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SALT LAKE CITY — When Ricky Rubio checked into the game in the first quarter of Utah's 109-104 loss to Portland Monday, he was greeted by a loud ovation.
His teammates may as well have been cheering, too.
While the Jazz had gone on their best run of the season without their starting point guard — mostly because of the play of Donovan Mitchell — there was no denying they had missed Rubio.
It wasn't for long, but the Jazz actually played a natural point guard on Monday night in their loss to Portland.
Rubio didn’t start, and was limited to just 14 minutes on Monday, but he finished with 12 points on 3-of-6 shooting and two assists.
“He came in and competed,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “It’s good to have him back; you can feel his presence in the game. He defended. He played the game. He didn’t come in and try to do too much. He just let the game come to him and he was rewarded for that.”
Rubio admitted he was a little rusty at the beginning of the game, and that he was forcing too much. But by the end, he felt that he had found his rhythm again, and was "controlling the tempo of the game, knowing what plays to run and when the shot was there,” Rubio said.
Mitchell has shined as the Jazz’s starting point guard ever since Rubio, Dante Exum and Raul Neto all suffered injuries in consecutive games, and he pointed to Rubio as part of the reason. Rubio sat on the bench with Mitchell during games, going over plays and reads that the second-year star had missed. That led to a noticeable improvement in Mitchell's game.
Mitchell averaged 30.5 points in his six games at point guard and even won Western Conference Player of the Week in the role. But even with those huge numbers, he was happy to see his old backcourt mate back in action.
“(He was) under control; same Ricky: calm and collected,” Mitchell said. “That’s impressive because when I came back I remember I was rushed and trying like to create and make plays. He’s the same player. I think it will be a quick transition to get him back in shape and back into his groove.”
Rubio had been playing some of his best basketball of the season when he went down. He’s hoping it won’t take him long to get back to the same point.
“It takes time to really run the plays that we are running,” Rubio said. “In two weeks, a lot of things have changed. We run a couple of different plays and I got to adjust to that.”
If the last two weeks have taught the Jazz anything, they are pretty good at adjusting.
