Game 40: Utah Jazz (16-23) @ Miami Heat (21-17)

[SoCalJazzFan]

Did anyone watch the end of the Portland game last night? They ran the same play with McCollum with 11seconds, but he made the driving shot for the win. Still didn’t like it, though. Should have used picks and passed to Hood.

[LesGrossman]

But the Jazz are a billion dollar asset that is going to be in Utah for a long time, (thanks, Gale). The lowest form of fandom, as in life, is pointing at one person in a large machine and blaming them for not meeting your expectations. Life is more complicated than that, so is business and sports. The Quin is the Problem theory is trash. The problem with the Jazz is they lost Haywood at the last moment, Rudy has been off the court more than on and Exum never got a chance this season. Thank god Mitchell is Spida - otherwise a fairly complete bust 2017-18 season. The sum didn't add up to the parts and that was the only Jazz option for being relevant. Didn't happen.

You "answer" a detailed criticism with generalizations and insults and vague pointers at what could or may have been the problem. Sorry, not buying. Yes they are a great machine but so is every big company, bank or institution and at the head of each theres usually one or a few people steering the general direction. They take the glory, they get paid well, they are remembered, and if they make mistakes it much be allowed to call them out. We do point fingers at players why too much in my opinion. Players, as long as they are kept on the floor, are generally executing the game plan that the coaching stuff set up. If they fail to make a shot, they arent pulled because it wasnt them who decided that they take that particular shot. They were TOLD that it is a good shot for them. Thats why i laugh at people who blame bigs for not making FT's, or guys who dont hit open 3's. I think the role, influence and therefore responsibility of the coach is vastly underrated because when they have a camera in the huddle the coaches most of the time seem to act as motivational speakers mostly.

Yes Haywood left. But many franchises have to deal with such problems, be it players leaving of being injured. The challenge presented to the coach is to maximize the results with the personnel at hand by featuring their strengths and hiding their weaknesses, individually and as a team. Does Quin achieve that goal? That is the question, not would-have, should-have or may-be's. In my opinion, in this game, he failed. Utah had more talent and more potential on the floor but instead of coaching them, he basically handed the keys to a rookie and hoped he would bail him and the whole team out somehow - and when Mitchell failed, everyone asked him why and how he could miss, and why didnt he pass and so on and on. Unfair.

[Inigo Montoya]

That’s like a 0.1 second decision. Even if he wanted to get the TO the refs wouldn’t have called it. There was bad execution by everyone involved.

Like I said, players definitely messed up the execution, no doubt. But that's what the coach is for. You see the execution is lacking and puts you in a bad position, take another timeout and try again. He had way more than 0.1 seconds to do so. He had the time to see how the defense is set up, and all the time it took to actually inbound the ball. And once it was inbounded to the Jazz's half-court, that would have been the culmination of a much longer process than 0.1 seconds, and he still had the time to take a timeout then. We see plenty of instances of coaches design inbound plays, see how the defense react and then take another timeout because they don't like the execution of their team. It happens all the time.

Passionate fans, work colleagues, sometimes friends and the wife will need a scapegoat to focus their frustration on. Human nature. But the Jazz are a billion dollar asset that is going to be in Utah for a long time, (thanks, Gale). The lowest form of fandom, as in life, is pointing at one person in a large machine and blaming them for not meeting your expectations. Life is more complicated than that, so is business and sports. The Quin is the Problem theory is trash. The problem with the Jazz is they lost Haywood at the last moment, Rudy has been off the court more than on and Exum never got a chance this season. Thank god Mitchell is Spida - otherwise a fairly complete bust 2017-18 season. The sum didn't add up to the parts and that was the only Jazz option for being relevant. Didn't happen.

Snyder is being criticized for several specific plays in this game--no one claims he's the problem for this whole season and that he's trash, that's just misrepresenting other people's positions. We didn't lose this game because Hayward left months ago, that's irrelevant at this point.

[vryadli]

Oh... don't cheat the argument ... All Star games doesn't count... and Melo playing only half basketball (and not that great either) is, in any case, a point for my argument: you've got to play a minimal decent game all court long.

I can agree if basketball was played by robots in vacuum. I real world defense is much stronger connection with team chemistry. Good team chemistry nurtures more important for defense than for offence. Lazy defense cause locker room problems. Some exceptions can be done for ageing superstars, but there no such case in Utah. So I smell locker problems increasing to catastrophe level in 2-3 month.

Meanwhile, when last time somebody of Jazz talked about team, ambitions, long perspectives? Last years it was pretty frequent and convincing, now they just telling platitudes.

[outerspacefella]

Did anyone watch the end of the Portland game last night? They ran the same play with McCollum with 11seconds, but he made the driving shot for the win. Still didn’t like it, though. Should have used picks and passed to Hood.

Hood, by all evidence should have never been there with his defender!