Three thoughts on the Jazz’s 106-102 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves from Salt Lake Tribune beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. Jazz forget what got them 23-point lead, barely pull out win anyway
The Jazz had a 23-point lead in the third, which was eventually trimmed to 21 by the end of the quarter. And then in the fourth, they choked, making so many little mistakes that Quin Snyder didn’t want to name them all in his post-game press conference.
The Wolves outscored the Jazz 33-16 in the fourth, cutting that 21-point lead down to just one at one point, and had multiple shot opportunities that would have put them in front. Oh, and the Wolves were without three point guards due to injury (Derrick Rose, Tyus Jones, Jeff Teague), their best defensive player (Robert Covington), Taj Gibson (ejected), and Gorgui Dieng (hip contusion suffered in game).
That’s not good! In my mind, the largest of the blame goes to the Jazz’s bench, which allowed a 15-2 run before Rudy Gobert came back into the game with 8 minutes left, though obviously the run didn’t exactly stop there either. But really, the whole team played poorly in the quarter.
Here is just a sampling:
On this play, the Jazz didn’t get back while Karl-Anthony Towns streaked down the court for an easy layup. Derrick Favors is going for the offensive rebound, fine, but someone has to keep an eye on Towns here.
Royce O’Neale has to know that Andrew Wiggins streaking down the middle of the court is more important to help on than Josh Okogie (a 26 percent 3-point shooter this year) at the arc.
Favors contests Towns' shot here, but still stays in front of him. He doesn’t bother to box out, though, letting Towns get his own putback layup.
Meanwhile, on the offensive end, there wasn’t much execution. Donovan Mitchell shot just 1-11 in the quarter, but his teammates shot just 4-15, so not a whole lot better. Some of those were good shots that lipped out, but there was a lot of Mitchell just forcing it into traffic and finding that, yes, there was defense there:
Mitchell was blocked three times in the fourth. His one make came off a ball-fake, when he drove, stopped in the lane pumpfaked, getting Towns in the air, and then making it. When Mitchell is reading what the defense does and quickly reacting, he’s at his best.
In the end, it was a very sketchy win, but a win nonetheless. The good thing, I suppose, is that the Jazz will have a chance to rectify their wrongs when the two teams play again Sunday.
2. Mitchell gets career-high assists, including incredible baseball passes
It’s a shame Mitchell had such a sketchy fourth quarter, because he was fantastic through the first three periods. In the end, Mitchell finished with a career-high 11 assists to go along with his 24 points, the 11th straight time he’s scored 24 points or more.
This was the best of the bunch, an incredible baseball pass across the court to find Georges Niang for the open three.
How fast was that pass going? Let’s SportScience this a little bit. We’re going to have to make some guesses on the exact position of Niang and Mitchell. Let’s say Niang was four feet away from the baseline and one foot away from the sideline. Mitchell was about midway between the 3-point line and half court, so we’ll say he was 37 feet from the baseline. He’s kind of at the elbow width, so we’ll say 35 feet from Niang’s sideline. So, Pythagorean Theorem time, Mitchell was about 47.38 feet away from Niang.
Okay! Now we have to know how long it took the pass to get there. It takes about 21 video frames for the pass to get there, and my video is 30 frames per second, so it took 0.7 seconds. So it’s traveling at about 67.7 feet per second, or 46 miles per hour.
That’s really fast to throw a basketball! SportScience did a similar calculation on LeBron James a few years back, and found he was throwing his passes sometimes at 40 miles per hour. Mitchell looks like he’s passing faster, which might make sense, given his baseball playing background. He was very proud of having pitched 85 miles per hour in 10th grade, after all.
“It’s just making a read, and a two-hand pass wouldn’t have worked,” Mitchell said.
“Oh man. I didn’t play baseball, so it’s tough for me (to catch Mitchell’s passes),” Ingles joked. “We’ll keep putting our hands in that wax thing to soften them up... I’m just glad it comes to the corner every now and again.”
That’s what’s been so good about Mitchell recently is that ability to make the right play. Tonight, for at least three quarters, Mitchell did that superbly well.
3. Bat time
There’s more to talk about from this game: Karl-Anthony Towns' incredible night, how Kyle Korver continues to play a bigger and bigger offensive role on this team, Rudy Gobert continuing to dunk over everyone, and more.
But Mitchell had an eventful night in even another way: When he was warming up before the game, a bat started to fly around the court, putting a temporary halt to the shooting drills he normally does.
This was very much shades of Manu Ginobili’s bat incident, though Ginobili’s happened in game. He actually caught the bat with his hands (!), then went on to keep playing. Oh, and this happened on Halloween.
Later, though, he regretted his catch.
“Just wanted to give you guys an update on the bat situation. As many of you already know, it wasn’t a great idea. Not only for the fact that bats are great part of the ecosystem, but also, because some carry rabies, which is an incurable disease. That’s why I had to get vaccinated today [and it wasn’t just one shot!].”
Here in Utah, it was the Jazz Bear mascot who ended up catching — and, realistically, though we don’t know for sure, killing the bat — before the game. Mitchell was glad he didn’t have to go through the same steps as Manu.
“I was not cool with that, at all," Mitchell laughed. "I’m glad the Bear got him 'cause I would not have finished my warmup, I would’ve gone to the locker room.”
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