Washington • Early in the second half, Quin Snyder, unhappy with his team’s defensive performance after allowing three consecutive open threes, called timeout to yell at them to shape up. It was understandable. For a couple of minutes, they played defense like the Washington Wizards.
For the Jazz, the dip was momentary, and they went on to obliterate Washington in D.C. by a score of 116-95.
It couldn’t have been much easier. The Wizards started new acquisition Bobby Portis at center, who was both too small and too slim to handle Rudy Gobert down low. Gobert didn’t miss a shot, scoring 14 points on his 6-for-6 shooting, much of which came early.
The Wizards attempted to adjust to cover the paint, but the result was just wide-open shot after shot from outside. At one point, they played a zone, and the Jazz passed it to an open Kyle Korver after just one cut inside. That, unsurprisingly, was found money.
And then there was the strange inability of anyone on the Wizards to bother putting a hand up on Joe Ingles’ shot attempts. Ingles gladly accepted this, scoring 16 points himself while leading the Jazz to a game-high +26 while he was on the court. Jabari Parker may have led the Wizards with 19 points, but he was at fault for many of the Jazz’s open buckets.
Donovan Mitchell led the Jazz with 19 points, while Jae Crowder found himself open frequently for 18 points himself. Crowder started the second half in place of Derrick Favors, who felt a twinge of hamstring tightness that the Jazz wanted to be cautious about.
“It’s just driving the ball, moving the ball. We are an unselfish team,” Mitchell said about the Jazz’s offensive game. "There are times we moved it too many times, too much, got shot clock violations, got turnovers, but we prefer to have that mindset. I think guys love making the right plays and finding the right guys when they are open.”
While the offense was a lot of smart opportunism, the Jazz’s defense was impressively stout. Bradley Beal, the Eastern Conference Player of the Week, was coming off a 40-point explosion against the Memphis Grizzlies that he had managed in only 17 shots. But Ingles stayed locked on Beal throughout the game, making it hard for the Wizards’ best player to even get the ball. Beal told reporters after the game that he hadn’t been face-guarded that much since high school.
When he did get his hands on the rock, the long arms of Gobert — the Western Conference Player of the Week — dissuaded him from shooting down low, meaning some contested jump shot misses from Beal, normally a terrific shooter.
“When he was open, they sent another guy; when he was driving the lane, they had the big guy [Rudy Gobert] down there. That’s how they play; they’re a good defensive team,” Wizards coach Scott Brooks said. “They have a lot of good wing players. The big fella down there, he blocks and alters a lot of shots.”
When a game is going so smoothly, there is a natural tendency to relax. That’s what happened when the Jazz allowed that stretch with three consecutive threes: two by Portis — Gobert’s matchup, one by Jeff Green — Mitchell’s matchup. That’s when Snyder tore into his team’s stars, to great effect.
“He was right. I was a little too comfortable,” Gobert said. “I kind of laugh, because he’s a competitor, I’m a competitor. I was like ‘All right.' If I was him, I’d probably yell at me, too.”
The win is the Jazz’s fourth consecutive, getting them off to a good start on a 4-game road trip against some of the Eastern Conference’s worst teams. On Wednesday, the Jazz travel to Madison Square Garden, followed by a trip to Atlanta for a back-to-back game on Thursday.
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