Jazz shift focus to finer details of defense in hopes of breaking losing streak
After four straight losses and back-to-back blowouts against the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers, a lot of the Utah Jazz players were feeling angry.
Those feelings of anger after a loss can lead to players wanting to find somewhere to place blame. It’s an understandable immediate reaction when things aren’t going the way you want, but rarely are there constructive conversations to be had when you are coming from a place of anger.
Thanksgiving gave the players not only time to get back to their families and recharge and reset physically, but also emotional time away from the back-to-back losses so that they could look at things with a little more objectivity.
“The mood definitely shifts,” John Collins said after the Jazz practiced on Friday. “The losing, it stings and the funk is definitely still there. But I feel like now it’s a motivation for us to not be in that funk, to not have that losing draw on forever. Nobody in here like losing. ... So for us, it’s about not wasting time we come in here and locking in and really trying to focus on building winning habits.”
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That’s what Lauri Markkanen was looking forward to as soon as the game ended on Wednesday night. He knew the team would have the day off on Thursday, but he was already thinking about how the Jazz would address their recent woes.
“I feel like we need to learn from this and watch film, because otherwise this is just a number in the loss column,” Markkanen said. “But if you can take something away from each loss then it’s not completely wasted.”
The Jazz held a long practice on Friday, focusing mostly on their defensive issues. Rather than try to simplify things, the Jazz are dialing in on specifics and making sure that everyone understands what is expected of them.
“Everybody has to do a better job of doing their job,” Collins said. “We were breaking down into some stations, having a lot of conversations with coaches on what they want from us individually and from a team perspective, watching what we wanted to work on in film and then going out there and hammering it in on the court.”
The Jazz’s upcoming two games against the New Orleans Pelicans — which will be played at the Delta Center on Saturday and Monday — will give the team a chance to rebound from their recent struggles and also dial in on some adjustments since they’re playing the same team twice.
“We’re not waking up today happy to go get a hard practice,” Collins said. “But it’s something that’s needed and something that we have to do to get better — something we have to do together as a team.”
