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They've been roughed up and pushed around, held and harassed. Right now, teams know one of the best ways to stop the Utah Jazz is to get physical with them.
"We move a lot," Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. "That's one of the things we want to do. We've got ball movement and man movement. People want to not let us move. … It's clear when we play some teams it's part of the game plan. There's no mistaking it."
It's perhaps a little puzzling then that the Jazz have more often than not heard whistles go against them so far this year. The Jazz average 22.9 fouls per game, the third most in the NBA, and teams have more often than not benefited this year by attempting more free throws than the Jazz.
"We're a young team," forward Trevor Booker said. "We can't expect calls, especially against veteran teams."
Before Monday's game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Jazz center Rudy Gobert said he believed his team might need to fight fire with fire.
"I think we need to be more physical," he said. "Maybe we earn that respect from the refs. We know we're a young team, we're not expecting nothing."
Frustrations with calls have boiled over twice in recent games with Gobert and forward Derrick Favors picking up technical fouls in the last week.
Laugh track
During Billy Donovan's brief stint on the Utah Jazz's training camp roster in 1987, Jeff Van Gundy told his friend he'd have a chance of making the team as a point guard.
One problem: Utah already had a guy named John Stockton on the roster.
Donovan, now the coach of the Thunder, has told that story with a dose of humor during two stops in Salt Lake City this year —and that might have made his old coach proud.
"I just remember that he was a really, really funny guy," Donovan said of former Jazz coach Frank Layden, who once taught and coached Donovan's father in high school.
On Monday, Donovan recalled sitting in a locker room before an exhibition game during the fall of '87.
"Obviously the team was enormous back then. You had Mark Eaton, Thurl Bailey, Marc Iavaroni, Mel Turpin," Donovan said. "We were in a square locker room and they're all sitting on one side of the room and [Layden] says to them, 'You three guys get up and sit over there. I don't want the room to tip over.' "
The kicker?
Three of them stood up and started to move.
Donovan chuckled during his retelling.
"Obviously, I'm trying to make the team. I'm pretty serious," he recalled. But Layden "always had great jokes and always made people laugh. I always admired that."
Giving back
Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox was apparently surprised by one of his afternoon meetings Monday in Salt Lake.
"[Trey Burke] just showed up unexpectedly at my office to talk about ways to give back to Utah," Cox wrote to his followers on Twitter. "He gets it."
According to Burke, the meeting had, in fact, been scheduled a few days earlier because the Jazz point guard wanted to get some things in order before leaving for Wednesday's game in Los Angeles and Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday.
"We've got some things planned for the holidays," Burke said, declining to get into the specifics.
In the last week, the Jazz have served dinners to some of Salt Lake's homeless and Booker helped some local families get ready for Thanksgiving.
Burke, 23, said he's grown to have a greater perspective since entering the NBA three years ago.
"I want to be more involved in the community," he said. "More involved with charity and things like that. It's not just about basketball. We've got a lot of things going on in the world right now. … You've got to keep it in perspective."
Tipping point
Snyder does have one tip for Booker: tip it less.
"I'd like for him to tip it when he can't get it. Other than that, I'd like for him to rebound it," the Jazz coach said this week. "Be strong, be patient, be deliberate."
Booker has struggled to find buckets this year. He's just 14-for-34 in the restricted area and, officially, 1 for 5 on tip shots.
"I'm pretty confident in it," he said. "Coach would rather see me come down with it and try to go back up, but I'm pretty confident in it."
Booker, a career 51-percent shooter, believes shots have to start falling.
"I mean, right now, nothing is falling — my tips, my wide open layups, anything," he said. "Hopefully soon some will start going down."
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