After a magnificent win last night, the Suns didn't bring their best defense to Utah against the Jazz as they got blown out 118-91 . The Suns made a huge 19-2 run in the second quarter to get themselves back in the game, but they never took control in the third quarter after rallying and the Jazz continued to expand their lead into the fourth.
An average night from Hydra would have yielded a completely different result here. Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe were off on their jumpers and weren't able to attack enough to establish themselves. Ditto for Isaiah Thomas, as his entire touch of the basketball was just off. 27 first half points from the combo of Markieff Morris and Gerald Green allowed the Suns to come back, but it was never going to happen with the way they were playing defensively.
The Jazz were able to get an offensive rebound, an easy layup, or a wide open three every couple of possessions it seemed like. On the other end, the Suns were consistently missing open looks from just about everywhere. The Suns shot 7-31 from three and Bledsoe and Dragic combined were 0-9.
To their credit, the Jazz never turned off their pace and forced the Suns to keep running. The Jazz had 66 points in the paint. The back-to-back was just too much for the Suns to handle and the Jazz kept making their shots. Gordon Hayward had 24 points and 10 rebounds while the star man was Derrick Favors with 32 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals, and 2 blocks.
This was a fast paced roller coaster of a loss. The Suns started the game with an early 9-2 lead thanks to all nine points coming from the Morris twins. Then, the Derrick Favors show began.
Favors was too fundamental with how to use his strength down low, as he dominated Miles Plumlee with 13 points in the first quarter. Alex Len checked in rather early and had a little bit of success, but Favors figured him out in about five minutes.
Some really poor defense giving the Jazz a lot of layups and dunks saw the Jazz up as much as 18 in the second quarter. The Suns were allowing the Jazz to get whatever they wanted and to their credit they made the Suns pay.
All of a sudden out of nowhere in the second quarter the Suns had a 19-2 run. The Jazz started making a lot of mistakes with turnovers and bad offensive possessions. This allowed the Suns to get out and run to get their rhythm back offensively. The Suns ended the first half only down 4 and looked to come out in the second half and escape with a win after an awful start.
That didn't happen. The same problems that were going on in the middle of the first half happened here as the Suns allowed the Jazz to take the momentum back. The little things like the Jazz extending their lead to 7 and the Suns not rallying allowed it to stretch all the way to 14 with no real answer from the Suns to end the third quarter.
The fourth quarter was a great summary of the game. The Jazz continued to stretch out the lead they entered the second half with and the Suns kept allowing easy buckets. The three point guards tried to get something going, but as I said earlier all three of them were just off. Dragic got to the rim a couple of times, but other than that it was all Utah.
The Suns won't play until Tuesday when they travel to LA to face off against the Lakers for the second time this season.