The Triple Team: Utah Jazz have their first blowout loss of the year in Milwaukee

Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 123-97 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. The first dud of the year

I blame Jazz radio play-by-play voice David Locke for jinxing this game.

I mean, the very next game, the Jazz go out and throw a dud? What are the odds?!

It’s a sentiment that Kelly Olynyk echoed after the game: “Every other game we’ve kind of been in, so it’s just one of those nights, I guess. We haven’t had any of those. That’s also a good thing that we haven’t but, you know, it happens.”

There were numerous indicators that the Bucks were the team with more energy on Saturday night. They outrebounded the Jazz 54-29. The Jazz were only able to get to the free-throw line six times, and only had two fast-break points all night long.

Crucial was the Bucks’ size and physicality. Jrue Holiday and Brook Lopez defended at a higher level than any other opposing duo this season, and the Jazz ended up short circuiting numerous offensive possessions with long twos or tougher shots rather than fight through it. (Hence the lack of free throws.)

It was just a bit of a slog that the Jazz can learn from, I think — but weren’t totally ready for.

For what it’s worth, I do think the Jazz have a reasonably good excuse: their game plan wasn’t very applicable to the game that ended up happening. As Mike Conley said, “All we went over was how to stop Giannis (Antetokounmpo), and how we were going to attack with him in the game.” When the Bucks announced around 90 minutes before the game that Antetokounmpo wasn’t playing, I think to some degree it put the Jazz in a lurch.

Ironically, it’s also the Bucks that show the Jazz’s best path to rebounding from a performance like this. They’re coming off a loss to the Grizzlies in which they never led, were down by 50 at one point, and ended up losing by 41. Saturday night, they dominated.

2. Keeping the vibes alive

Speaking of that loss, Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer was asked if he burned the tape:

“Well, there’s probably two different versions of burn the tape. There’s the burn the tape and you don’t show the players, and there’s burn the tape where you literally don’t even watch it and you just kind of move on. You know, I will say we did not watch it with the team, we didn’t show anything. I won’t tell you whether I watched it or not.”

In that spirit, this Triple Team doesn’t have any tape, either.

I don’t know what Will Hardy will do with the footage from this game, but the team doesn’t have practice tomorrow, and they probably will spend most of Monday’s shootaround preparing for the Cavaliers... so I’m skeptical they’ll spend a ton of time watching it.

To me, that would make sense. This gets into fully fuzzy emotional intangible areas, but burning the tape probably keeps energy high, right? And I do tend to think that part of this Jazz team’s success has been the ability to keep the energy positive. I think that leads to a less selfish playing style — if you’re not loving your situation, you tend to look out for No. 1, right?

Today, Hardy spoke a lot about that, when he was asked about what he thought would be his biggest challenge coming into the season. This is a long quote, but I think a worthwhile one.

“Yeah, I think there’s beauty in not having a ‘top guy.’ We didn’t really have a set pecking order going into training camp, which as a coach was a little bit of a concern. You weren’t sure where they all going to try to fit in together or was everybody going to try to go to the front of the line, if that makes sense.

And I think it’s played out better than I could have ever imagined because they nobody tried to step on anybody else or make it about them. They all just came in and said, ‘Look the chance we have to be a good team is if we all play our roles and we try to accentuate each other’s strengths.’ The way that they get along has been pretty amazing to me considering that not a lot of them have played together.

There’s a couple guys that came in trades together that knew each other. But with a whole new group, I think the camaraderie of the team early in the season was pretty amazing. And that bled over into the court. They never tried to make it about me, so to speak. They they all just played together from day one.

I think going into training camp my biggest concern was, ‘Are they going to buy it?’ Like, are they gonna try to be a team or is everybody going to try to say, ‘Look what I can do!’ And I think the coolest part is that in becoming a team, they’ve all shined in their own way. They’ve all played well. And they’ve all had moments where they’ve been the guy on any given night. So as we say, in our locker room, we’re just trying to keep the vibe alive. That’s what we’re going to try to do.”

So yeah, burn the tape. Keep the vibe alive.

3. Getting stars to play more

I was really excited for this game — but the announcement that Antetokounmpo would miss the game due to left knee soreness made it significantly less exciting. Antetokounmpo wasn’t the only big star sitting tonight: Paul George and Kyle Lowry also sat due to knee soreness, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sat due to a back contusion, Luka Doncic sat due to a suspicious quad strain, Jayson Tatum is sitting tomorrow for personal reasons, and so on.

I truly have no idea about the legitimacy of those injuries. I suspect they’re not completely made up. I also suspect that if these were elimination games, all of those players would be playing.

It’s led to a conversation about this: how can we get our best players to play more games?

I thought ESPN’s Bobby Marks had some good commentary on this:

Many of the best teams are very clear about their intentions to coast through the regular season in order to be in the best playoff health situation, to various outcomes. Last year’s Jazz swore up and down they’d try harder when the playoffs came, and then didn’t. Last year’s Warriors said the same, and won the title.

And, like it or not, the public perception of NBA players is that they’re soft. That they’ll milk every little injury, or that they don’t try their hardest on defense, or whatever. Players sitting in these games only lends credence to that reputation.

This is a unique opportunity to figure it out: the NBA and the NBA Players Association are currently having talks about the league’s next collective bargaining agreement. Finding a situation that works better for fans — who currently aren’t pleased — could spark NBA growth in the future.

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