· It is impressive for this young team to go .500 on the road trip. Road wins are hard and even harder when you are playing as young a team as the Jazz are. The Jazz started two rookies and closed with one tonight.
· In the locker room in Milwaukee, Lauri Markkanen said we have to shorten our dark moments, and the Jazz did that well against the San Antonio Spurs. The third quarter was poor again, as it has been all season, but it wasn’t catastrophic as it had been so many times.
· Jazz had only been in two games all season that were within 10 points after 3 quarters (Spurs were the same) so this was really valuable opportunity to play down the stretch of a close game.
· Jazz forced 20 turnovers and took 35 free throws.
· Kyle Filipowski not only closed the game for the Jazz, but they ran the offense through him on the right elbow. The Jazz will run an initial action and if it doesn’t develop that is the common spot to get to for the 2nd round of action, but last night they were starting it with Kyle at the elbow. Kyle is a well above-average passer and with his height, he can see the floor. The impressive thing was his willingness to take the ball to the basket and attack even when it was Wemby
· Isaiah Collier (7 pts, 6 rebs, 4 ast, 0 turnovers) started and Kyle (8 pts, 5 rebs, 6 ast) closed. These guys have all played in so many big moments before the NBA that these moments don’t seem to phase them. They are impacted by the talent they are playing against and how different the game is, but they impressively don’t seem to be bothered by the moments.
· Collin Sexton is unreal. He had three enormous plays late in the game, he caught the rookie Stephon Castle flat-footed on a hesitation drive and got a layup, he tipped in an offensive rebound amid traffic and hit a dagger three from the right wing over Chris Paul. Those were three of the biggest shots all night.
· The Spurs ran surprisingly little offense late game for a team with Chris Paul. He seemed to have no impact late in the game.
· Filpowski and Collier combined for 10 assists and 1 turnover.
· The Jazz handoff game that was so prominent in Denver and Chicago yielded almost nothing v. the Spurs. It is remarkable how much Will Hardy adjusts night to night
· There was a super cool two-play sequence where Lauri was in the left corner got a pin down and popped out for a three. Next play he was in the right corner and got the pin down and the defender jumped to his top side and he went backdoor and got hit on the layup. That is perfect execution.
· John Collins 15 points, 10 rebounds and 3 steals deserve a mention
· Jazz offense when Wemby was on the floor was 86.4 (pts per 100 possessions) and when he was off the floor was a 143.8. His impact is truly incredible. When Victor was the closest defender the Jazz shot 1 for 10.
