Game 5: Utah Jazz (1-3) @ Houston Rockets (3-1)

[LesGrossman]

I think the stuff that i criticized all season came to hount the Jazz in the end. Each and every point repeated over and over again.
- Ingles turning down shots
- Mitchell iso over and over in the end even if he plays terrible
- very poor shot selection by Mitchell without any consequences (poor Coaching)
- Little to no Coaching adjustments in game, no reaction from Snyder

I think it became pretty clear which skills and abilities are actually useful when it comes down to the wire, who this Team can rely on, who will fight to the end. This series has been a near sweep, and it didnt have to. But let a few days pass and the same People will come up with "Mitchell is an all star and Rubio and Favors must be traded" i guarantee.

[Andri]

I've just listened to the Locke's game recap podcast. I'm still shocked.

I usually like his kind of deep analysis and insights. But pointing out late Rubio's miss from three, and defining his game as 'struggling to make shots', while commenting Mitchell 22 shots for 12 points perfomance as 'he was tired of carrying the team in previous game' is crossing some line of bias.

[eLo]

no offense, but thats one of the dumbest justification of someone performance iv ever heard, so lets make thinks clear its not Michel fault that his stat line looks like that: 5 38.6 32.1% 25.6% 72.7 5.0 3.2 0.2 1.6 3.0 4.2 21.4 which is one of the worst performance in play off history, because he plays with such support like Jingels Royce or Ricki? This is completely insanity, if You would perform like that in your job probably you would been fired, yet now we have pro athletes who earn tons of money and when they play tragically bad you cant even criticized them He got to take bad shoots, he got to loos ball because he is playing with Ricki Rubio ok so Gobert was outplay by Capela one more time because of what, Favs ate his cornflakes this morning

and one more thing, i want You to explain me why its better for us that Michell took shots than if it would be Jingels/Ricki or Royce. Non of those mentioned is worst, or in Rickis example much worst, shooter than Michell is. Or maybe for You and for some other Fans, there is difference between that who will miss a shot

They will shoot worse because they will get the exact same shots(well, probably even worse because they don't have his skill level). NBA teams run their offense with the hope of getting efficient shots, those usually come in the form of off-the-ball situations... you create an advantage and you assists on cuts or on catch and shoot attempts or as a roll man for the bigs... or if you have a great shooting weapon - on off-screen and hand off actions(those are for the Korvers and Redicks and Klay Thompson's of the world)...

The problem is that opponents play defense against you and they take away some or most of those on a lot of your possessions so ALL NBA teams resort to less efficient shots when their offense gets blown up by the opponent ... those are generally the on-ball possessions - isolations, post ups, ballhandler coming off the PnR possessions. The problem with the Jazz is that NOONE else on this team can take those... at least not with any efficiency. We've gone through this here before and I've posted the stats here before. Mitchell is BY FAR the best Jazz player on those. The others are either horrible at those or have such a small sample to the point of it being meaningless.

This is the simplified version. I'm not saying Mitchell had good series. He didn't. It would be insane to think he did. But it all needs to be put into context. Mitchell has ways to go before he's a proficient and efficient 1st option for us. He does need to improve his his reads and decisionmaking, he does need to improve his skill level(especially on off the dribble shots), he does need to improve his shooting consistency. But lets not pretend like the problem of this team was Mitchell, because again - if it wasn't Mitchell taking most of those shots it would have been someone else. Would you rather have Ricky or Royce in isolation or Mitchell? This is really the question in a series where the opponent FORCES isolation as a main part of their defensive strategy.

Lets see what he will do with his injury free off-season. He does need a lot of work to get to the point where we all want to see him get(Lillard type of offensive force). But Dennis Lindsey also needs to do some work on the roster and get players capable of shouldering some of the load and helping Mitchell when his shot is not falling, or when he faces a tough matchup(this is another thing - Mitchell gets the toughest match up every night).

unfortunately i dont have time to argue wit whole of Your post, but i will said one, Michell is one of less effective players/shooters in the whole league, when it comes to pull ups he is close to westbrick, so puting his name next to Damn is like i would say that i hope that Royce will develop to Lebron type of player, its completely absurd. So one more time no its not better that he took 112 shots and miss 78 of them, i guess even Fav from distance would have better %.

I've just listened to the Locke's game recap podcast. I'm still shocked.

I usually like his kind of deep analysis and insights. But pointing out late Rubio's miss from three, and defining his game as 'struggling to make shots', while commenting Mitchell 22 shots for 12 points perfomance as 'he was tired of carrying the team in previous game' is crossing some line of bias.

modern sport, you wont sell as much jerseys of Ricki as you do with michell. You will shout loud drop some dunks and you are leader/face of franchise i guess we live in such times when crap like this happened

Honestly the series left a bad taste in my mouth. We were right there and at the same time, we stood no chance.

I will not say about the first two games, but the last three they could have gone either way.

That is the difference of having home court advantage in the first round. Lets say we face the OKC in the first round at home. Beating them would be probably the right outcome. We would have gone to the second round, much more confidence.

I don't blame Mitchell for his slump. it happens. Perhaps an adjustment coming from Snyder would have helped. I loved Rubio, Oneale and Favor in the series. I think Rubio needs a little help from the coaching staff, putting him in the right position on the court, do what he did in this series.

Good series, but a sad one from my point of view. We should have done better.

Regards,

I think we were hurt by having that long, easy schedule to close out the season. It left us with a hangover imo. We were still playing soft in the first two playoff games. And it took Snyder until the third game to make an adjustment that the fans here have been talking about regularly for a couple of seasons --- starting Crowder instead of Favors to better space out the floor.

shame that he did not have a guts to start JAe and Fav, that would realy make a difference

But let a few days pass and the same People will come up with "Mitchell is an all star and Rubio and Favors must be traded" i guarantee.

You wont believe but on our Polish basketball forum it already happened, it jus horrifying what is going on with people, they worship some players like is they where some kind of goods, but what is most intriguing they dont expect nothing in exchange, even a win of team their team i guess sport and religion cross its path truly long time ago