The preseason is over for the Utah Jazz and while it’s the time of year for hot takes, here are some genuine takeaways from the finale.
The Utah Jazz ended their 2017-18 preseason campaign with an up-and-down 105-99 win over the Los Angeles Lakers.
It capped off an unbeaten preseason run to lead them into a season filled with doubts.
Despite playing four games before this one, the preseason finale wasn’t always pretty. It did give us a decent indication of what this team might be over the next 82 games though.
Quin Snyder coached it like a regular season game and provided us with an indication of what the rotation might look like.
The last time the Jazz had a perfect preseason they went on to lose their Hall of Fame coach, trade their All-Star and miss the playoffs.
— Jody Genessy (@DJJazzyJody) October 11, 2017
Ricky Rubio, Rodney Hood, Joe Ingles, Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert started, with Donovan Mitchell, Joe Johnson and Alec Burks seeing considerable minutes off the bench.
Thabo Sefolosha, Ekpe Udoh and Royce O’Neale also saw sporadic court time.
Perhaps most notably, Jonas Jerebko seems to have fallen out of the rotation with Joel Bolomboy possibly falling out of the squad altogether. With one player left to be cut, Bolomboy’s DNP-CD on the box score makes him the favorite to go.
The pace was furious at times, but that’s a mainstay of preseason basketball. The shots didn’t fall at a great rate for the Jazz but their defense was typically solid. Snyder aknowledged there is work to do before the regular season tips off when he spoke with Joseph D’Hippolito of The Deseret News:
"“We’re a work in progress. It’s hard to have firm expectations on the high side or on the low side. We just have to evaluate every day, every play, and try to stay in the moment.”"
People are quick to remind you “it’s only preseason,” but there are a couple of things to take away from the final Utah Jazz preseason game.