The only trouble with Jazz rookie Donovan Mitchell’s sensational 29-point showing Saturday night was his return as a starter disrupted Rodney Hood’s game.
The only consolation of the Jazz’s 103-89 loss to Oklahoma City at Vivint Smart Home Arena was coach Quin Snyder sounded just about disgusted enough to do something about his lineup.
The solution to two problems would be Snyder’s starting Hood and benching Ricky Rubio, making Mitchell the No. 1 point guard. Something has to be done, after a night when the Thunder’s veteran point guard outplayed Rubio.
I’m talking about Raymond Felton. Russell Westbrook’s triple double, the Jazz can live with. He does that to everybody. But when Felton is better than Rubio, the Jazz (15-19) have a problem.
So here the Jazz are, 34 games into this season, wishing they could replay October and have Dante Exum stay healthy. Instead, they’re stuck with Rubio as their starter – or are they? Starting Mitchell at the point is a genuine alternative, after another slow start that basically doomed the Jazz to a defeat. The Thunder invited Rubio (3 of 10) to shoot, and he kept missing.
At this stage, what’s the difference? Rubio played less than half the game, anyway. I know I’ve seen enough of Rubio’s incessant dribbling and lousy shooting; maybe Snyder has too.
Mitchell was less than perfect, let’s be honest. He made some careless plays during a second-quarter stretch when the Jazz lost the ball on four straight possessions, and he knows it. The Thunder “take you out of your offense; they’re aggressive,” he said, remembering some cross-court passes he would like to have back.
Mitchell will learn from those mistakes. Rubio’s troubles seem less fixable. And if you heard Snyder’s postgame interview, when he repeatedly used some variation of the word “execute” in lamenting his team’s offensive issues, you would have walked away convinced that he would address it soon.
That’s encouraging. The frustrating aspect of Saturday’s game is how winnable it really was, with the Thunder having played a tough game at home Friday, traveling and playing an hour earlier than usual. OKC shot in the low 40s for most of the game. Yet the Jazz looked like the more tired team, even after showing impressive energy in Thursday’s win over San Antonio.
That was a slump-breaking victory, but the Jazz missed any opportunity to generate some momentum going into another tough week. They play back-to-back games at Denver and Golden State, before ending the calendar year with Cleveland’s visit next Saturday.
Ideally, they would have cut New Orleans’ lead to a half-game in the Western Conference. Instead, the Jazz lost to OKC and the Pelicans won at Miami.
The Thunder, meanwhile, have stopped kidding around. OKC is 18-15 with its first four-game winning streak of the season, so forget about the Jazz ever catching the Thunder. Talent triumphs in the NBA, and OKC asserted itself Saturday.
This was a sobering loss for the Jazz, who led only by a little (one point), and briefly so. Hood’s 3-of-14 shooting night was disappointing, coming off his 29-point game vs. San Antonio. “Just got to figure a way to get in a rhythm early,” he said, “especially making the transition coming off the bench.”
That didn’t happen in Saturday’s first half, when he missed all seven of his shots. This was one of those nights everyone feared, when the offense struggled and the Jazz simply looked like they lacked the kind of personnel that playoff teams have.
Wow. Imagine where the Jazz would be without having drafted Mitchell. Or picture him starting at a different position. That’s a better look, right?
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