Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell blocks Orlando Magic center Wendell Carter Jr. as the Utah Jazz host the Orlando Magic at Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City, Feb. 10, 2022.The Magic aren’t good — they made so many bad errors tonight, particularly in the first half. Their offense is a slog. Their defense is relatively exploitable, too. And yet, they do present some challenges for the Jazz that have been among their weaknesses in recent years: score-first guards playing with shooting big men.
Second, Mitchell is anticipating the pass, while Clarkson is just doing his best to get back to his man, even if Whiteside already has it covered. Obviously, Mitchell has tools and leaping ability Clarkson doesn’t have, too. Honestly, watching the video of Alexander-Walker in New Orleans, I get it. I’ll get into this in a more detailed article later, but he’s a really, really poor decision maker right now, really on both ends of the floor. Maybe that changes overnight, but in a game today, I’m probably picking Butler too. That doesn’t mean Alexander-Walker doesn’t have potential, but I do think that it makes his road to playing and contributing to the Jazz in this year’s playoffs a lot tougher.
That may not surprise you, given that the Magic suck. But even surprisingly good teams have miniscule independent beat corps. Most of the league’s teams have just one independent beat writer covering the team traveling. Phoenix and Denver frequently have had zero in recent years. The Clippers, along with Chicago and Dallas see only one or two, despite being large markets with relevant teams.