Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 127-105 win over the New Orleans Pelicans of the Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Make a statement about the movement of the ball

Once again: Jazz loves to make a statement with the first play of the game. was here tonight:

Does Donovan Mitchell have a chance to take the pull of the three? Yes, it does. But he loses appearance, drives to paint softly, and finds Rudy Joubert for an easy basket. I missed easy baskets.

Fast forward to the second quarter. Mitchell leads the lane, hitting his leg, but finds resistance at the edge. Bad version of Mitchell is headed towards the edge, baffling. But here, Mitchell stops, looks for a pass, turns on Bogdanovic, then moves the ball himself, and kicks to Rudy Gay.

Now that’s what I love: He’s a newbie, and he could definitely take this shot. But he’s driving, not doing his usual things either, but instead finding Hassan Whiteside down the edge. It’s legitimate property in the mixer!

This is the kind of basketball the Jazz team was playing last year, and for good reason: It’s very effective. You can get high quality shots, throw the ball, and wide open triples. You tire the defense, as they turn after turn. And most importantly, everyone feels good: everyone touches the ball and feels that they have contributed to the success.

Well, another one: the highlight of the game. Bojan Bogdanovic has a quick shot, but passes it to Mitchell just off the backboard.

Positive feedback here! You get a Mitchell/Boogie hug after that play. And I want to point out one more thing: Mitchell runs a transition on the play, from about 94 feet away. I guess yesterday Mitchell didn’t run out of it, but today Mitchell does.

Now, you still need consistency. One match is not enough, especially against the Pelicans. But it’s a start.

2. Joe Ingles, played by Royce O’Neale

Royce O’Neill picked up an ankle injury against Oklahoma City and ended up playing last night, but the team decided he was just too tired to play back-to-back.

(As a side note: Mike Conley played in a back-to-back game, for the first time all season. After the game, he said two factors came into play: first, that the team didn’t have O’Neill; but second, and most importantly, the Jazz needed to win tonight.) It’s interesting that the team (and Conley) felt this match was important enough for Conley to play, but I do agree with that.)

Joe Ingles started at O’Neale’s place, and I was a little worried about how that would turn out. The Jazz team defended Brandon Ingram well on Friday night, and that was thanks to a substitution scheme: Whenever the Pelicans ran with Jonas Valanciunas and Ingram, the Jazz shifted him, prompting Jobert to guard Ingram on the ocean and O’Neale Valanciunas would fight to bounce back down.

But O’Neale is a very good clone. Very bad Engels. O’Neale is smaller, but has a more physical presence. Honestly, Engels can sometimes shy away from low contact. So I wasn’t sure how this defensive scheme would work.

I did, though! Ingles pushed the Valanciunas low, then helped out the other jazz players as well. This play would probably work differently if it wasn’t an aeroball, but I like that two players grapple with Valancionas for the bounce.

Same idea here. Engels discourages Loeb’s pass to Valancionas by facing him – then look at Mitchell right away with an early Boxout.

In the end, JV only had two offensive hits, despite wasting a lot of Pelicans on shots when he was in the match.

Well, how about a delayed switch? Ingles ends up on a much faster Devonte Graham here, but he rivals the shot well.

I think Engels has been poor overall on the defensive this year. But in this very specific role, he was able to make a huge impact on the game by fighting low and doing the little things. He missed jazz this year, but tonight was even better.

3. Queen after the game

I was expecting Quin Snyder’s match to be relatively live tonight, but he was sending real messages again. Take a look at some of these quotes from Snyder – his words are in italics.

We can’t lose our resolve to do these (small) things because individually we don’t get something out of the game that we want. It has to be a group mindset. Honestly, with the group we have, this stuff is a challenge. Because we have a lot of players who can play and shoot the ball, right? But if that’s what we’re going to be, it won’t be enough. Maybe that’s enough on a certain night, but that’s not the team we need in order to win at the level we want.

There is a lot there! There Snyder asserts the idea that the Jazz didn’t do those little things because they were thinking singly. In particular, the sheer amount of talent they have on a team, and the number of mouths they have to feed, can get in the way of that “collective mindset” unless they make a “hard” effort to work together.

We’re going to keep getting teams to get up for us, you know, get ready to play us. And this is an opportunity for us to get better, but we can’t allow these things to separate us. The game is hard enough.

To “divide us” – again, it’s a risk that worries him. But it does give a counterexample from tonight’s match.

Tonight Rudy Gobert got four shots because Valancionas is back, you know, basically over the edge. He was determined not to let Joubert fall from him. But our bouncers did a better job of getting the readings in the lane and keeping our eyes off.

So even though I defended more Jaubert’s shots in the trio last night, would Jaubert get 10 shots every night? No, but what the Jazz team can control is their ability to give better readings in the paint – and in particular, pass the ball more often.

So how were the conversations to get better readings?

There is a difference between selfishness and selfishness. We’re not a selfish team, but I think that as people, you know, we can have that — maybe our nature, you know, is to think of ourselves. And tonight, we think of our colleagues and we think of the team. That’s one of the beautiful things about this game, when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and that’s how I felt tonight.

He explicitly rejects the idea that the team is selfish – but will accept that people’s individual natures focus on their success. Most importantly, self-centeredness is something they can overcome.

I think we have a core group of guys who experience this, and know it deep in their bones. We have some new guys that I think are adjusting to that and want to be a part of that. But it’s not like – It just isn’t easy. I think it requires a level of commitment and a level of selflessness for our team. Given the way we’re built, this is even more important.

Mitchell and Gobert are longtime players on the team, but they definitely present some of the self-focus problem. But Snyder thinks the team-first mentality is “deep in their bones” – though they may forget it from time to time.

That’s the neat thing, if you say Jazz Basketball, we kind of know what that looked like. Sometimes it doesn’t happen as frequently as others, due to external circumstances no matter what, but we know what that means. And these guys, I think, responded to that tonight. We were more connected in a lot of ways, and that’s what we get. Even the smallest things: adjust screens, select and roll defensively. It feels good, so it’s a pleasure to play that way, not just to win, but to play that way.

Shout “Jazz Basketball”! It’s been a while since this phrase got a good mention at the press conference, but we Act Everyone knows what that means: playing as one, moving the ball, and playing hard. It was started by Jerry Sloan, really, and now Quinn passes it on as the perfect team. I love that.

I think, frankly, that continuity can be overstated. We are not the same team we were last year. So much so that you’re bringing back a core group of players – but everyone is different, you know, everyone has had different experiences from the time the playoffs ended up until this year. So I think because of that, finding a new level of consistency is something we have to work towards.

Oh man, after how many references from jazz staff over the years about how continuity of jazz throughout the year is going to take them to the promised land… how refreshing is it to hear someone say continuity is exaggerated?

Just because jazz was good last year doesn’t mean it will be good this year. And, you know, in the playoffs, it wasn’t that good last year. Given that, I want this year’s team to be different – that means an opportunity to score more than losing in the second round.

But in order to reach the level they want, they have to find themselves again this season. They can’t count on what they did last year anymore – they have to constantly play better.

And I hope Saturday night’s game will be the start of that.