Summary: In a slow-paced, lifeless basketball game, the Utah Jazz defeated the Orlando Magic, 87-74. The Jazz's defense was stifling. Gordon Hayward led the way with 20 points, 10 rebounds and 8 assists.
* This was not pretty. The 27th ranked pace of play team faced the 30th rank pace of play team and it was a grinder. Just 88 possessions in a game is incredibly slow. The amount of misses were something else as well.
* The Jazz led by six points after the first quarter. The Magic went on a 16-2 run from the first to the second, but the Jazz got back in control and led at the half. The Magic led by four going into the fourth quarter and the Jazz clamped down, holding the Magic to 10 fourth quarter points and blowing them out in the fourth, 27-10. The Magic shot 3 of 21 in the fourth quarter. Rodney Hood had 11 points in the quarter.
* The Jazz executed the defensive game plan really well. Orlando's players are all (maybe not Fournier) flawed in some capacity, and the Jazz exposed each of those flaws. They laid off Gordon and Payton. They got into the body of Vucevic and didn't give him space. Ibaka seems disengaged.
* Rudy Gobert was a beast around the basket. Derrick Favors paired with Gobert for lots of time tonight and the Magic had no chance offensively. Favors and Gobert had only played eight minutes together all season in the fourth quarter prior to tonight. They had only played 11 minutes outside of the starts of the first and third quarters since Favors had moved into the starting lineup. Tonight against the perfect match-up — Orlando's bigs, who aren't a threat to go outside — the Jazz showed how dominate these two can be defensively. There are times when it is very hard for Favors to have to guard at 24 feet and the Jazz aren't always to take advantage back on the other side, so the Jazz can't become dependent on this group, but when the time calls, it is a dominating twosome and it showed tonight.
* This game felt a lot like last year. The point guards weren't able to control the game. Hayward and Hood had to do a tremendous amount of the ball handling without George Hill. The Jazz ended up with eight different players with assists, but Gordon had eight on his own.
* Gordon Hayward is really special. There are about three small forwards in the league who can become their team's offensive initiator and primary scorer at the same time. For a large portion of the night, he had been directly responsible for over half the Jazz's points.
* The greatest story of the night is the roll of George Hill. Hill is not playing due to the thumb injury and Rodney Hood was having a brutal night. He evidentially was sick, was battling it at shoot around, and George Hill told him he needed three minutes from him. It changed Hood's perspective. He was worrying about surviving the night and Hill made him think positively about giving three minutes. It was those three minutes that won the game for the Jazz. Hood was super aggressive and scored 11 points in the fourth quarter.
* The above story is where this team is completely different than any of the last few years. Even at shoot around today when the team was running through plays, George Hill was telling people how they ran the same plays under Orlando coach Frank Vogel in Indiana. This team is Gordon's because of the commitment level and work he put in the last year, but the vocal leadership is coming from George.
* Shelvin Mack had huge guts. He nailed a huge three after having been way off tonight. The Jazz's point guards without Hill were 5 of 17 shooting with six turnovers and only four assists.
* Gobert and Favors had 31 points and 22 rebounds to go with 5 blocks. Ibaka and Vucevic had 12 points, 16 rebounds on 5 of 24 shooting. That is a white wash.
* This game was ugly. The Magic shot 33%, their EFG% was below 40%. The Jazz's defensive rating was 88.
* 3-1 on the road trip is fantastic. If they can get Miami, that would be something else.
