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Game Thread? OKC vs. Utah

I wish Exum could get about 10 games with 15 minutes to 20 minutes per game without getting yanked for every little mistake. Give him some consistent playing time, let him build some confidence. Then assess. If he isn’t going to make the cut, then ship him out. But I absolutely hate the double standard where his mistakes are magnified and Mitchell and Mudiay are allowed to get away with such selfish play.

Joe didn’t get to handle the ball near as much in the 3rd quarter. The Jazz are so much better when Joe runs the offense vs. Mitchell. Mitchell is looking to get his shot. Joe is looking to create a good shot for somebody else.

Good post. Spot on regarding Dante. And yeah, Donovan is becoming like Carmello.
 
It's so incredibly disappointing to see the state of the team. These huge deficits are a gigantic red flag. If we were losing but competing, and showing effort/heart it would be acceptable. This team just looks like it is bad fit basketball chemistry-wise. Seems like the players like each other, similar to last season but it's just a bad fit on the court. Before blowing it up, I think that Quin should shake up the starting 5. I might try something like starting...

Exum/Mitchell/Bogey/Green/Gobert

bench unit...

Conley/Mudiay/O'Neal/Ingles/Davis

Each unit has enough shooting and defense on paper to be serviceable to very good. At this point, we aren't beating the top 4-5 teams in the West come April so you may as well exhaust all possibilities before then and if we need to look at trading Conley, Ingles, etc. then we can address it in February.

I worried about this when Rubio and Favors left but I genuinely felt like we could outscore anyone in the league on any given night to offset the dip in defense and rebounding. I just never fathomed it would look like this a quarter of the way into the season. Conley has been a massive disappointment, and I didn't think we'd ever live in a world were we'd be begging for the return of Ricky Rubio.
 
The positives that I'm holding on too at this s**** time are

1) Our top 6 players- Rudy, DM, Mike, Bogey, Joe, Royce are legit. Despite individual struggles from DM, Mike and Joe at various points throughout the season, stats say that that 6 is very very good. Contender worthy top 6.

- Quin always seems to have his teams playing at their best at the end of the season. So hopes are he can do it again.

- Our issues are fixable. We've seen the Jazz play good defense. We've seen the Jazz have stretches of good offense. The roster needs a better bench and adequate bench players aren't as hard to find as stars/starters. We can fix this.
 
Hmm. Well a few thoughts.

If you were to ask yourself what kind of coach is Quin, we know the answer, he's a defensive coach who's not that great on offense.

What we did in the off-season was we gained a lot of offensive scoring talent, but what took a massive hit was the defense of this team, and especially defensive IQ which is absolutely abysmal with some of these offensive players we have acquired. So we might have handicapped our coach who is defensive-minded, but given him all this offensive talent, of which he doesn't exactly know how to get the most out of.

Some of the things I'm seeing on the defensive end are truly mind-blowing. There is no doubt that Quin has some key performances indicators that have been established within the team, and are probably a permanent fixture on the whiteboard of every game. The players just aren't responding, or are incapable of responding to, especially on the defensive end. The 'falling asleep' on the defensive end is staggering.

Derrick Favors was a high defensive IQ guy, Jae was okay, Ricky was a high IQ guy on defense but didn't have the footspeed for some of the quicker guards. You felt like there was a big understanding on the defensive end last year, and a decent understanding on offense. This year, there is no real understanding, and the only chemistry on display is Joe/Rudy. We've also simplified the offensive sets for the new guys, and it's looking like a$$. Have we really handicapped our coach that much?
 
I wish Exum could get about 10 games with 15 minutes to 20 minutes per game without getting yanked for every little mistake. Give him some consistent playing time, let him build some confidence. Then assess. If he isn’t going to make the cut, then ship him out. But I absolutely hate the double standard where his mistakes are magnified and Mitchell and Mudiay are allowed to get away with such selfish play.

Joe didn’t get to handle the ball near as much in the 3rd quarter. The Jazz are so much better when Joe runs the offense vs. Mitchell. Mitchell is looking to get his shot. Joe is looking to create a good shot for somebody else.

What's weird is Mitchell was playing the exact same way last December, then claimed later on to have learned his lesson from it. I guess he forgot.
 
if we are seriously hoping for G-league players to save us right now, we don't deserve to be in the playoff, let alone contending for a championship

No one's expecting a G-leaguer to come in and save the team, but the guys we're playing off the bench right now--Mudiay, Niang, Davis, etc. are no better than our G-league players.
 
We need to address the bench asap. Either DL needs to make a move or Quin needs to stop being stubborn and try something new.

Mudiay should go. He can't run the team. He doesn't shoot 3s. His defense is loose. His drives stop our offensive flow and haven't gone anywhere in the last half dozen games.
 
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