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Emptying the Noggin — Stifling Defense in 2nd half win opener for Jazz

David Locke

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April 30, 2017 - Los Angeles, CA, USA - Jazz head coach Quin Snyder yells instructions to his players during the game 7 of Western Conference first-round series against the Clippers at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, April 30, 2017 (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Zuma Press/Icon Sportswire)

SUMMARY: A remarkable defensive effort sparked a mammoth 3rd quarter run that ultimately led the Utah Jazz to a 10-point win over the Denver Nuggets, 106-96.

  • The question tonight was this: What happens when a great defensive team plays a great offensive team? The Denver offense — which was #1 in the NBA for the last 30 games of last season — was dictating the game for most of the night and led 70-55 in the 3rd Then, the Jazz’s defense started to take hold by forcing turnovers and flustering the Nuggets’ offense, which whittled the Denver lead down to just five points by the end of the 3rd quarter. The clamps came down full force in the 4th quarter and the Jazz flipped the game entirely.

 

  • The Jazz trailed 70-55 and then led by 103-88 after starting the 4th quarter on a 25-5 run.

 

  • Defense and depth were the story for the Jazz. The Jazz bench’s plus-minus numbers were incredible: Thabo Sefolosha was +25, Ekpe Udoh was +24, Donovan Mitchell was +22 and Alec Burks was +16.

 

  • Alec Burks was terrific in the 4th He had 10 points in the 4th, hitting two major threes. On the first, the Nuggets went under a pick and Burks rose up and buried the three.  He got another look in transition and buried it. Finally, he ball-faked a three on the right wing and drove down the baseline to hit a reverse flip to bring the arena to its feet and force the Nuggets into another timeout.

 

  • The Jazz got great offensive balance tonight. Rudy Gobert led the Jazz with 18 points, Burks had 16, Favors had 14, Johnson had 13, Ingles had 11, Mitchell had 10, Rubio had 9 and Sefolosha had 7 points.

 

  • Each player had spurts in the game to keep the Jazz’s offense going. Ingles hit three 3-pointers in the first half, Favors scored eight straight points to open the 3rd quarter, Joe Johnson was the key late in the 3rd quarter and Alec Burks was a beast in the 4th quarter.  Ricky Rubio had 10 assists.  

 

  • The Jazz’s defense was incredible. They held a great offensive team to less than one point per possession, allowing just 35 points in the second half.

 

  • The Jazz did this very differently than they did it last year. Last season, the Jazz’s defense was a shell defense that forced bad shots and ran people into Rudy Gobert. Tonight, Utah forced 21% of Denver’s possession into turnovers. Last year, the Jazz were 25th in the NBA in forcing turnovers at 11%.

 

  • Denver is a tough match-up for the Jazz as Nikola Jokic pulls Gobert out of onto the floor and this caused the Jazz a ton of problems in the first half. Denver was knocking down shots and scoring at an alarming rate. The Jazz addressed this in the second half and shut down the Nuggets.

 

  • Rodney Hood was announced as a starter and was then unable to play due to gastric distress which forced rookie Donovan Mitchell into the starting lineup. Hood never got going and the Jazz were a -13 when he was on the floor. Hood went 2 of 4 from the field in 27 minutes.

 

  • The new timeout rules had a big impact on the game tonight. When the Jazz starting to blow the game open, Mike Malone called an early timeout in the 4th quarter but then was down to only two timeouts for the rest of the game. He tried to avoid calling another one as the run continued because he didn’t want to be down to one and the Jazz kept their momentum. Denver is a young team with inexperienced point guard play. The new rules could be very difficult for a team with this type of make up on the road. The veteran presence the Jazz added may turn out to be very valuable with the new timeout rules.

 

  • What an opening night. The first 30 minutes were every fan’s worst case scenario of what the Jazz might look like and the final 18 were beyond what Jazz fans could imagine.

 

David Locke enters his ninth year as the radio play-by-play voice of the Utah Jazz, having spent the majority of his career in radio in Salt Lake City and Seattle. In the summer of 2016, Locke created the Locked on Podcast Network which has podcast daily bite sized podcasts for every NBA and NFL team. A native of Palo Alto, Calif., Locke graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles with a degree in Political Science and Sociology. Locke and his wife have a son and a daughter.

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JAZZ GAME REWIND: 2nd Half propels Toronto past the youthful Jazz

David Locke

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Relive the game through the radio highlights. Voiced by Leif Thulin.

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Utah Jazz

Utah Jazz trade Rudy Gobert – the emotions, the decision making, what did we get and what now

David Locke

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The Utah Jazz traded Rudy Gobert on Friday after a 4th of July weekend to soak in the biggest news of the NBA trade season we try to digest what it means for the Utah Jazz. David Locke, radio voice of the Utah Jazz and Jazz NBA Insider, take a look at all angles of the Rudy Gobert trade. The emotions of losing one of your own and a beloved player like Rudy Gobert. The player that we knew how great he was and had to argue on his behalf and now someone else gets the pleasure. Locke revisits the decision making tree of the Utah Jazz and how they got to trading Rudy Gobert and why they took this trade rather than other options that may have been on the table for the Utah Jazz. Then Locke looks into what did we really get in this trade and what are the possibilities of benefit for trading one of the great players in franchise history. A look at each of the 5 first round picks and what they could become and the margin starts to expand the farther out you go. Then are the Utah Jazz re-building? Why now would be the question. That is a decision that the Jazz don’t need to make for the some time. Summer league kicks off today and what are the Utah Jazz looking for and who could make an impression. What the Jazz want to see from Jared Butler Locked On Jazz Podcast 💻 https://www.lockedonjazz.net/ 🎧 LockedOnJazz.com https://buff.ly/2FEZTVY 🎧 Apple https://apple.co/3Dc8QBq 🎧 Spotify https://spoti.fi/3IfvgVX 🎧Stitcher https://bit.ly/3pkGyzB 🎧 Google https://bit.ly/3I8TwJz

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Utah Jazz

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David Locke

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