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HOUSTON — As Thabo Sefolosha watched film of Sunday’s Game 1 loss to the Houston Rockets, the Utah Jazz forward realized something: his team was a little nervous.
They weren’t scared of James Harden or of the Houston Rockets, it's just that the playoffs come with some extra nerves.
“We’ve still got a young group, so some of it is normal,” Sefolosha said. “It’s behind us now and we can just focus on being who we are, playing our brand of basketball."
Those nerves, though, might help explain some of Utah’s woes in Game 1s.
Since Joe Johnson’s improbable buzzer-beater in Game 1 of the 2017 first round against the Los Angeles Clippers in Quin Snyder’s first playoff game as a head coach, the Jazz have yet to win the opening game of a playoff series. Sunday’s loss marked Utah fourth straight Game 1 defeat.
“There is nothing like Game 1,” Sefolosha said. “You can’t really replicate that during the season.”
The good news: The Jazz have been pretty good at getting the second one.
Utah won both Game 2s during last year’s playoff run and they are hopeful that trend will continue on Wednesday when the series resumes in Houston.
“Just finding the adjustments,” Derrick Favors said on Monday following a lengthy a film session. “Seeing what we did wrong and what we did right going into Game 2 and work in what we learned in practice and through watching film. We can see what is open, we see what we can do better defensively, what we can do better offensively and try to come out and do it in Game 2 to try to get a win.”
During last year’s first-round playoff series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Paul George scored 36 points in a Game 1. He was then held to just 18 points on 6-of-21 shooting in Game 2. And after Ricky Rubio began that series with a 5-of-18 performance for just 13 points, he rebounded in Game 2’s win by putting up 22 points and nine assists.
Those types of shifts are just what the Jazz will be looking for again on Wednesday.
Utah had just 17 assists in Sunday’s Game 1 loss while also committing 20 turnovers. And the Jazz, the third-best rebounding team in the league, were outrebounded by the Rockets, the third worst rebounding team.
Oh, and making some open 3-pointers wouldn’t hurt, either. Utah as just 7-of-27 from 3-point range. And then there’s improving how they guarded James Harden.
Ok, so there’s a lot that needs to be addressed.
“It’s only Game 1,” Sefolosha said. “And there was a lot of good and bad that we can take from it.”
How the Jazz guarded Harden got most of the attention immediately after Game 1, but the fact that the Jazz only scored 90 points might be the bigger issue.
And how well Houston played on defense wasn’t a fluke. The Rockets had the No. 2 defense in the NBA in the second half of the season — second only to the Jazz.
“We got to be more patient, make better reads and just be more aggressive offensively,” Favors said. “We know they are a good defensive team as far as switching everything and being aggressive. We just gotta be patient, make better reads and just play better.”
Just playing better seems like an oversimplistic answer, but the silver lining for the Jazz after Sunday’s loss was that they didn’t play well at all. They struggled to rebound, to execute on offense, and to even catch simple passes. Those are things that can be fixed.
"We had some shots that were open that we missed, and we also had some shots open that we didn’t find, whether the guard didn’t get it to him or the big didn’t get it to the guys in the corner,” Favors said of the offense. “It just goes back to we’ve gotta be patient."
