Los Angeles • Since Saturday night, the hope had been allowed to soar.
The Utah Jazz were coming off a win over a team with three All-Stars without one of their top scorers themselves. What couldn’t they do?
On Tuesday night, the Jazz couldn’t keep up.
It was a humbling road defeat at Staples Center, one in which an 18-2 run in the third quarter by the Los Angeles Clippers helped pummel Utah into submission in a 102-84 loss. That beautiful early season optimism — which nearly every team in the NBA is guilty of having on opening — took its first major cracks as the Jazz struggled to compete with the very franchise they dispatched in last season’s playoffs.
“It can’t be worse than tonight,” said Rudy Gobert, who finished with 12 points and 7 rebounds. “I think we’re a very good team, but I don’t think we came out with the juice.”
There were qualifiers to be sure: Utah (2-2) played its second straight game without Rodney Hood (calf strain), one of the team’s most potent scorers. Joe Ingles, who came in leading the team in 3-point shots, was clearly a step slower thanks to “gastrointestinal distress,” which has become a frustratingly familiar phrase on Utah’s injury report.
But in a game that the Clippers (3-0) led by as much as 21, in which Blake Griffin scored a team-best 22 points with nine rebounds and six assists, qualifiers were drowned out by an L.A. whipping. The Jazz were hampered by 3-point shooting, hitting only 7 for 28, and couldn’t stop guards Austin Rivers and Patrick Beverley, who combined for 35 points.
An overarching message: If the Jazz are going to be a playoff team again next spring, it’s going to take more than some spunky defense.
“We had a tough time scoring is the bottom line,” coach Quin Snyder said. “When that happens, it puts a lot of pressure on the defense.”
The two last tangled in the first round of the NBA playoffs, with the Jazz prevailing in seven games. Between the two starting lineups, only six of the 10 had played in that series, and the benches were even more different. Clippers coach Doc Rivers joked before the game that the two rosters would need name tags to get to know one another.
But there was a strong common thread between the teams: defensive presence. The first half played out as a sludgy affair, with the Jazz shooting 42 percent and the Clippers shooting 37.8 percent. Easy buckets were hard to come by, and after a half, the leading scorers for each team were unexpected: Ricky Rubio (who finished with 10 points all in the first half) and Beverley.
But that changed from the start of the third quarter: Between an Austin Rivers floater to start the period and a DeAndre Jordan dunk for a 60-43 Clippers lead, the L.A. starting lineup roughed up Utah.
During that stretch, Utah missed 9 of its 10 shots, while the Clippers converted 8 of 10 field goal attempts for points. Many of those misses, Snyder said, were good, open shots — but they didn’t go in.
“Any time you’re without a couple of your players, it’s not an excuse,” he said. “Other guys have gotta step up. We’ve got to play better. We got good looks in the third quarter, we just didn’t make them.”
Counterintuitively, it was one of the Jazz players who struggled the most who also led Utah’s best comeback effort: Donovan Mitchell missed 9 of his first 10 shots, but ended up hitting 6 of his last 10 for a team-best 19 points.
The Jazz drew as close as 83-76, but Griffin and Rivers helped the hometown squad pull away again for the eventual blowout.
““Unfortunately we weren’t hitting as a team,” Mitchell said. “That’s going to happen. And it forces us to lean on our defense even more.”
There’s no break ahead: Utah’s next game comes Wednesday night in Phoenix against the interim-coached Suns.