Jazz Bounce Back With Win Over Shorthanded Bucks

SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah Jazz bounced back from their first loss of the season with a 107-95 victory over the shorthanded Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday.

The Bucks were without starters Jrue Holiday, Khris Middleton, and Brook Lopez after falling to the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday night.

The Jazz were led by Donovan Mitchell who had 28 points in his most complete outing of the season, while Mike Conley added 20 after sitting out of the team’s loss to the Bulls in Chicago.

The @utahjazz knocked off the @bucks 107-95 with move to 5-1 on the season.

Jazz return from their three game road trip with a 2-1 record and will face the Kings on Tuesday. #TakeNote https://t.co/NGsSXxuiqj

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) November 1, 2021

Jazz Defense Covers Up Poor Shooting

The Jazz have held their opponent to fewer than 100 points in three of their six contests to open the season, and no team has scored more than 110 points to open the year.

The Bucks managed just 95 points in the game, and never scored more than 26 points in a quarter which allowed the Jazz to play with a comfortable lead for the majority of the game.

After knocking down their first five three-pointers of the game, the Jazz took a 30-23 lead into the second quarter, and the Bucks never closed the gap to closer than four in the wire-to-wire victory.

With the win Sunday, the Jazz own the NBA’s second-best defensive rating at 97.4 which has allowed them to improve to 5-1 on the year despite having yet to find the shooting touch that carried them for much of last season.

The Jazz knocked down just 12-37 attempts from the three-point line as the team failed to shoot better than 35 percent from deep for the fifth time this season.

Quin Snyder on Jordan Clarkson's slow shooting start to the season.

"Can't go in if you don't shoot it."

Noted the team as a whole hasn't shot the ball very well this season. #TakeNote | @KSLSports

— Ben Anderson (@BensHoops) November 1, 2021

While the Jazz are tied with the Minnesota Timberwolves for a league-leading 42.4 three-point attempts per game, they rank sixth in three-pointers made, and 16th in three-point percentage.

“We haven’t shot it well as a team,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said after the game. But that doesn’t mean he wants his team to stop shooting.

“They can’t go in if you don’t shoot.”

Last year the Jazz led the NBA in threes made per game at 16.7 and shot the fourth-best percentage at 38.9. Through six games, the Jazz have yet to eclipse last year’s team average in any one game.

Clarkson’s Three-Point Shooting Streak Ends At 99

Jordan Clarkson has been one of the main offenders in the team’s dip in three-point shooting percentage. Through six games the guard is shooting just 24 percent on 9.0 attempts per game.

That includes the Sixth Man of the Year’s 0-7 performance against the Bucks, the first time in his last 100 outings that he’s failed to knock down a three.

Clarkson’s 99 game streak was the fourth-longest in NBA history and the second-longest active streak in the NBA behind Stephen Curry’s 131 game run. Curry owns the league’s two longest streaks including an NBA-record 157 games set between 2014-16.

Former Jazzman Kyle Korver has the NBA’s third-longest streak at 127 games.

Clarkson began his streak with the Jazz on January 29, 2020, with three made threes against the San Antonio Spurs. Over the last 99 games, Clarkson knocked down a total of 286 threes for an average of 2.8 made deep balls per game.

No saints, all Jordan Clark-sins 😈#TakeNote pic.twitter.com/9QngDFOoBI

— 👻Boo-tah Jazz👻 (@utahjazz) November 1, 2021

The streak included 14 games of at least five made threes with a high of eight made against the Philadelphia 76ers in February.

Clarkson made just one three 18 times during the streak, including a run of five consecutive games when he shot just 5-28 from the three-point.

Despite breaking the streak, Clarkson didn’t seem too disappointed after the team’s win.

“It’s over,” Clarkson said, laughing, “start another one.”

As of now, Conley owns the longest active streak of games with a three-pointer made for the Jazz. Conley’s run extended to 48 games with his 4-7 performance against the Bucks, the second-longest streak in Jazz history.

Hassan Whiteside Stays Positive

Hassan Whiteside continued his strong play to open the season against the Bucks. The reserve center finished the game with just four points on 2-5 shooting, but snagged nine rebounds and blocked two shots in 17 minutes off the bench.

More important for the Jazz however is that the team continues to outduel its opponents while Whiteside is on the floor. The Jazz outscored Milwaukee by 11 points in the center’s limited minutes, marking the sixth straight time this season Whiteside has finished the game with a positive plus-minus.

That’s the longest stretch for Whiteside in nearly two years when he last did it playing for the Portland Trail Blazers in January of 2020.

It also happens to be longer than any stretch backup center Derrick Favors had for the Jazz last season despite appearing in 68 games for the team.

Hassan Frightside with the hook 🏴‍☠️

(h/t @skgreener) pic.twitter.com/muK2zddtnI

— 👻Boo-tah Jazz👻 (@utahjazz) October 31, 2021

Through six games, Whiteside ranks third on the Jazz in plus-minus per game at +10, trailing only Mitchell and Bojan Bogdanovic and the trio has found success on the floor together.

“I try to stay away from the plus-minus stuff,” Snyder said before the Jazz faced the Bucks. “But to the Donovan and Hassan point, it’s a good one. We want to keep seeing those guys work together and play together.”

Last season the Jazz were outscoring opponents by just 0.5 points per game when Favors was on the floor, despite owning the best NetRating in the NBA.

Whiteside was very much thought of as a less than perfect solution for the Jazz to replace the much beloved Favors, but has made a positive impact each of the team’s six games so far.