Game Thread Feb 16, 2022 08:00PM MT: Jazz at Lakers

[fishonjazz]

I'd like to see Quin take a three week sabbatical without any contact with the team and see what happens.

Things seemed different when AJ was coaching. I dont know if it actually was different or it was only different because guys were out but it felt different.

 

[Katastrofica]

Yeah but to be fair, no one besides Mitchell had it going at all tonight. Like, even decent looks when everyone's playing sub-par aren't decent looks anymore.

I don't know. I really don't know. It just felt like the game was over when the Jazz were still up 10 and the Lakers started getting it going. I don't think it's that the Jazz are soft, per se, it's that they are mentally fragile in the clutch. They just look so overwhelmed against the Lakers on the road specifically when the clutch rolls in.

Don was great 3 quoters but in 4th was....

 

[MT Steve]

I'm at a loss.

I wonder if there's just certain players that, while good or even great, tend to fold in the biggest moments. And we just happen to have a lot of them closing our games.

I don't know.

 

[jom2003]

Don was great 3 quoters but in 4th was....

he just ran out of gas in the end. We leaned on him too much cuz our other staters decided to go AWOL

 

[fishonjazz]

Just want to say again, Lebron is amazing. He seems to be getting better with age rather than worse. Its insane how good he is at this point in his career.
When he retires he will probably be the #1 all time scorer in nba history and near the top in assists and rebounds and wins and playoff wins and finals appearances and probably a million more categories.

 

[infection]

This is sort of where I'm at, although I don't know how optimistic I am that they'll figure out their clutch issues.

I wanted to lose by the end, just because I hope a painful loss like this right before the all-star break gets the coaches to take a very serious look at them.

I hate to be so cynical and repeat the same things, but I really don’t think so. I think Quin looks at a composite, which is made up so much of the time and situations where the game/season isn’t on the line and he doesn’t recognize when those intangible variables come in to play in those situations where the game/season is on the line. He sees us performing well when not in those situations as being a gigantic sample size (it is) but then sees these situations as a comparatively smaller sample size (they are) but he’s not able to appreciate the fundamental difference between them and sees what’s happening in close games or the playoffs as being an odd sampling error that’s skewed by a small sample.

He can’t stop the bleeding. This season has shown to the league how you can smell blood in the water. If you play a full 48 minutes, you will win. No team will mail it in against us and that will make it much harder mentally. Quin can not keep a team composed and prevent a collapse. He would be the worst closing pitcher in the history of the game.

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

I think we need a new coach, and that is more than a tweak. I'd love to see this team and how they play under different leadership.

I'm starting to have doubts about Conley in games like these. There is a lack of scoring, a lack of playmaking, and a lack of impacting the game. He was -25 tonight.

 

[KqWIN]

If it goes in.

If he drives he either goes to the line or he gets on the rim.

Sometimes you're just in a shituation.

That's not a tough situation to defend at all. Again, there is a reason why the Lakers stink....it's because they are so easy to defend. The Jazz opted to let LeBron have any 1v1 of his choice and just prayed that he wouldn't score. On that play, we basically gave a red hot LeBron a great look at 3 point shot that he was lining up the whole play. What if whoever was guarding THT or RWB simply trapped LeBron instead of letting LeBron set up his signature shot? I'm not talking about a fake dig to maybe sway him from driving, I'm talking about literally having two guys on him just like the Lakers did with Mitchell.

It's a complete BS narrative that we simply couldn't do anything against LeBron....Lakers took Don completely out of the game by trapping. That works against the Lakers because they've got no shooters. That shouldn't work against us because all we have is shooters and Rudy is standing at the basket.

 

[fallenchicken]

Sadly, I hope it is, as it may be the only way to get ownership/management to blow **** up.

I think it is mostly on Quin, but either way, something needs to change.

It’s on Quinn for not closing the game with the guys on the bench who play better, but the bigger issue is the roster and we all know it. This team either blows a team out or gets walloped in a close game. A team that can’t win close games is seriously flawed and shows we don’t have the right guys. Royce always gets boneheaded in the clutch, Gobert becomes a lot less valuable down the stretch and is very limited on how he can be effective, and sometimes it just doesn’t feel like Conley has enough, though he’s not the main problem. Mitchell is a super star, but the team around him just isn’t enough.

But I totally agree man, Really got to shake this roster up in a big way. This off-season will probably be our last chance. If we rewind this same team a fourth time I’ll ask Mitchell to take me with him to New York.

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

I'm at a loss.

I wonder if there's just certain players that, while good or even great, tend to fold in the biggest moments. And we just happen to have a lot of them closing our games.

I don't know.

There needs to be a certain level of athleticism, tenacity, and physicality. Some of our guys don't have it. There can be a mental toughness issue as well. Again, I'm looking at Royce O'Neale with that turnover when he could have taken a couple dribbles then passed back out. I have a hard time believing Forrest or Paschall makes that turnover.

 

[fishonjazz]

Lebron is 37 years old and has been in the league for 19 years.
This season he is averaging 29.0 points per game (more after tonight). 4th most points per game in his career. His rebounds 7.9 are higher than his career average (7.5). Assists are down to only 6.5 (donovans career high is 5.2). His efficiency in every shooting category (from the field, from 3 and from the line) are all higher than his career averages.

