What is the story about?
Game 1 of 82 was not exactly what the Utah Jazz and their fans envisioned coming into this new era of ‘Mountain Basketball’. After a strong first quarter, the Jazz could never put a bottle on the Ty Jerome show, and to make matters worse, Utah’s stars never really got themselves going to counter the career night from Jerome.
The Good
- Ty Jerome was simply sensational tonight. In 32 minutes, Jerome finished with 45 points (career high) on 17/25 shooting. He also had 7 rebounds and 6 assists. The Jazz had no answer for him at any point, and he led the Grizzlies to a dominant home opening win.
- Keyonte George had a good night himself for the Utah Jazz. He finished with 22 points and 5 assists. Key was really the only Jazz player who didn’t look completely overwhelmed by the super-aggressive defense that the Grizzlies played. Other players had moments, sure, but Key looked under control for most of the game. That is a really promising sign!
- ACE BAILEY! Ace was an absolute menace on the defensive end for the Jazz. He finished with 3 blocks. I thought Ace did a great job meeting the Grizzlies’ physicality head-on and taking on the challenge defensively. His shot wasn’t falling for a large majority of the game but the defensive strides from Ace were simply eye-popping
- Darryn Peterson’s start was awesome. He was shooting the ball extremely well in the first quarter. He was getting to his spots, drawing fouls, and overall looked the part of a number two overall pick.
The Bad
- The margin between bad and ugly in this recap is going to be very thin. For now, I am going to put Isaiah Collier and, honestly, the entire bench unit (sans Ace Bailey) into the bad section for tonight. Collier has elite speed, and tonight that speed was just bad. Memphis pressured the ball 94 feet after made baskets to speed up the Jazz. Collier’s out-of-control start to the second quarter started a snowball the Jazz didn’t have the firepower to stop. Additionally, Brice Sensabaugh and Kyle Filipowski were not good on defense and didn’t contribute on offense either. Not great.
- Cam Boozer only shot 2/15 from the field and 0/6 from three. He contributed in other ways, pulling down 11 boards.
The Ugly
- Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr…. That was a really horrible game. Jaren was playing in his first game in Memphis since the trade, and he just looked overwhelmed out there. He fouled out midway through the fourth quarter and was frustrated all night by Memphis’s physical defense. If the Jazz are going to challenge their Western Conference foes for a postseason spot, 10/23 shooting for 33 points is unacceptable from two of your all-star-caliber players.
- The Jazz defense didn’t actually look horrible tonight. The rebounding, on the other hand? Yikes. The Grizzlies manhandled the Jazz on the boards, and because of that, they got 17 more shots than Utah. I don’t really care who you are or who you are playing; if you give the opponent 17 more chances to score, you’re not going to win many ball games.
The Merciful
It is 1 of 82. The sky is not falling. The sun will rise in the morning. You can’t go 41-41 if you don’t lose 41 times. This team is still really young and figuring each other
out. We can all take a deep breath. It is going to be okay. We just need to enjoy the journey, Jazz fans.
