Kekgeek grades G68 vs Jazz

[kekgeek]

I'm going to take a shot at Naz's A- grade. While he clearly had an A first half on offense, I can give him no better than a D- on defense. I watched a late night replay with my honey, and time after time she made me rewind after she asked "WTF is Naz doing?" I don't fault his effort (although I'm not sure why he almost never has his arms up...such a simple thing to do), but over and over he looks completely lost on defense. You would think a guy who is so effective in running the pick and roll on offense would at least have a clue how to defend it!

When NAW started the second half instead of Naz, my honey said "I love Naz, but we're going to win the game now". And sure enough, we gave up 14 fewer points in the second half while scoring 8 more, and won the game. It's not completely out of the question to say that we won the game because Naz got hurt. Defense wins games, so I can give him no more than a C.

I thought the first Q was bad defensively but I thought he played great defensively in the 2nd Q. Now some of it could be after watching Garza play defense it makes Naz defense look like prime Hakeem. But I do think his defense was good in the 2nd Q

[DNatagal]

The entire team was bad the first quarter with the exception of JMac. That guy just knows how to make the most of his abilities. Everyone should get a D or worse for that 12 minutes. But great teams figure out ways to succeed, which is what the Wolves did.
Ant looks like he is starting to figure out how to get his and still involve his teammates. This is integral to that next step he needs to make.

[Q-is-here]

The entire team was bad the first quarter with the exception of JMac. That guy just knows how to make the most of his abilities. Everyone should get a D or worse for that 12 minutes. But great teams figure our ways to succeed, which is what the Wolves did.
Ant looks like he is starting to figure out how to get his and still involve his teammates. This is integral to that next step he needs to make.

Good stuff. I think we're also getting a preview into an Ant-centric future, when potentially both KAT and Rudy are gone. It seems like some of Ant's occasional ball-stopping is a bit more tolerable when literally everyone else is decisive with their moves, make the extra pass, and don't clog up the middle of the floor or require perfectly placed passes to finish. That's not to say this current roster is literally better off without Rudy and KAT, but I can envision a different kind of roster construction a few years from now that more closely aligns to these last two Utah games.