Kyrie Irving’s 32 points were not enough for the Brooklyn Nets to overtake the Utah Jazz

Kyrie Irving was back in the Brooklyn Nets lineup for his second game after a shoulder injury sidelined the star for 26 games, and from the thumping the Brooklyn Nets took from the Utah Jazz last night, it’s official, Irving is not a savior for this team. The Nets lost to the Jazz 118-107, and thus, fell to 18-21 on the season with the loss, meanwhile the Jazz improved to 28-12 on the season with the victory.

How the Utah Jazz beat the Brooklyn Nets by the numbers:

Brooklyn shot .500 (45-of-90 FG) from the field last night, shooting .500 or better in a game for the fourth time this season and for the first time in a loss. However, Utah also shot .500 on 46-of-92 FG shooting. Utah also went further, it shot 36.1 percent (13-of-36) from behind the arc versus Brooklyn’s 30.8 percent (8-of-26), and it also punished the Nets on the free throw line 86.7 percent versus 60 percent.

Brooklyn Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson on the aspects of the game where the Utah Jazz caused problems for his team

“First of all, just give them credit,” said Brooklyn Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson about the Utah Jazz. “What you saw tonight backs up their stellar play recently. They’ve been the number one offense over 15, 20 games and we could never find a way to stop them. Just that simple. Transition defense, pick-and-roll defense, rebounding, physicality, all of this stuff, I think they just dominated. We’ve been really good defensively for the last couple of months, over a long period of time, and tonight we just weren’t. We never found a solution to stop them. I do want to look big picture and understand that we have been defending well lately. But they were just too strong tonight – made shots, screened us, great job by the Utah Jazz.”

Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving pretty much co-signed on Coach Atkinson’s assessment of last night’s game against the Utah Jazz.

“I mean, when you look at them on film—I’ve watched a few of their games and there is a reason why they are 15-1 in their last 16 games, so we have to give them credit, said Kyrie Irving. “They finished off the first quarter, we gave up five points. We were up 26-25 then it was 30-26 to end the last four minutes and then the second quarter, you play against really good teams like that, they go on runs. We were down 13 going into halftime and we were just climbing uphill. And we’ve had a tendency to do that over our fair share of games and we just can’t get into that kind of position moving forward. But that’s a good team in that locker room. They’ve really played well together this season and they’re developing, so you give them credit. But also, we can correct some things on the defensive end. Switches, communication, being there to switch when we call out switches, just little things like that and we just have to keep developing that and we’ll be alright.”

The Brooklyn Nets’ Leading Scorers

Kyrie Irving led all scorers with 32 points, with a season-high 11 assists, five rebounds, and two steals in 32 minutes. Spencer Dinwiddie recorded 17 points, five assists, and four rebounds in 36 minutes; Joe Harris added 13 points (5-of-10 FG) in 34 minutes, and; Caris LeVert chipped in 11 points, and three assists in 26 minutes off the bench.

Utah Jazz Leading Scorers

John Ingles scored a team-high 27 points, four assists, and three rebounds for the Utah Jazz in 30 minutes; Donovan Mitchell recorded 25 points and four assists in 36 minutes; Rudy Gobert accumulated 22 points, 18 rebounds, four assists, and two blocked shots in 37 minutes; Bojan Bogdanovic, a former Nets player, registered 18 points in 32 minutes, and; Jordan Clarkson came off the bench to chip in 13 points and three rebounds in 26 minutes.

Coach Speak: Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder

“I think we’re getting contributions from a lot of guys,” said Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder on what he saw in last night’s game against the Brooklyn Nets. I thought Rudy Gobert was terrific. It was a dominant performance by him on both ends of the floor. Joe Ingles obviously playing with Rudy, even driving and making plays. You kind of go on Donovan Mitchell, especially late when we really needed to score. Brooklyn was scoring, and we had to answer, and Donovan made some big moves to the rim and finished. So, all the way down the line, and everyone is defending. It’s not going to be perfect every possession, but the guys are really committed to defending together.”

At 6:20 in the third quarter, the Utah Jazz led the Brooklyn Nets by as much as 20 points and ended the third quarter up by 14 points at 88-74. In the fourth quarter at 6:48, the Nets got as close as eight points (99-91) on a Kyrie Irving five-foot pull-up jump shot, which pulled Nets fans in closer with the notion that the Nets just might be able to turn things around. However, it wasn’t to be as the Jazz had answers at every turn.

“I thought Brooklyn was playing well,” responded Jazz coach Quin Snyder to a question about the Nets cutting the lead down to eight in the fourth quarter. “They were scoring, whether it was (Spencer) Dinwiddie or Kyrie (Irving). They came up with a couple of loose balls, and I thought we answered offensively when we needed to. Sometimes you’re just against a good team and you’re not going to get every stop. You have to respond, and I think we continued to defend and got some big ones when we needed.”

Brooklyn Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson on catching a team like the Utah Jazz, “I would say right now they are far ahead of us; we’ve got a long way to go to catch a team like that.”

What’s Next for the Utah Jazz and the Brooklyn Nets?

 The Utah Jazz will travel to New Orleans with its sights on getting a win against the New Orleans Pelicans on Thursday, January 16, 2020, at 7:00 p.m. CT.

The Brooklyn Nets traveled to Philadelphia last night to be ready to play the Philadelphia 76ers tonight, January 15, at 7:00 p.m. ET. The Nets will return to Brooklyn, NY to play the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday, January 18, 2020, at the Barclays Center at 6:00 p.m. and you may want to arrive early to cop a Spencer Dinwiddie bobblehead doll.