This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Nobody can say the Jazz would have beaten the Los Angeles Clippers, even with Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors healthy and available Saturday night.
Alec Burks, though? Maybe. Just maybe.
The Jazz's 109-104 loss extended their season's theme at Vivint Smart Home Arena. Imagine where these guys might be in the surprisingly shallow Western Conference if the Jazz could have fielded a full team in December — or if they consistently won home games.
Both of those issues remained in play Saturday, when Favors' back spasms kept him out of the lineup and Burks exited late in the first half after absorbing a tough foul from Paul Pierce on a drive and suffering from concussion-like symptoms and a possible ankle injury. Coincidentally or not, that was not the only damage Pierce dished out. In the absence of Burks as a perimeter defender, the Jazz managed to absorb a flurry of 3-pointers from veterans J.J. Redick and Pierce in the third quarter, but could not survive another storm in the last five minutes of the game when the Clippers scored 24 points.
Thanks mostly to those guys, the home team couldn't exploit any scheduling or personnel advantages, with the Clippers having played Christmas Night and missing star forward Blake Griffin with a quadriceps injury. The Jazz caused a lot of their own late-game problems with defensive lapses that coach Quin Snyder attributed to a lack of communication in the process of switching onto shooters — or not. "We made mistakes, period," Snyder said. "They make you pay."
This game could have turned into an extraordinary win for the Jazz, instead of just a standard-issue defeat. Gordon Hayward drove aggressively and scored 28 points, although lost the ball twice in a critical stretch. Rodney Hood overcame an early injury to score 13 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter. Raul Neto played a season high of nearly 30 minutes in a decent effort against Chris Paul, and Joe Ingles made a nice contribution.
But the Jazz (12-16) just couldn't piece together a complete performance, with another chance to make an upward move in the standings at the one-third mark of the season. Before the game, Snyder professed to be unaware of his team's No. 8 position, which would be redeemable for a playoff berth in about four months.
It should come as some mixture of consolation and frustration that the Jazz are where they are, considering how high they might be if they were healthy and home-court strong. With supposedly one of the NBA's best environments, the Jazz are merely 7-7 at Vivint this season and 28-27 in the Snyder era. That's not playoff material.
Even so, the story of this season is how the Jazz have managed to remain in the West's top eight in Gobert's absence — only partly due to their own merits. The seven teams below the Jazz all have significant deficiencies, so everything suggests they can maintain their playoff position if Gobert recovers reasonably soon from his sprained knee.
Denver lacks playoff-level talent. New Orleans is injured. Portland clearly misses LaMarcus Aldridge, never mind Saturday's rout of Cleveland. Minnesota is too young. Sacramento can't stop anybody. Phoenix is in disarray, as illustrated by a loss to lowly Philadelphia. The Lakers are merely playing out the Kobe Bryant Farewell Tour, with two scheduled stops in Salt Lake City to come.
So without Favors on Saturday, the Jazz's starting lineup included Trey Lyles, Jeff Withey and Neto — the replacement for Dante Exum, who is expected to miss a full season with a knee injury. "That team looks different than [with] Exum, Favors and Gobert," Snyder said. "That's kind of where we're at, trying to figure it out."
All Snyder can do for now is hope his other defenders improve in Gobert's absence. Such growth may not be evident "from an analytical standpoint," Snyder said before the game, "[but] I see it. I see more focus on some of our habits. I saw some of that last year, before it started to show up results-wise."
Whatever he had detected was missing Saturday, when it mattered.
Twitter: @tribkurt