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OKLAHOMA CITY — The Utah Jazz held practice in Chesapeake Energy Arena on Tuesday afternoon, practicing for nearly three hours to prepare themselves for Wednesday's Game 2. Here's what we learned.
Donovan Mitchell's status
Donovan Mitchell was officially listed as questionable by the Jazz for Game 2 due to a left foot contusion. Mitchell only participated in portions of practice.
Again, given the quotes from Monday's practice, when Mitchell said he was fine, and that Royce O'Neale said Mitchell would play, I would be shocked if we don't see Mitchell on the court on Wednesday.
There is a question of how effective he'll be able to be with that pain in his foot, though. After practice, Mitchell was working on pull-up shots in transition, going from running to stopping quickly. It didn't seem like he was experiencing discomfort while doing that. We don't know where the pain is in his foot, though; it may be the kind that makes lateral movement tough.
Certainly, we'll know more when Mitchell warms up and presumably plays on Wednesday.
From Oklahoma City's practice, Paul George didn't participate in the contact portions of their workout due to a right hip contusion. Corey Brewer participated in some of those contact drills. George is listed as questionable for Game 2 but sounds very likely to play.
Ricky Rubio's shots
Ricky Rubio took 18 shots in Game 1 and only made five. While he contributed in some other important ways (like grabbing four steals among nine deflections overall), the shot wasn't falling for him, and it cost the Jazz some critical points.
Unfortunately, Rubio missed some of his most open looks. He shot only 1-12 on shots labeled as open or wide open by NBA.com. That's well off his usual average: for the season, he shot 218-516 on open or wide open shots (for a 51 percent effective field goal percentage), and in the second half of the season, he shot 104-222 on those shots (57.7 effective field goal percentage). (Thanks to Jazz fan RGiss for pointing out the data.)
Some of those looks labeled as "open" or "wide open" aren't good shots, though. Sure, a defender may not be within 4 feet, but if Rubio is driving to his left and is trying to hit a fading shot off the glass, it's just not a good look. For his part, Rubio wants to improve on his shot selection in Game 2.
"Some of them were good shots, and some of them were not. I need to do a better job of getting my teammates involved at times," Rubio said. "I was trying to be over-aggressive sometimes. Being aggressive is one thing and taking a lot of shots is another.
The Jazz will probably need Rubio to take fewer shots on Tuesday and then hit the open ones he does take. He's been an important part of the Jazz's offense in the second half of the season, and if he can turn it up, it will make the Jazz much more difficult to guard.
Playing desperately
Obviously, going down two games to none in the series would be bad news for the Jazz, requiring them to win four of the next five to win the series. So it's important that they both play well and with some level of desperation.
It also appears that desperate teams make for better teams. Cleaning The Glass' Ben Falk did some research:
"Since 2003, 73 percent of home teams won Game 1. This is a high number, but it makes sense: home teams not only have home court advantage, they’re also usually the better team since they earned home court by having a better regular season record. Of the home teams that won Game 1, 73 percent went on to win Game 2. But of those that lost Game 1, 83 percent went on to win Game 2."
The Jazz aren't as desperate as a team that faces the potential of going down 2-0 after playing at home. But it might help if they play like they did, given that level of desperation seems to make teams play better.
There is a saying that a playoff series doesn't really begin until the home team loses a game. But if the Jazz abide by that philosophy, it won't end up being enough.
"We need to play this game like it's our last," Jazz center Rudy Gobert said. "That's what we have to do every game."
