Utah Jazz: Nice guy Raul Neto a preseason pest to Lakers

Honolulu • Having known him for years, playing alongside him with the Brazilian national team and against him in Spain, Lakers point guard Marcelo Huertas made a prediction this week for Raul Neto's first season with the Jazz.

"Raul is a very shy guy," he said. "It being his first year, I think he's going to be really quiet. He's going to be the nicest guy on the team, probably."

But in his first NBA action, Sunday's preseason win over L.A., Neto made quite a bit of noise, and he did it by being absolutely inconsiderate of opposing ball handlers.

Turns out, Neto is a pest.

Take this sequence early in the fourth quarter, for example: Neto intercepted an ill-advised pass in the backcourt and set up the Jazz offense, only to see a teammate throw the ball away himself. Undeterred, Neto picked up Lakers guard Jabari Brown at mid court, poked the ball away down the sideline and, after falling down, found a streaking teammate for a wide open dunk.

"I tried to do what Coach say," he said in the locker room after swiping four steals in a 90-71 win over the Lakers. "He said press the ball full court, make them uncomfortable. So I did that."

Huertas, after all, also predicted Neto would be a quick study.

"He works really hard and he's a smart kid," he said. "You tell him one thing and you don't have to repeat it. He'll get it."

That's good news in Jazz land, where one of the biggest questions of the summer has been how the Jazz's defense would hold up without 6-foot-6 point guard Danté Exum in the mix.

"We're just going to have to have other guys pick it up for him," forward Gordon Hayward had said last week. "You can't really pick up [Exum's] length or some of his speed on the defensive end, but the system will stay the same. The principles will stay the same."

Head coach Quin Snyder had added, "All of us, we have to do that with anticipation and intelligence because we're not as long at that position now."

Neto, a second-round draft pick in 2013, and starting point guard Trey Burke are both listed at 6-foot-1. But after one preseason game with Neto and Burke handling the point guard duties, Snyder was pleased with what he saw developing.

"He's taken pride in it," Snyder said of Neto's defense. "It's something that clearly is a point of emphasis. I thought Trey gave us that early in the game as well. Those two guys, if they can come in like that, kind of tag team and just compete on a defense, make you feel them, that helps."

On the other end of the court, Neto looked hesitant to pull the trigger on his own shots and he finished 0-for-3 from the floor. That's something the 23-year-old rookie, who signed with the Jazz this summer after playing the past four seasons in Spain's top league, must work on still.

Nevertheless, Neto, the player the Jazz call "Wolfie" because of the pronunciation of his name ("Hah-ool"), still managed to control the game in other ways: the Jazz were 20 points better than the Lakers over Neto's 20 minutes on the floor.

Neto got his teammates involved, dishing out six assists. He stole the ball and ran a three-on-one fast break to perfection, looking off the lone Laker defender before dropping a look-away pass to forward Trevor Booker for a lay in. Another time, trapped by two defenders and almost falling to a knee, Neto managed to get off a laser pass from beyond the three-point line that only 7-foot-3 Tibor Pleiss could snag under the basket.

"He's a guy who can make the team play the right way," Huertas said. "He's improved so much on how to control a game and being able to guide his team."

Neto said he felt nervous early in his first NBA action, facing off against the Lakers, a team he watched as a child growing up in Brazil. But after a few minutes on the court, those nerves subsided and Neto said he felt comfortable with the speed and spacing of the NBA game.

It was just one exhibition game, but the rookie certainly looked at ease in his debut.

Even if the nicest guy on the team wasn't nice enough to make his opponents feel the same way.

afalk@sltrib.com

Twitter: @tribjazz