Someone tell him that he is supposed to be in decline at 37 years of age.

 

[Elizah Huge]

Just want to say again, Lebron is amazing. He seems to be getting better with age rather than worse. Its insane how good he is at this point in his career.
When he retires he will probably be the #1 all time scorer in nba history and near the top in assists and rebounds and wins and playoff wins and finals appearances and probably a million more categories.

He’s the greatest player of all-time and he unfortunately plays for the Lakers.

 

[NUMBERICA]

That's not a tough situation to defend at all. Again, there is a reason why the Lakers stink....it's because they are so easy to defend. The Jazz opted to let LeBron have any 1v1 of his choice and just prayed that he wouldn't score. On that play, we basically gave a red hot LeBron a great look at 3 point shot that he was lining up the whole play. What if whoever was guarding THT or RWB simply trapped LeBron instead of letting LeBron set up his signature shot? I'm not talking about a fake dig to maybe sway him from driving, I'm talking about literally having two guys on him just like the Lakers did with Mitchell.

It's a complete BS narrative that we simply couldn't do anything against LeBron....Lakers took Don completely out of the game by trapping. That works against the Lakers because they've got no shooters. That shouldn't work against us because all we have is shooters and Rudy is standing at the basket.

I mean we can sit here and diagram it from our couches but I’m not sure that’s how it works in the moment. But yeah, that would’ve been the right thing to do provided you weren’t leaving the back door open (they were).

There just isn’t the wherewithal with this team (to your point).

 

[NUMBERICA]

He’s the greatest player of all-time and he unfortunately plays for the Lakers.

MJ had a better park but at a certain point the unrelenting volume of Lebron has to win out. I don’t hear people talk a lot about the benefits Jordan might’ve gotten taking a ****ing year and a half off (and sorry, no one can convince me that baseball is as physically taxing or challenging to an athlete as basketball is. It’s mostly standing around).

 

[jom2003]

It’s on Quinn for not closing the game with the guys on the bench who play better, but the bigger issue is the roster and we all know it. This team either blows a team out or gets walloped in a close game. A team that can’t win close games is seriously flawed and shows we don’t have the right guys. Royce always gets boneheaded in the clutch, Gobert becomes a lot less valuable down the stretch and is very limited on how he can be effective, and sometimes it just doesn’t feel like Conley has enough, though he’s not the main problem. Mitchell is a super star, but the team around him just isn’t enough.

But I totally agree man, Really got to shake this roster up in a big way. This off-season will probably be our last chance. If we rewind this same team a fourth time I’ll ask Mitchell to take me with him to New York.

quin's refusal to adjust his rotation during games is exactly why we won't get a major roster shakeup.

he's so committed to his guys that he wouldn't even take them off the floor when they were clearly struggling. so why would he agree to trade them out of team entirely?

didn't he call off a Jingles trade last summer?

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

I can't get over it. Royce should have attacked that close-out from Reaves that led to a throw-away. It's the epitome of what's wrong with this team. They're trying to run some ball-movement system instead of making the right play.

 

[KqWIN]

I mean we can sit here and diagram it from our couches but I’m not sure that’s how it works in the moment. But yeah, that would’ve been the right thing to do provided you weren’t leaving the back door open (they were).

There just isn’t the wherewithal with this team (to your point).

That's how it works for every team with a good coach. I don't think Vogel is god's gift to coaching for trying to take the ball out of the best (offensive) player's hands. That's as old as time. I also don't think every other coach is a genius for doubling LeBron when they don't have shooting. Like I said, there's a reason why the Laker's stink this year despite LeBron's greatness.

Predicting into the future that Royce is going to make a bad play and subbing in someone else that theoretically wouldn't have made that bad decision is not a real strategy. I think all those complaints are hindsight 20/20. But simply adjusting to a trap or trying to double team the only good player on the other team shouldn't be out of the realm of Quin's capabilities. The reason why the Jazz look so scrambled is because the other team makes one simple adjustment to counter what the Jazz are doing and we have nothing else.

Hard doubling Don shouldn't work. The Jazz have multiple shooters, scorers, and playmakers to eat up a 4v3. I get it if it surprises you to begin with, but one timeout should clean that up. You know it's coming and it's not hard to beat. Likewise, you know LeBron is the only player making anything happen so maybe send more defensive attention his way. You have to know that LeBron is ****ing great, and the other Lakers not so much. I really do not think that is too much to ask for.

 

[jom2003]

No one is immune from having bad games.

Only the best of the best players justify guaranteed minutes no matter how bad they were playing

 

[infection]

We haven’t won an overtime game in over 4 years. We’re 0-8. We’ve been able to remedy that this year by not once forcing an overtime.

 

[jom2003]

I can't get over it. Royce should have attacked that close-out from Reaves that led to a throw-away. It's the epitome of what's wrong with this team. They're trying to run some ball-movement system instead of making the right play.

it got nothing to do with gameplan or system of the team. it's not the first effed-up by Royce and he's done that so many times in the past that I'm pretty sure that one was 100% on him