Jazz Slide Continues In Home Loss To Heat

SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah Jazz lost their fourth game in five outings after dropping their home meeting with the Miami Heat 111-105.

The Jazz trimmed a 27 point Heat lead to just four in the final minute of the game thanks to an 18-2 run, mirroring last week’s loss in Miami, however, the comeback fell short once again as the Jazz found themselves with too much room to makeup, and too little time.

Bojan Bogdanovic led the Jazz with 26 points, while Jordan Clarkson chipped in 26, but were outmatched by five Heat starters who all scored in double-digits.

The @utahjazz went on a late 18-0 run, but were unable to come back against the @MiamiHEAT. #TakeNote #MIAvsUTA https://t.co/HhyPsbH1fQ

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) November 14, 2021

Heat Are Better Than The Jazz Right Now

It’s surprising to say after the Jazz finished last season with the best regular season record in the NBA and the Heat were playing without their best player in Butler, but Miami is just better than the Jazz right now.

At the top of their roster, Kyle Lowry and Bam Adebayo were better than the Jazz best players in Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert.

When it came to role players, Tyler Herro, PJ Tucker, and Duncan Robinson outplayed Mike Conley, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Royce O’Neale.

Y'all wanted to see this, huh? pic.twitter.com/1LOiRTSajc

— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) November 13, 2021

That’s to make no mention of Miami’s effort, crispness, or execution, all three of which eclipsed the Jazz in each of the teams’ two meetings this season.

“The force that they play with in the half-court, a lot of their handoffs, if you’re not up high enough, Duncan Robinson gets a shot off, and he makes it,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said.

Where the Jazz were dying on screens, forgetting about shooters like Robinson in the corners, and watching defensive rebounds bounce before turning into second chance opportunities for the Heat, Miami’s rotations were on time, their shooting was on point, and their hustle was better throughout the game.

The Heat are a legit title contender, so there’s no shame in saying they are playing well, but after last season, it seemed the Jazz would be closer to Miami’s level, and through the first month of the season, that hasn’t been the case.

Jazz Starting Quarters Slow

A lot of teams talk about finishing quarters well, but the Jazz had the opposite problem against Miami.

The Jazz were outscored 17-5 to start the first quarter, 14-3 in the second, and 10-3 in the third, to allow Miami to build up big leads, even after the Jazz closed quarters well enough to keep the game close.

Routinely having to overcome double-digit deficits just to keep games close, only to watch them balloon back up at the beginning of each quarter has to be deflating for a team that needs to make threes to catch up, and simply put can’t hit them at a high enough rate to close the gap.

“We started slow with some of the mistakes offensively, some of the turnovers,” Snyder said. “We’re consistently making the same mistakes, a lot of times it involves making a simple play.”

With Miami shooting as well as they have against the Jazz so far this season (60 percent from the floor, 52 percent from the three-point line in the first meeting, 49 percent and 39 percent in the second), it’s been too difficult to overcome enormous deficits game after game with the slow starts to each quarter.

Slow stars to the first three quarter were a big problem for the Jazz tonight.

17-5 in the first, 14-3 in the second, and 10-3 in quarter three.

That's 41-11 over the first 15 or so minutes of the first three quarters.

Hard to overcome that.

— Ben Anderson (@BensHoops) November 14, 2021

Last season the Jazz starting lineup appeared in 41 games together and had a NetRating of +10.8. That meant that in most games, the Jazz starters were able to build a lead to open games, and again to open the half.

The Jazz’s group to open the second and fourth quarters, which featured Conley, Clarkson, Joe Ingles, Georges Niang, and Gobert had a NetRating of +15.0 in 34 appearances together. That means regardless of how the first quarter ended, the Jazz were in position to have a strong start to the second and fourth quarters.

Against Miami, neither was true, and it was a major reason for the loss, despite timing the deficit to just four in the final seconds of the game.

Jazz Worst Five Game Stretch Since The Bubble

The Jazz have lost four of their last five games, their worst stretch since they lost five out of six in Orlando to end the regular season in the bubble two years ago.

The key difference there is the Jazz were trying to tank games to position themselves to face the Denver Nuggets in the first round. Right now, the Jazz just aren’t playing well.

This has been the @utahjazz worst performance of the season as they trail the @miamiheat 95-69 after three.

Jazz need these next two days off to get things right before finishing their homestand with games against Philly and Toronto. #TakeNote pic.twitter.com/0O2faZ3ZSa

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) November 13, 2021

Perhaps that’s a testament to how consistently well the team played throughout last season, but also a sign of how rough this particular stretch has been.

It’s also just the second time the Jazz have lost back-to-back games in Salt Lake City since 2019 when they lost consecutive games at home to Minnesota and Phoenix to open the year.

The Jazz will look to pull even in their homestand on Tuesday when they face the Philadelphia 76ers.

Follow @benshoops