ORLANDO — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 125-85 win over the Orlando Magic from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Have they been capable of this the whole time?

Wait, the Jazz won by 40 points? After going 0-6 to start the year and being the last team in the NBA that didn't have a road win, the Jazz had their largest road victory in franchise history (tied with a victory over the Clippers in 1985). That's a quite a turnaround!

So what happened? Well, they put up a 128 offensive rating and an 85 defensive rating. And it's not that they really had an outlier shooting night: they shot 41 percent from 3 and 36 percent from mid-range. I guess they shot well from the free-throw line (17-18), but the Jazz are the league's second-best free-throw shooting team. Even an average performance from there would have been, say, a 37-point win.

But really, the Jazz just got inside with incredible ease. Derrick Favors deserves a lot of credit for actually rolling hard towards the rim, just like we talked about yesterday. He was rewarded for that by scoring 25 points (on just 12 shots) and as a result, he also got to hang out at the rim more, getting 11 rebounds (including six offensive) in only 25 minutes of play.

Raul Neto also made a huge difference in the effectiveness of the Jazz's offense. It's not so much that he shot the ball well, but he just repeatedly made the right read in the pick and roll and in transition, getting open shots for himself and teammates. The game changed when he came in, and while nine points and seven assists isn't world-beating, the Jazz outscored the Magic by 44 points in the 24 minutes he was on the floor.

And then defensively, the Jazz were a problem for the Magic, holding them to their season low. It just seemed like the Magic never really made the Jazz make tough choices: they rarely switched, stayed at home, and played solid defense. 47 percent of the Magic's shots came from the mid-range. Meanwhile, they only had 12 shots at the rim while the Jazz had 27. It was easy.

The Magic played horrifically, it should be said. Again, those rim shot numbers are telling, and no Magic player ever really contested those inside shots. Nikola Vucevic is really bad at that, and Bismack Biyombo wasn't a problem either. Somehow, despite the Magic missing so many more shots than the Jazz, the away team got more offensive rebounds, 15-10. They need to re-evaluate some things.

2. Rodney Hood, again!

It was another great game for Rodney Hood, who scored 31 points on 12-21 shooting overall and 7-13 from the 3-point line. That's his second game in three nights with 30 or more points and remember, he's doing this off the bench, too.

.@RodneyHood scored 31 points (7 3pts) to go with 5 rebounds and 2 assists tonight. 🎥🎯🎥#TakeNote#UTAatORLpic.twitter.com/sc6rpXphgS — Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) November 19, 2017

I wonder if that helps Hood out. Generally, bench players are shorter and less physical defenders than their starting counterparts, allowing Hood to get more space. Bench defenders aren't used to guarding a player with that much shooting skill, probably. And finally, Hood can also attack the paint more effectively: a lot of teams go smaller with their bench lineups inside, and instead of facing a skilled pick-and-roll big defender, Hood's probably facing someone with a weakness.

It's also his seventh straight game with 16 or more points, the first time he's done that in his career. That's a great sign, as Hood was understandably getting a lot of criticism from amateur and professional analysts alike for his up and down performances.

As always with Hood, it's also worth looking at his secondary skills. There's some good news and bad news there. He didn't have any free throws tonight, so that's not great. But he got his season high in rebounds tonight with five. Two assists is average, one steal is good, and I thought his defense tonight helped. Him defending without fouling, too, was a nice step forward.

3. Creative ways to get corner threes

One thing I really liked about what the Jazz did was how they got good 3-point attempts for themselves. In the second quarter, especially, there were a couple of creative plays that got good looks for the Jazz's best 3-point shooters in the corner.

Here's one. For all the world, the Jazz look like this is going to be a Donovan Mitchell isolation play. Mitchell backs up, it's late in the shot clock, and Mitchell is the Jazz's best isolation player.

Two consecutive plays in the second quarter with sneaky screens on the weak side gave Rodney Hood open corner threes. Orlando thinks Mitchell is going iso here... nope pic.twitter.com/hCnyr7N9nR — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) November 19, 2017

Instead, Mitchell puts all of his might into a cross-court pass, Ekpe Udoh sets a clever backscreen, and Hood gets a really nice corner three attempt — a great look given the shot clock situation.

On the very next Jazz play, Ricky Rubio brings the ball up, passes it to Jonas Jerebko, who passes it to Mitchell. Mitchell faints towards driving baseline, but really, this play is all about doing the same thing: having Udoh set a screen on Hood's man so he can get another great corner three look on the hammer play.

And then very next play, Mitchell throws a 40-foot hammer pass with the same backscreen by Udoh: pic.twitter.com/rYsLPhF21F — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) November 19, 2017

Clearly, the Jazz saw something here: the Magic defenders were playing pretty far off of Hood on the weak side, so the Jazz could take advantage.

Those are also really nice passes from Mitchell. I think the standard NBA camera angle makes it difficult to see how far away those two players are, but remember, an NBA court is 50 feet wide. The first pass is probably 30-35 feet, and the second one is probably 40-45 feet long. One's a little high, one's a little low, but he got it there just in time for Hood to get the looks off.

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