· The Jazz just did the Aligator Stomp on Miami and Orlando. Both of these performances were dominating. The Jazz lead by 40 in Miami and by 20 in Orlando.
· Let’s start in Miami. The Heat are broiled in turmoil and it looked like it would propel them to have great energy with an 11-3 start but the Jazz tied at the end of 1 at 23 and then blew them out for the rest of the night. The amazing thing was the Heat never had a run or regained any momentum and the Jazz lead by 40. The Jazz played a lot of different ways in this game, but one new aspect was more willing to play isolation early in the clock to take advantage of Miami’s poor on ball defenders. The Jazz did a great job moving the ball out of those possessions and got tremendous looks.
· Will Hardy said what impressed him the most was the team stuck with their plan. Early when they were executing and not getting dividends the team didn’t go rouge or splinter they stuck with the task and the goals and then they got the benefit of their work and blew the doors off the place.
· The Jazz are really a ton better than they were earlier this year. The offense ranks 9th in the last 10 games and right around that for the last 15th. They are the 3rd best EFG% team the last 10 games, one of the best three point shooting teams and the 2nd best catch and shoot 3 point shooting team.
· The defensive plan on Tyler Herro was really well executed. They doubled him off all the actions forcing the ball out of his hands. What was interesting is this not only negated Herro, but eliminated Bam Adebayo from the action as the first pass went away from Bam and he then he wasn’t getting it back. Bam ended without a field goal on the night and Tyler Herro never got rolling which he had done in almost every game this year.
· The most impressive part of the night to me is how the Jazz never relented.
· I really like how Keyonte is playing with the starters. There is a calmness to his game and understanding when to have an impact and when to play with teammates. The Jazz starters (Keyonte, Collin, Lauri, John and Walker) are playing equal to or ahead of everyone elses starting 5. The Jazz are positive when they are on the floor.
· Walker Kessler is the start of the season so far and he was outstanding in both games. His strength is allowing to have so much impact on both ends of the floor. On the offensive glass he is changing games. He is getting his hand on so many rebounds and keeping them alive. Sometimes he gets control of them and the Jazz gain a possession, but the other times he eliminates the opponents fast break by tipping the ball and stalling everything. He is a force right now. His growth this year is super fun to watch.
· The Orlando game felt like they instituted a rule that if you averaged over 10 points a game you couldn’t play and Collin Sexton snuck thru the security guards. The Magic leading scoring of available players was Goga Bitzade at 9.5 and Walker Kessler at 10 was after Collin. The game felt like it too.
· The game was tied at halftime with both offenses being putrid. Then Collin put his stamp on the third quarter and for the second straight night Brice Sensabaugh went to work. The Magic couldn’t counter.
· This was Brice’s 60th NBA game. He only played 32 NBA games last year. Couple that with the knee issues that kept him out of summer league and slowed him at training camp and he is still so young in is development. For the first time in his career he is starting to stack performances.
· Brice is a Bonafide shooter. He has elite touch. When he gets a catch and shoot three point look it is going down. He has a good one on one game from being the primary guy at Ohio State. He came to the NBA as a basketball bully and he is learning how to have more to his game than simply overpowering guys.
· The biggest thing is the confidence he is going to gain from this stretch and with Jordan out for a while he should get regular minutes for an extended period of time. Can he continue to stack performanes and overtime widen the range of his game to more passing, creation and defense.
· Jazz won the Orlando game because they didn’t give away easy points. Orlando didn’t have the fire power to score so the Jazz had to make sure they didn’t give them easy points and the Jazz didn’t.
