The Triple Team: 3 thoughts on Utah Jazz vs. Los Angeles Lakers preseason game


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Welcome to the Triple Team! After each Jazz game, I'll give you my three thoughts on the game we witnessed. Here are three thoughts on the Jazz's 90-71 preseason defeat of the Los Angeles Lakers Sunday in Honolulu.

1. Raul Neto impresses despite scoring just two points

Raul Neto was probably always going to have a lot of attention on him tonight: after all, he's the relative unknown who figures to play significant minutes after the injury to Dante Exum.

But, man, he looked good. In 20 minutes of play, Neto performed well in essentially every aspect of defensive play. While he was on the court, the Jazz held the Lakers to just 57.4 points per 100 possessions. Yes, it's only preseason, and yes, it was largely against the Lakers' 2nd unit, but that's still an impressive number. How did he do it?

He created turnovers: Neto put up four steals and got his hands on countless other balls for deflections. Check out, for example, him generating two steals in about 10 seconds of game play here:

He also defended well in the pick and roll, and effectively used his size to prevent drives, even when he had to make up lost ground.

His passing also impressed. He picked up six assists, and even on the passes made that didn't end up in the basket, he still mystified observers. In a good way.

Look, Neto's inability to score will hurt the Jazz. He was extremely hesitant to pull the trigger, and as a result, finished 0-3 from the field: his only two points of the game came from the free-throw line on the Jazz's last possession. Defenses will learn to play off Neto, inhibiting the rest of the offense.

But if Neto keeps this up, it'll be difficult to justify keeping him out of the starting lineup. His lack of offense makes much more sense next to Burks, Hayward, and Favors, rather than next to Joe Ingles, Trevor Booker, and Tibor Pleiss. That's the same rationale that led the Jazz to start Dante Exum over Trey Burke last season, to impressive results. It's only preseason, yes, and it's only one game, but he looked like a poor man's Ricky Rubio out there, and that would be the best point guard the Jazz have.

2. Meanwhile, the Jazz's shooting didn't look brilliant.

The Jazz were not at all effective shooting the ball tonight. Yes, it could have been first game rust, or preseason jitters, or the flight to Hawaii, or the distractions of Hawaii.

Or, it could just be that the Jazz don't have very good shooters. Last season, the Jazz were 3rd in the league in shooting percentage within 3 feet. That's important and good! Unfortunately, they were:

  • 28th from 3-10 feet.
  • 19th from 10-16 feet.
  • 28th from 16 feet to the 3-point line.
  • 19th from 3-point distance.
Sunday was more of the same. They made just 27 of their 73 shots, good for just 37 percent from the field. Only two of their 15 three point shots went down, that's 13.3 percent. And they were two for seven from 16-23 feet, or 28 percent.

The Jazz chose not to address their lack of outside shooting in the offseason, saving most of their cap space, and spending the rest on unproven (at best) shooters in Neto, Pleiss, and Jeff Withey. The gambit here is that the Jazz will be able to develop good enough shooters that their offense will work out well enough, and if it's not, they can acquire good ones using their assets and that cap space. We'll be watching carefully to see if that pans out.

3. Lineup experiments

The preseason is a natural time to experiment with lineups, and Quin Snyder definitely did that Sunday. Snyder started with the most obvious starting group: Trey Burke, Alec Burks, Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors, and Rudy Gobert. But after that, we saw some interesting lineups:

  • Trey Burke and Raul Neto briefly shared the floor together, creating a two-point-guard look.
  • On the other hand, the Jazz went no point guard for a stretch, having Burks, Hood, and Hayward rotate in handling the ball and bringing it up the floor.
  • Trey Lyles spent some time at the center spot. Remember, he played mostly small forward in college.
  • Hayward played some power forward. He indicated in training camp that he would be comfortable playing that role if asked.
Also interesting: the Jazz played 13 players tonight, essentially the guys who look very likely to get a spot on the roster. On the other hand, Bryce Cotton, Treveon Graham, and Jack Cooley all got DNP-CD's tonight. That end of the bench battle will have to play out another day.

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Andy Larsen

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