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Philadelphia • Even Sixers coach Brett Brown said he was "caught off guard" by the way his young center and Rookie of the Year candidate Jahlil Okafor started his NBA career this week.
"I saw something that caught me off guard at the start of the Boston game," the coach said of the teenager's 26-point night in the team's season opener.
But as he stood in the hallways of the Wells Fargo Center before tipoff Friday night, Brown was fully aware of what was coming.
"With the big kid in the middle, with Gobert in the middle, he really causes some problems," Brown said. "And I think that Favors is a man. He's a man."
On Friday night, Derrick Favors was the man for Utah Jazz, recording a 20-point, 12-rebound double-double in a 99-71 win. Rudy Gobert, meanwhile, grabbed 11 rebounds and blocked six shots while helping welcome Okafor back to basketball's reality.
Okafor scored 10 points on 4-of-12 shooting as the Sixers dropped their home opener in blowout fashion.
"He's a rookie. It's just his second game in the league. He's going to be a good player," Favors said. "But me and Rudy just took it upon ourselves to go out there and set a tone early, try to get the team going and just pick up a win."
After coming within 23 seconds of a win in a nail-biter Wednesday night in Detroit, the Jazz dispensed with the suspense early in Philly. Utah went on a 13-0 run to open up a double-digit lead in the opener quarter. In the second quarter, another 13-0 run pushed Utah's advantage to 18.
And after leading 50-33 at halftime, a Raul Neto three-pointer early in the second capped a third 13-0 run and gave the Jazz a 30-point lead over the Sixers.
Favors has now opened up his 2015 campaign with back-to-back nights of at least 20 points after a somewhat uninspiring preseason.
"He's just had a real focus," Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. "I think there's a determination right now that he's playing with on both ends of the floor. You can just see it. He's getting the ball deeper and he's not content. You see it every possession, in some way he wants more."
Jazz guard Rodney Hood finished the game with 17 points. Two nights after going 0-for-7 from deep against the Pistons, Hood hit three of his six 3-point attempts against the Sixers.
"The shots felt good in the first game too," he said. "I've just got to stay aggressive and hit the open ones."
Gordon Hayward scored 12 points and Alec Burks and Trey Burke combined to score 25 points off the bench.
Sixers reserves Nike Stauskas and Jerami Grant scored 12 points apiece in the loss-one of many headed Philly's way again this season.
"We're going to experience some heartache over the next month-everybody bunker in," Brown said after the game. "That's a fact. I've said it. It shouldn't be a mystery. We might draw one out and go find a brilliant performance, but this is going to be a fistfight for a while."
Utah only shot 40.9 percent from the floor, but that's a number that can still get you a victory in Philadelphia- where the Sixers know they're in the NBA's cellar- especially with a defense like the one being built in Utah.
"Like coach says all the time, defense travels," Gobert said. "Even when we have a bad night offensively, we know when we play defense we still can win the game."
Utah limited the lowly Sixers to just 30.2 percent shooting and helped force Philadelphia into 19 turnovers, leading to 20 points for the visitors.
"That's who we want to be," Gober said. "We've got to do it every night."
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