Jazz Seek Answers Following Blowout
By the time the fourth quarter rolled around, no one moved. Al Jefferson never got off the bench. Neither did Devin Harris, Raja Bell, Gordon Hayward or Paul Millsap. The Jazz’s five starters were stuck to their seats Tuesday at Chesapeake Energy Arena, silently staring and helplessly watching as the NBA’s best team blitzed away at will, hammering home shots and shredding Utah apart.
Final score: 111-85, Oklahoma City Thunder.
The self-criticism wasn’t limited to post-blowout interviews. With Utah down 44-33 to the Thunder late in the second quarter, Bell was overheard near the scorer’s table talking to reserve point guard Earl Watson, pounding home the Jazz’s poor execution.
“We consistently do dumb [crap],” Bell said. “We can’t even help it.”
“I make no mistake about it: I did not think we played the way we needed [Tuesday] to win,” said Bell, who acknowledged he’s concerned an unproven Utah squad may have become carried away with its surprising 9-4 start and taken its initial success for granted.
“I don’t know that we know who we are as a team,” Bell said.
“We’ve got to figure out what the problem is, first,” Millsap said. “Obviously we don’t know what the problem is, so we’ve just got to figure that out. Once we figure that out, we better do something about it.”
He added: “It just feels all bad, man. It’s not a good feeling at all. We want to try to stay positive as much as possible. But things are just not going right right now.”
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