All those offseason moves the Jazz pulled off to make their offense far more formidable appear to have done exactly that.
Now, maybe the team can turn its attention to bolstering its ineffectual defense.
Utah’s counterintuitive preseason extended into Monday night’s penultimate game, as another point-scoring outburst proved unable to counteract the latest gates-open-to-the-fort effort on the other end, as the Sacramento Kings rolled to a 128-115 victory at Vivint Smart Home Arena.
Though the final score was ultimately made more palatable by a late third-quarter surge from Utah’s bench unit and an early fourth-quarter stretch in which the Jazz matched Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell, Mike Conley, Joe Ingles, and Royce O’Neale against a Kings unit consisting entirely of reserves (and in a few cases, deep reserves), the fact remains that one of the league’s perennially elite defensive units was consistently abused in transition (24 points) and on the offensive glass (11 boards yielded) for most of the night.