The Triple Team: Jazz beat Suns handily after two-ejection altercation


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 116-88 win over the Phoenix Suns from KSL.com's Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Two-ejection fight between Jazz and Suns

The most climactic part of tonight's game was a violent shoving match and altercation in the third quarter.

Suns & Jazz scuffle after Marquese Chriss pushes Ricky Rubio to the ground. Donovan Mitchell really wanted to get to Chriss! pic.twitter.com/qipVHJhHwy — Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) March 16, 2018

First of all, Rudy Gobert pushed forward Marquese Chriss a little bit, causing him to miss the dunk. The Phoenix bench wanted a foul, as Chriss laid on the floor, but Ricky Rubio wanted to push the ball up as the Jazz had a man advantage. Rubio got the ball on the inbounds, and Jared Dudley pushed him, both to stop the fast break and to send a message.

That led Rubio to get up to confront Dudley, and while he did so, Chriss came back into the picture, surprising Rubio with a push that I think caused him to lose his mouth guard. Joe Ingles came in with swinging arms to confront Chriss, as did rookie Donovan Mitchell.

In the end, I think the ref crew led by Tom Washington made the right choices: a flagrant foul, penalty two (meaning an ejection) to Dudley for excessive and unnecessary contact, a one-technical foul ejection to Chriss for the blindside violent shove, and technical foul to Ingles and Mitchell each for their roles in turning the heat up in the mix.

Still, it's the second time Rubio's been laid out like that in two weeks, so everyone was frustrated. Rubio pointedly refused to talk about the fight postgame, clearly still angry about what happened and trying to prevent himself from saying something he'd regret later. Donovan Mitchell called it "two cheap shots for no reason."

Jazz head coach Quin Snyder noticed the pattern:

"It's cumulative. When these things continue to happen, one, someone's health is at risk. Dante Exum is just coming back from being injured right now. That wasn't a dirty play or anything like that, but those are the things that can happen. So it's concerning that it continues to happen to us. I'm not saying that we are being targeted, or anything like that. What I am saying is for our group, it's a challenge. I think guys kept their composure, but you want to defend your teammate."

Snyder's right. While Rubio has bounced back up both times, those are the kinds of plays that can injure players. The league should take action to prevent those kinds of plays, and the Jazz are right to be angry when they do happen.

The biggest impact on the game, though, that the two ejections had, was that it forced the Suns to play small without two of their preferred big men available. That worked for a little bit, cutting the lead to 15. The Jazz quickly figured it out in the fourth quarter, though, and won the game by nearly 30.

2. Jazz win the turnover battle to help win the game

While the Jazz have only lost two times in the last seven weeks, both games had a similar fatal flaw: turnovers. The Jazz gave the ball away 19 times against Portland and 22 times against Houston, both understandable losses, but ones that the Jazz would have liked to avoid. They even turned over the ball too much in big wins, like Tuesday's against the Detroit Pistons.

Thursday night, they played the turnover battle exquisitely, forcing 22 turnovers from the Suns while only coughing up seven themselves. Both are very good figures.

Let me reintroduce you to this bit of research I did earlier this season. I was curious: when one team turns the ball over a ton (or keeps the ball under wraps extremely well), what are their odds of winning?

If your team's TOV% is higher than this TOV%If your team's TOV% is lower than this TOV%
TOV%WinsLossesWin %% of gamesTOV%WinsLossesWin%% of games
68250827950%99%61209057%1%
78095816350%97%727420757%3%
87832796150%94%853940957%6%
97382766549%90%998870458%10%
106753715449%83%101621121657%17%
115942648148%74%112431189156%26%
125020570247%64%123352266856%36%
134072475246%53%134298361854%47%
143127380445%41%145243456753%59%
152273293244%31%156098544153%69%
161554217242%22%166816619752%78%
171007149740%15%177362687352%85%
1862398039%10%187747738951%90%
1936260937%6%198008776051%94%
2019336635%3%208177800551%97%
2110822433%2%218262814650%98%
2552119%0%258365834850%100%

The Suns turned the ball on 19 percent of their possessions. Teams win doing that only win games 37 percent of the time. Meanwhile, the Jazz turned the ball over on only 5.9 percent of their possessions, teams that do that win 57 percent of the time.

So it's not enough to ensure you win the game if you do both, but it certainly helps. The Jazz's defense is tough enough at defending the shot, that when you give them extra possessions to play with (and to score with), you just don't have much of a chance of winning.

On Thursday night, the Jazz did both: they only allowed the Suns to take 16 3-point shots, allowed them to only shoot 17-46 (37 percent) in the paint, and then got 15 more turnovers and therefore 14 more shots than the Suns. If you lose all of those factors, you're just not going to beat the Jazz.

3. Dante Exum's return

Dante Exum played well in his first game of the 2017-18 regular season, playing 14 minutes and 27 seconds, scoring 10 points on 3-7 shooting and adding three rebounds, two assists, and a turnover.

There were some really big positives. I liked how in control Exum was on several of his drives, taking his time and finishing with simple moves.

🎥| #WelcomeBackDantépic.twitter.com/CNjz0mDkQI — Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) March 16, 2018

That first play especially qualifies. I also think he did a good job of running the offense and finding teammates. Again, it seemed like he belonged.

It wasn't all positive. A couple of times, Exum rushed, drawing an offensive foul and also missing a layup badly:

Triple Team videos: Exum did some great things tonight, but also was occasionally a little out of control. This is one of those times. (NOTE: I'm uploading the bad Exum plays because @utahjazz already uploaded the good ones. Don't hurt me, Exum fans) pic.twitter.com/x8AhUXgvj6 — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 16, 2018

And there was one time where he was left jumping at ghosts, losing track of Dragan Bender after Rudy Gobert had Tyler Ulis stuffed.

He also lost track of Dragan Bender on this switch out... pic.twitter.com/aWq6r9qclT — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 16, 2018

Still, for his first game out, it was promising. This stretch of games is perfect for Exum to come back against. He can practice against the lesser NBA competition, like Phoenix, Sacramento, and Atlanta, before getting ready for the tougher rest of the NBA schedule.

"I thought he (Exum) did a good job," Snyder said. "You are thrown into a disjointed game, in a lot of ways, and I thought he concentrated on the right things. He got back, played defense, looked for his spots, and pushed the ball to the rim. He did a really good job. It was good to see him out there."

Most recent Sports stories

Related topics

SportsUtah Jazz

ARE YOU GAME?

From first downs to buzzer beaters, get KSL.com’s top sports stories delivered to your inbox weekly.
By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

KSL Weather Forecast