Utah Jazz: 3 takeaways from devastating Game 3 loss vs. Rockets

3. Jazz can’t take advantage of poor shooting night by Houston, Harden

In the first two games of the series between Utah and Houston, MVP frontrunner James Harden went off for two impressive performances while leading his team to two blowout victories.

In Game 3, one of the key things the Jazz needed to focus on was keeping Harden in check while trying to somehow cool Houston’s offensive down in general.

On Saturday night, Utah was able to accomplish that to some extent, but was unable to ultimately take full advantage of it enough to come away with its first win in the series.

Harden led the way for the Rockets for the third straight game, finishing with a team-high 22 points, 10 assists, six steals and four rebounds. But he shot just 3-for-20 from the field, including 2-for-13 from beyond the arc.

Although Houston finished the game with a total of 15 3-pointers, it struggled shooting the ball in general in the game, finishing 33-for-86 (38.4 percent) from the field.

It’s rare to hold Harden and the Rockets to a poor shooting performance like the Jazz were able to do in Game 3, and when that happens, you have to take advantage of it enough to come away with a win at home.

Utah missed a big opportunity to do so, allowing Houston to still come away with a road victory to go up 3-0 in the series.

If the Jazz wanted to somehow get back into the series, they needed to take advantage of a poor offensive performance against one of the more potent offensive teams in the NBA. At this point, it feels like a massive missed opportunity.