Four Quarters—Jazz 93, Rockets 104 (Season Opener)

After hanging tight with the Houston Rockets through three quarters, the Jazz fell behind late before suffering a 104-93 loss to open the 2014-15 season. Alec Burks scored a team-high 18 points for the Jazz, while Trevor Booker came off the bench to score 14 points and grab five rebounds. Dwight Howard led the Rockets with 22 points (and six fouls, much to the delight of the Utah crowd) and Trevor Ariza added 20 points while draining four 3-pointers. Despite the double-digit margin in the end, the game was close throughout. And it was clear from the beginning of the ...

FIRST QUARTER that the matchup of the night was going to be Derrick Favors vs. Howard, who started out on fire with a layup, three quick dunks and a jump hook in the first four minutes. Favors, though, countered with three baskets of his own as the game was tied at 12-12. Enes Kanter dropped in three buckets, all from the low post, while Alec Burks added two of his typical contorting layups. Rodney Hood drilled a 3-pointer from the right corner as the teams remained tied at 27 heading into the ...  

SECOND QUARTER. The Jazz started off quickly with a give-and-go set piece from Rudy Gobert to Danté Exum and back to Gobert for an alley-oop jam. Exum also swished a 3-pointer then grabbed a steal and went coast-to-coast for a layup that gave Utah a 38-32 lead. Houston’s Kostas Papanikolaou (good luck with the pronunciation), though, hit two consecutive threes, and after playing neck-and-neck for the first 23 minutes, the Rockets closed the first half on a 8-0 run (including a step-back three by Harden with less than a second remaining) to take a 58-50 lead into halftime. The ... 

THIRD QUARTER started just like the first—with a dunk by Howard. Burks drilled a corner three for the Jazz before Ariza answered with a three of his own to push Houston’s lead to 68-57. Another Ariza three gave Houston a 75-62 lead with just over three minutes remaining in the quarter. The Jazz, though, grabbed the momentum with a 10-0 run (which included three aggresive driving layups by Burke) to close the quarter. Houston took a 75-72 into the ...

FOURTH QUARTER, where the Rockets grabbed back the momentum with an 14-0 run early in the period that essentially put the game away. Terrence Jones scored seven of his nine points in the fourth quarter, and threes by Ariza and Jason Terry kept Houston rolling. Favors scored eight points in the final four minutes for Utah.

The game was won (and lost) behind the 3-point line. Houston made 14 threes (in 27 attempts) while the Jazz went only 3-for-18 (16.7 percent) from deep. Trey Burke (0-for-4) and Gordon Hayward (0-for-3) were particularly cold and missed a half-dozen wide-open looks between them.

Derrick Favors was limited to only 27 minutes because of (Surprise!) foul trouble whilst guarding Dwight Howard. In fact, it took only 18 seconds for Favors to pick up his first foul. Still, Favors made the most of his time on the court, filling the box score with 16 points, seven rebounds, two assists, three steals and four blocks. It was a solid start after a solid preseason for Utah’s big man.

Rodney Hood and Danté Exum made the most out of their regular season debuts for the Jazz. Each of them (Hood with 1:55 left in the first quarter, and Exum with 8:44 left in the second quarter) swished a 3-pointer for their first career bucket—and each came on their first attempt. Not a bad start for Utah’s rookies.

Even though Derrick Favors had a game-high four blocked shots, it was Rodney Hood who came up big during Utah’s third-quarter run. The rookie jumped high to swat away a perimeter jumper from Jason Terry, then grabbed the loose ball and led a Jazz fast break that resulted in a layup by Trevor Booker.

The Jazz will hit the road for a game tomorrow night against the Dallas Mavericks. Tipoff is set for 6:30 p.m. MT and the game will be televised on ROOT SPORTS.