Utah\u2019s losing streak extended to seven games after losing to the Dallas Mavericks, 112-100.<\/p>\n
The Jazz started this game pretty well overall and showed impressive defense on second-year phenom Cooper Flagg. Ace Bailey deserves a lot of the credit for keeping Flagg to 21 points. Utah also did a good job on Kyrie Irving, holding him to just 35% from the field. Keyonte George has shown solid defense this season, and his defense showed up tonight in his moments guarding Irving and others. It\u2019s a great sign for the Jazz\u2019s future that he\u2019s developing that way. Combine that with Ace Bailey\u2019s defense and the emerging play of Darryn Peterson, and the Jazz have something brewing. It\u2019s just hard to see when you\u2019re in the midst of a prolonged losing streak.<\/p>\n
The second half was different for Utah. In the third quarter, the Mavericks overcame the Jazz starters and forced substitutions. That\u2019s when Isaiah Collier, Svi Mykhailiuk, and Brice Sensabaugh got minutes again. This bench unit has been bad all season and keeps getting minutes, even after Isaiah Collier\u2019s contract wasn\u2019t re-upped for next season. Will Hardy is in a tough place with Jaren Jackson Jr. out, and you don\u2019t want to run a 7-man lineup all season, but something has to be done to stop these Collier\/Sensabaugh\/Mykhailiuk minutes. It\u2019s costing the Jazz wins night after night.<\/p>\n
That said, Hardy deserves credit for some of his adjustments. He\u2019s staggered lineups to keep it from being a completely all-bench unit. Tonight it was with Lauri Markkanen in that lineup, but it didn\u2019t work. The issue with Markkanen is that you can\u2019t just give him the ball and expect him to go get a bucket, he\u2019s a purely off-ball player. What should theoretically work is having Keyonte George and Darryn Peterson stagger minutes to make sure one of them is on the floor at all times. Darryn Peterson might not have been quite ready for that to start the season, although I think that\u2019s debatable, but after tonight, he\u2019s looking more and more ready for a bigger role.<\/p>\n
The good in this game was the duo of Keyonte George and Darryn Peterson. Peterson had one of his best statistical performances, shooting 50\/42.9\/100 with 21 points, 5 assists, and 2 rebounds. Peterson looked more comfortable in the fourth quarter, and you can only hope that it\u2019s the beginning of him taking a leap.<\/p>\n
Keyonte George also continues a mostly awesome season. He had 16 points, 6 rebounds, and 9 assists in this one. George\u2019s production is great, he just needs to cut down on turnovers. If he can keep this production and cut down on the bad turnovers, he\u2019s looking at becoming one of the best guards in the league.<\/p>\n
Josh\u00b2 has been a great addition to the team. Josh Green and Josh Okogie have brought great two-way play for the Jazz and are playing well off of the Jazz\u2019s young guards. There\u2019s a formula here that should work for the Jazz.<\/p>\n
The downside is the bench unit, specifically Svi Mykhailiuk, Isaiah Collier, and Brice Sensabaugh. It hasn\u2019t worked all season and has cost the Jazz multiple wins. What\u2019s even more frustrating is how quickly Will Hardy has been to pull Peterson after a mistake. The issue is that the players he replaces them with aren\u2019t playing well or mistake-free themselves. Collier had three turnovers in this one, and a few came from travel calls. That bench unit also gave up the biggest lead and pretty much ended the Jazz\u2019s chance at a win. Hardy is in a tough spot missing Jaren Jackson Jr. with a very young team, so there\u2019s almost no room for error. If there is one thing that Utah could really use, though, is fewer minutes from those three. If they can give Josh\u00b2 more minutes, that should help. But even with that, it\u2019s going to be tough to get wins.<\/p>\n
Finally, Utah is ready for Ace Bailey\u2019s threes to start dropping. He\u2019s in a big slump right now, and when he comes out of it, it will be huge for the team. His defensive impact is great, and his rebounding is fantastic. Once his three-point shooting comes around, he\u2019ll help the Jazz get more win streaks than losing streaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Utah\u2019s losing streak extended to seven games after losing to the Dallas Mavericks, 112-100. The Jazz started this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,2849],"class_list":["post-488917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-utah-jazz-game-coverage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}