NOTES: With tonight’s loss, the Jazz fell to 26-22 on the season ... Donovan Mitchell registered a game-high 36 points, seven rebounds and five assists in 34 minutes ... Mitchell logged his 5th career 30-5-5 game ... Rudy Gobert posted his 39th double-double of the season (T-first in NBA) with 10 points, a game-high 13 rebounds, four assists and a team-high four blocks in 33 minutes as a reserve ... Derrick Favors added 12 points, nine rebounds and three blocks in 24 minutes ... As a team, the Jazz knocked down 25 free throws, their ninth time doing so this season ... Utah registered 21 second chance points tonight, their fifth time this season with 20+second chance points. Quin Snyder – Head Coach On the difference between the second and third quarters “That’s a disparity that goes to our concentration throughout. It wasn’t one thing. It was a lot of things that add up. Whether it was transition, not keeping the ball on the sideline where we’re locked in pick-and-roll and not being in a rotation. Our execution, defensively, lost the focus that we had in the second quarter, obviously. They made some shots, but they were getting looks that they hadn’t been getting. That just goes to our ability to execute on the defensive end and in a lot of different situations.” On Ricky Rubio “He came in and competed. It’s good to have him back. You could feel his presence in the game. I thought he defended and played the game. He didn’t try to come in and do too much. Just let the game come to him and I think he was rewarded for that.” On defending the Damian Lillard, Jusuf Nurkic pick-and-roll “We weren’t into his body enough. You’re trying to take away the three and the rolls there. You have to be in rotation. It’s right there. We were late. When we were there, we had a chance to make plays. The ball wasn’t getting kicked to the corner. It was [Damian Lillard] coming down the lane. That’s a rotation that our guys know that we’ve worked on a lot and that’s where, I think, our focus, again, whether it be urgency or anticipation, those things have to be there consistently. If everybody has one breakdown, one in the first half, one in the second half, all of sudden you’re in a position to be behind and not be able to overcome that lead. Obviously, that was one situation with pick-and-roll. There were a few others. _______________________________________________________________ Jae Crowder - Forward (15 points, 7 rebounds) On the team’s third quarter defense “They attacked the same. We didn’t have enough possessions in the third quarter to extend the run. Thank God the quarter went out. It was a bad third quarter for us. We had a mental lapse at the end of the third quarter and it gave those guys momentum.” On defending the pick-and-roll “Part of the game plan was for us to attack these guys off ball screens and we leave the roll open for a split second and they found him. We were just late on rotations in the third quarter and it cost us.” On the team’s fourth quarter shooting “Quick shots. Turnovers. At that point, we were pressing a little bit, knowing we were playing from behind and knowing these guys got a little momentum. Quin [Snyder] did a good job of having the mental stage that we needed to be at that point in the game to withstand that run they went on and try to get our own run. It got away from us a little bit.” ________________________________________________________________ Kyle Korver — Guard/Forward (6 points, 4 rebounds) On the team’s third quarter defense “We came out of halftime and kind of lost our edge there. Thought we had a great second quarter. Had the momentum on our side. I thought it kind of changed in the last couple minutes, probably, of that second quarter. They put together a couple shots, a couple plays that kind of gave them some life going into halftime and carried it over and we didn’t have that same bite in our defense. They have players that can get on a roll and once they get on a roll, they’re really hard to guard.” On Ricky Rubio “I thought he moved well. It’s his first game back. It’s good to have him, just the reads that he makes and the positions that he puts us all in. He’s been out for a while, but we’re glad he’s back.” On defending Jusuf Nurkic in the pick-and-roll “We didn’t do a great job on him. Obviously, Rudy [Gobert] has got to be up in the pick-and-roll to try to take away the ball handlers who are obviously really good. The weakside wasn’t there, so we got to be better with that.” ______________________________________________________________ Ricky Rubio – Guard (12 points, 2 assists, 2 rebounds) On being back out on the court after missing games “It felt good. The beginning was a little rusty and was forcing too much. Felt good overall. Happy to be back. On what felt most natural about being back “At the beginning it didn’t, but at the end controlling the tempo of the game, what plays to run and when the shot was there.” On getting rhythm back with more time “Yeah, it felt better. It’s only been two weeks, but I’ve only had a couple practices and yesterday, a good one. It takes time to really run the plays that we are running. In two weeks a lot of things have changed. We run a couple of different plays and I got to adjust to that.”
