The Triple Team: Joe Ingles excels on Autism Awareness night, defeating the super-simple Lakers offense with relative ease

Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 115-100 win over the Los Angeles Lakers from Salt Lake Tribune beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Joe Ingles excels on Autism Awareness Night

I’m not sure there’s a better microcosm of Joe Ingles than what we saw tonight. Okay, sure, he doesn’t usually nearly get a triple-double — he scored 11 points on mostly 3-point shots (which he shot 42 percent on), assisted the ball like crazy (14 assists, a career-high), and picked up nine rebounds almost by accident.

Oh, and it happened on Autism Awareness Night. The Jazz have done this annually for a few years now, but this time it mattered more to Ingles. After all, his son was just diagnosed with autism a few months ago, and now he and wife Renae are all in on raising awareness and making change for the families of Utah who are facing similar challenges.

As usual, Ingles just made the right reads. Tonight, the Lakers focused on stopping his path to the rim, so he just found open teammates over and over again. This is just easy.

He had a few assists like this, and a bunch that came more simply, in transition or just kind of naturally in the flow of the offense. But when Ingles is in the game, things just work. He has the best plus-minus of any Jazz player this season, and a large part of it is that he just understands where openings are going to be.

That’s not that tricky against the Lakers, who aren’t good defensively right now, but that it happened tonight, of all nights, was pretty neat. While it’s a shame he didn’t get that last rebound that would have gotten the Jazz their first regular season triple-double in a decade, it almost feels more Ingles-esque to sub out just short, with a 20-point lead instead.

2. The Lakers’ offense is, um, uncreative

I don’t know if this is the fault of Luke Walton, or the players, or the malaise that comes when you’ve had your sixth consecutive losing season. But, the Lakers seem to have two choices: take a bad early jump shot, or hardly move in a half-court possession leading to an eventual bad shot.

This is a horrendous shot to be taking with 14 seconds left on the shot clock and no advantage whatsoever. A contested step-back three? Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, you are not James Harden.

Or this. Kyle Kuzma calls for a Javale McGee screen, and I think McGee just shrugs? So then he kicks it to Lance Stephenson, who takes another dumb and bad shot.

The videos of no movement are harder: the NBA only puts videos of the last 10 seconds of every possession on NBA.com, so you can’t get the full effect of the lack of offensive movement. But it’s just that the Lakers’ offense is super simple: they’ll run a pick and roll, or some other action, and if that doesn’t work, they just devolve into isolation.

There’s no off-ball movement, there’s none of Snyder’s trickery, there’s never two things to defend at once, it’s just very blah. They’re third from the bottom in the fewest miles moved per game on offense, behind the Rockets and the Thunder. The Rockets have actual James Harden, the Thunder do devolve into blah offense too much too (especially, famously, late in games), and then there’s this team.

That they scored 100 points anyway was reflective of a fast pace (103 possessions tonight), some questionable Jazz defense at times, and some lucky baskets (Kyle Kuzma, in particular, banked in two threes in the first quarter).

Walton’s not going to survive this season, they’ll have a different coach next year, with different personnel. Some better plays might help.

3. I love the work our photographers do

You probably already know about the writing staff at the Tribune, and the work that we do. No one covers the big teams in Utah better. If you like news, you know that no one dedicates more resources to covering what’s going on locally — heck, it won us a Pulitzer Prize. That’s pretty crazy, and I’ve been so impressed with all of our staff with the kinds of important things we’ve been able to dig up and be the leaders on. There’s also the freedom they’ve given me to write the Triple Team for every game, kind of a non-traditional format, and I appreciate that very much.

But sometimes I think I don’t give enough mind to the work of the Tribune’s photographers that cover our events, and they do a great job. I thought way more than just one of Francisco Kjolseth’s photos from tonight’s game were worth sharing with you, so in yet another blowout game, I thought I’d dedicate a Triple Team point to that. Here are all of those photos:

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell (45) sails in for a dunk in the final seconds of the first half as the Utah Jazz face the Los Angeles Lakers in their NBA game at Vivint Smart Home Arena Wed., March 27, 2019, in Salt Lake City.

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell (45) sprays water on Utah Jazz forward Joe Ingles (2) as he does an interview to raise awareness for autism following their game against the Los Angeles Lakers in their NBA game at Vivint Smart Home Arena Wed., March 27, 2019, in Salt Lake City. Ingles son was diagnosed with autism and the Jazz have come out in support in a big way.

These are included above, but these three were my favorites:

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Jazz forward Royce O'Neale (23) celebrates with Utah Jazz forward Joe Ingles (2) during their win in the final minutes as the Utah Jazz face the Los Angeles Lakers in their NBA game at Vivint Smart Home Arena Wed., March 27, 2019, in Salt Lake City.

The Triple Team: Joe Ingles excels on Autism Awareness night, defeating the super-simple Lakers offense with relative ease

1. Joe Ingles excels on Autism Awareness Night

2. The Lakers’ offense is, um, uncreative

3. I love the work our photographers do

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