Immediate Analysis: It wasn’t beautiful, but the Utah Jazz beat the Thunder

The Utah Jazz was able to hold on in the fourth quarter and beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 110-104 on Wednesday night on the road.

High notes

• Rudy Gay seems to get used to Jazz with every game. All the reports of how involved he was over the last couple of months, even though he didn’t get to train with the team, seem to have been true and bore fruit. If the only way forward is Gay, then Jazz will really get him what they wanted.
• No one is ever perfect, and basically every player experiences collapses or just moments when they feel like their shots are broken. I’ve seen countless players go through this, but when it happens to Jazz players, they’re unique because they never seem to be really upset about it. Even if they get frustrated, Jazz continues to shoot, and it shows the trust the coaching team and each other have in them, and they’re really important aspects of being part of a team.

• Special defensive honors for Rudy Gobert, Royce ONEale and Jordan Clarkson. Gobert and ONEale did their usual things, blocked shots, grabbed stocks, and Clarkson showed efforts against Lu Dort when other Jazz players were less successful.
• In fact, Jordan Clarkson was perhaps the best two-way player for Jazz on Wednesday night. He finished the team record with 20 points, five assists and three rebounds.

Low notes

• Hassan Whiteside played 2 minutes, 54 seconds before he was expelled for some things he said to the referees after a shot. It’s Jazz’s sixth drop in just 18 games.
• Really boring stuff from many of Jazz’s main friends. Donovan Mitchell was blatantly laughing after that horrible attempt quite honestly we can only agree. We know Dort is a tough defender, but Jazz should be able to find ways to make his principal look easy. Mike Conley seemed particularly frustrated at the end of the game, and Joe Ingles was pretty away.

Flat notes

• When Whiteside went out, I thought this was a good test for Jazz. They can show some of their versatility and have little challenge all night. The defense looked really bad for the big chunks, and they gave Thunder wide layups.
• My biggest problem with this game is that it felt incredibly flat in terms of Jazz’s attitude. Sure, they won, but they fought all the way against a team that Jazz is, quite frankly, better at, and on top of all that, Thunder played without their best player, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Jazz shouldn’t have been after big parts of the game or fighting for victory. It’s a dangerous place.