excitement, the Jazz managed to do that — at least during one dominant stretch. Let's just jump right to the third quarter of Utah's 111-92 win over Phoenix Monday at Vivint Arena.
Here are four of Utah's first five possessions of the second half:
- Donovan Mitchell finds Mike Conley coming off a screen and Conley drains a three.
- Bojan Bogdanovic gets a pass at halfcourt and rumbles in for a layup.
- Bogdanovic leaks out after a Phoenix shot attempt, Conley finds him and he hits a transition three.
- Conley steals the ball and tosses it to Bogdanovic at halfcourt. Bogdanovic dribbles up the court and then fires a pass back to Conley who steps into another three.
It was punch after punch. In just over two minutes, the Jazz went from being up a point to leading by 14.
"I think it just shows what we can do when things start clicking," Mitchell said.
After a year together, the Jazz seem to be clicking. Even the plays that didn't lead to points were impressive.
Shortly after Utah's offensive explosion to start the half, he found Joe Ingles on a three-quarter court pass that looked more like a post route than anything else. Ingles could have finished the play with a layup; instead, he touch-passed it to an open Bogdanovic in the corner. Bogdanovic just missed the shot.
Even with the miss, it was just how the Jazz want to play: a defensive stop leading to quick offense.
That stretch was part of a 32-6 run that spanned the second and third quarters and was a showcase of what the team thinks it can be: a lockdown defensive club coupled with an explosive offense. That's not a bad combination.
"We're going to have nights like that where we don't come out strong offensively and we've got to make sure that defense is something that carries us," Mitchell said. "I'm really happy with how the game went. We needed this type of game to see where our defense was at."
Monday was one of those nights. It took the Jazz four minutes to score and they only had 19 points at the end of the first quarter — yet, they never trailed by more than seven in the game.
"Honestly, I think we came into this game with a defensive mindset. I think that's what we took away from the first game, and I think guys were just super locked in on the defensive end trying to establish ourselves on that end," Conley said. "Things just weren't flowing as smoothly as we'd like on the offensive end.
"But as the game progressed in the second and third, especially in the third, we started getting free on some early actions and transition threes and things that are easy opportunities for us and we took advantage of them — not allowing ourselves to have to work so hard to score the ball."
The Jazz admitted they were sluggish on the defensive end in the preseason opener. And as good as the offense was early in the third, it's that end that will still be the bedrock of the team. It's one of the reasons why Utah went and got Derrick Favors back.
"I wasn't happy with our defensive effort (Saturday)," Snyder said. "(We were) a little bit loose defensively. I wanted to see how we'd respond, frankly.
The Jazz held Phoenix to just 15 first-quarter points, which gave the offense time to come around — and once it did, it was game over.
"We played good defense in the first half; the turnovers didn't help us," Snyder said. "Once we got that figured out and kept guarding, we were a lot better. We were a little slow in transition out of the gate."
Slow out of the gate, but blasted out of a rocket late.
Bogdanovic finished with 18 points, Rudy Gobert had 11 points and 20 rebounds and Conley ended up with 16 points on 3-of-5 shooting from deep and three assists.
