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The good news is that the Utah Jazz got any shot they wanted in the first quarter of Tuesday’s first game against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Bad news? I missed almost all of them.
After starting 3 of 5 from the field, the Jazz team missed 20 of them in a row – including 14 just outside the arc. However, despite this incomprehensible cold streak, Jazz was only delayed by 25-18 after 12 minutes of opening.
After two goalless bars for nearly four minutes, they closed the gap slightly thanks to a pair of Jordan Clarkson 3s in the last minute.
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Quin Snyder breaks the keys of the chain against the Clippers
On a Tuesday morning shootout tour of the Utah Jazz, guard Jordan Clarkson was asked what coach Quinn Snyder was instructing for the team ahead of the second round of the tour against the Clippers.
“The most important thing he really plays on is being just us, and sticking with what we do,” Clarkson said.
And so Snyder was asked in pre-game which of the principles he preached would be most important in the series.
It has given a mass breakdown.
“For us to attack offensively – obviously that always depends on how you guard and you have to recognize these things. For us to drive the ball up the field, play with passes, take shots, attack the edge, make quick decisions,” he said. “Then on the defensive end, Rudy is unique, and we’ve tried to figure out how best throughout the year to let him impact the game; the Clippers make that really difficult.”
This, of course, led to a thesis about the difficulties inherent in trying to slow down the likes of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
“You have Kawhi, who is probably the best mid-range player, whether it’s at the post or off dribbling, and then you see him exposed and isolated, and he shoots 3s. You have a guy who can create his own shot, has range, and can shoot the ball from Dribbling is from 3, he can play pick and roll, he can get off screens.” “So they have some guys in these two guys, they’re elite and you watch them and there are times you marvel at some of the things that they do. But I think the important thing is that they’re two really selfless players, and that’s what makes them so difficult to defend, because of the shots they shoot around. So there’s a bit of picking poison in an effort to influence these two guys and make it hard for them, and at the same time, not giving them a clean 3 is a hard thing to do.”
This seems daunting. Especially with All-Star point guard Mike Conley, out at least 1 due to a hamstring strain.
However, Snyder said it’s imperative that the Jazz team keep things simple and, as Clarkson noted, keep the path they’ve charted throughout the season.
“Even without Mike, I think we have to be aggressive and offensive and not be afraid of failing, not be afraid of missing us, but be able to get to the next play when we don’t have good possession on offense, and then defend,” he said.
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Snyder didn’t worry about the Clippers’ defensive schemes, saying they’d all seen it before
Utah Jazz point guard Mike Conley was disqualified from the first game of the team’s Western Conference semifinal game Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Conley suffered a tight right hamstring in the first quarter of the Jazz’s Game 5 win over the Memphis Grizzlies last Wednesday, and at halftime was disqualified from returning to the game. The MRI revealed ‘mild strain in the right hamstring’ the next morning.
With the Clippers needing Game Seven on Sunday to defeat the Mavericks in the first-round series, the hope was that the extra days of rest would enable Conley to be well.
However, the team announced after Monday’s practice that Conley was only a partial participant, and was officially listed as doubtful for play. Then, after a pre-game shootout on Tuesday morning, the Jazz officially disqualified Conley.
“There is always a process that you go through, especially with an injury like this, where it is constantly treated and monitored, and [you’re] Coach Quinn Snyder said in an interview with the media after filming. “… Mike’s absence – I hope we can get him back soon; he’s been great all year on both ends of the earth. … Hopefully we can get him back as quickly as possible. But these things are hard to predict.”
With Conley out, Snyder said, responsibility for handling the ball and organizing the attack will fall to Donovan Mitchell, Joe Ingles and Jordan Clarkson, as has been the case in Conley’s previous absences.
Clarkson, who has been criticized at times throughout the season and against the Grizzlies for his shooting and decision choices, said he embraces the need to become more of a playmaker.
“Mike is out in this game, I feel now that it’s tempting me to give my teammates more play,” said Clarkson, who wears Kobe Bryant’s No. 8 Lakers jersey. “Look to stay aggressive, but still be able to move the ball and offer play to my teammates, knowing that’s the guy we have that starts the mixer for us. So I, I, have to really step into that role of getting paint, making plays. to others, and getting open shots of other men as well.”
Then he added again that Snyder’s overall message to the team in the run-up to this second-round series is that nothing changes much.
“We were really focused on being ourselves, brother, to be honest with you,” Clarkson said. “You know, we’ve made some adjustments here and there defensively. But the biggest thing that really plays to him is that it’s just us, and we stick to what we do.”
Indeed, after providing some routine news on Conley, Snyder spent most of the media session addressing the idea that the small ball lineup and switching defensive scheme that Los Angeles used to such great effect against Dallas would now prove an impenetrable hurdle for the Jazz.
After casting a little shadow for the first time on Los Angeles, he lost his last two regular season games against a pair of lottery-related opponents and slipped from the third seed to fourth and ended up on the Utah side of the playoff arc as a result (“Obviously our sameness as the Clippers felt that they It was a useful match for them”), then threw some water on the idea that the Jazz would see anything in the series they weren’t very familiar with.
“There is no mystery,” Snyder said. “We’ve had teams 1-5 switches against us all season. We’ve had teams who have given up their greatest all season. Donovan has been immersed in pick-and-roll all season. People hedge pretty hard against us all season. Rudy people diverged in the hard corner all season. .so all of these things – to me, it’s a question of how we do it.”
Clarkson, aware of Snyder’s “helpful perks” comment, cautioned that if the Clippers were indeed targeting a game with the Jazz, they might soon regret it.
“I mean, if that’s what they were doing, that’s what they were doing. If they were losing matches trying to play with us, that’s the fate they chose.” “We’ll go out there and tie them up and [focus on] Series win – first one to four. So, if that’s what they were doing, trying to manipulate it, that’s what it is. We will stick to what we do and put our strengths into it.”
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