The Triple Team: 3 thoughts on Summer League Jazz vs. Wizards

LAS VEGAS — Three thoughts on the Jazz's 88-73 loss to the Washington Wizards in their first game of the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz roasted in third quarter with bad turnovers

Maybe the Jazz's best chance at a win was coming into Saturday afternoon's game against the Wizards, who themselves didn't have a first round pick to anchor their squad, just like the Jazz. The Jazz were favored by 4.5 points over the Wizards, despite Utah's 0-3 record in their own summer league at home.

But they wasted the chance with some poor play in the third quarter. After Dionte Christmas made a three with 8:20 left in the quarter, the Jazz didn't make another basket until Marcus Paige's driving layup with 12 seconds left. That's not great.

I asked Vegas Summer League Jazz head coach Mike Wells what caused the drought. "Well, that's kind of been our downfall, we've come out of the locker room and just haven't had a very good rhhythm. We had a couple of live ball turnovers, or turnovers at the top of the key where they got uncontested layups. Obviously, that's where the game turned on us."

The Jazz had six turnovers during that stretch, which led to nine easy Wizards points. Besides that, they didn't get very good looks at the basket, missing all eight shots they got as well.

After the game, Wells reiterated the need to stay positive: After all, it's summer league. The games don't truly matter, and garbage time is as big of an opportunity for players to impress as any other minutes.

2. This summer league roster just isn't very good

So, why so many turnovers? Well, the Jazz's roster just isn't very good. The hope was adding Treveon Graham (who excelled in the Orlando Summer League) and Virginia center Mike Tobey would improve the caliber of of the team, but even they struggled Saturday.

The bigger worry is the play of Jazz draftees. Joel Bolomboy struggled again, going 0-3 (0 points) with a foul and a turnover in his 10 minutes of action. Marcus Paige is now 10-28 from the field with nine turnovers and only four assists: You'd hope that a four-year player with top-level experience like Paige would be one of your best players and not struggle to this degree. Tyrone Wallace didn't even play Saturday, though he should get a chance Sunday.

Unfortunately, Tibor Pleiss isn't impacting the game when his shot isn't falling. Thursday in Salt Lake City it was, and he bent the defense, which was great to see. Saturday, it wasn't, as Pleiss missed all three of his 3-point looks. He's a little bit lost on defense, lurching when he just needs to stay big and staying stagnant when he needs to move his feet. He only picked up one rebound in over 24 minutes on the floor.

This isn't the worst thing in the world. Obviously, the goal isn't the summer league championship, and the Jazz's summer-league roster is naturally going to be worse than other teams who kept their first round pick. But it doesn't look like the Jazz have any NBA-caliber players who are making a case to stay on the roster beyond Trey Lyles.

(Well, maybe Dionte Christmas is, but he's already 29 years old. It's hard to add him to a roster when younger talent with somewhat more upside is freely available.)

3. Trey Lyles deals with ball pressure well, earns a rest

Trey Lyles is the Jazz's only real offensive threat, and the Wizards knew it. Lyles played well, especially given how frequently the Wizards trapped him, sending a second defender and daring the rest of the Jazz's roster to beat them. I asked Lyles if he had experience being trapped like that, and he said, "It happened all the time in high school." Not since then has Lyles had this large of a target on his back, and I think he's dealt fairly well with the defensive pressure.

A few moments stand out with Lyles: A step-back three from the top of the arc showed off just how much his range has improved since the end of 2015, when he was reluctant to take anything beyond the shorter corner-3. It's clear that he's worked hard on having NBA range. A fourth-quarter drive and dunk excited the crowd, but a nice threaded bounce pass through traffic, leading to a foul, was my biggest point of excitement. Aggressive passing could really help the Jazz's offense, especially with better teammates.

Wells said that the Jazz will sit Lyles in Sunday's game against Buddy Hield and the New Orleans Pelicans. Mostly, the team is interested in getting more minutes for Bolomboy to see what he has in a larger set of minutes, with a more defined role as a starter. We'll be watching.

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