This Jazz team is more aggressive this year and is shown on both ends of the field in victory against Celtics

1. Donovan Mitchell leads a fantastic Jazz offensive performance

Donovan Mitchell is proving that haters are wrong.

In particular, he drove the last half quarter, pushing the Jazz away from the Celtics through aggression and shooting. He had great recognition of when it was his turn to attack and when the Celtics defense paid too much attention to him and left someone else open. More than anything, he read the game on the fly and made the right decision every time.

Like, I’m really very impressed with this play. Yes, clearly, this is a big Boston mistake, leaving Bojan Bogdanovic open right after a timeout. But I think earlier versions of Mitchell don’t take advantage, rather they prefer to execute the play that Quin Snyder produced in the waiting time. Here, Mitchell has his eyes open and is ready to throw himself with the long pass.

Again, an old version of Mitchell delays the game here; he loves to walk the ball to the court with the game closed late. After a missed free throw, how often do you get a quick break? But Mitchell and Joe Ingles recognize the opportunity, and then Mitchell attacks in the perfect way to open Ingles.

He continues to get just three outstanding roll shots – all three shots and an ankle break that may be the most important play at SportsCenter. He’s in a groove, on TNT, with the perfect opportunity to keep increasing the total points, proving that the haters are wrong. The defense, again, focuses on one thing, stopping Mitchell.

So what does he do? Draw the defense and throw it at Rudy Gobert.

That’s what makes this team feel a little different – they really play with each other and it’s largely due to Mitchell’s attitude as the team’s best offensive player.

“Both passes to Rudy, you all know, last year, the year before, and the year before, I probably wouldn’t throw that pass,” Mitchell said. “So, this is the progression I am seeing in myself. And my teammates see me and they can only trust me ”.

The Jazz has today obtained an offensive rating of 130 against the eighth best defense in the league, a team with a lot of perimeter length and talent. Nor did they shoot well above average; it was not a casual performance. So far they have answered all the possible offensive questions that have been asked at the highest level.

2. Aggression by both ends

I’ve been thinking about the differences between this Jazz team and last year and I think I’ve identified one big one:

I think previous jazz teams tried to dissect their opponent. Sorry to spread a horrible metaphor here, but if the Jazz wanted their opponent dead, they asked him to put him on the operating table, put him under anesthesia, take out a scalpel, cut his skin on his chest, they removed some ribs, aorta, and all other arteries and veins, and then removed his opponent’s heart. At one point, talented opponents thought “wait, I don’t like what’s going on here” and sometimes they ran away.

This Jazz team has a more direct approach. They have a machete. If they want their opponent to be dead, they will start swinging.

They take seven more three per game. They are operating in transition way month. They have fully unleashed Jordan Clarkson to do whatever he wants, that means attacking. Even players like Ingles, Royce O’Neale and Miye Oni, who have been really reluctant to make shots at times in their career, let it go.

Focusing on English for a second; he took 11 shots tonight. But not only that, he also hit the free throw line 10 times, most of his career in the NBA. Yes, the Celtics do change the switch a bit, but do you know how many English versions aren’t ready to take advantage of them, especially with clock time? This English version does come and go.

And, on the defensive side, they get it more. This season, they average almost two more blocks per game than last, for example. Rudy Gobert is fantastic blocking basketball, but I thought last season he was a little too happy to play the percentages; yes, a medium shot is a bad shot, but you still have a 35% chance of getting in.

Unless you just block it. Then you have a 0% chance.

Because they have been more aggressive, they repeatedly repeat these game-breaking races that only ruin opponents, such as a hacked video game in which points are accumulated by combining attacks. This is not the case Operation, is Mortal Kombat.

I think this is the first time I’m directly discussing refereeing this season. Honestly, for the most part, I think it’s been great this year.

Tonight’s crew of Leroy Richardson, Mark Ayotte and Tony Brown were really poor. I could have a more detailed list of doubts, but tonight they have committed a lot of arbitrary sins:

• No consistency from one period to another. There were seven combined free-kick attempts in the first half and 34 combined free-kick attempts in the second half. It just became absurd in the last two periods and made the match very good to watch.

• Guess the calls. Replay was uncomfortable with the soggy pitch as he couldn’t move the ball around with his usual grace. Similarly, there were a lot of times when a player ended up on the ground and the referees assumed there was a foul on the defensive player.

• Fouls called after a mark or foul. There is no need to examine the result of a throw when deciding to make a whistle. If there was a lack, call one. If not, keep playing.

• Arbitration of rubber bands. I thought it was pretty clear that whistles were more likely to sound in one direction when the game needed to be kept close. This applied especially in the third trimester, when I had to bite my tongue on some whistles at Jayson Tatum.

I will say it on a positive note: they did not aggravate their mistake by giving a technique to either side, with several players clearly dissatisfied with what was happening on the court. I like to give both teams room for maneuver instead of making an even bigger show of things by adding points in one direction or another.

But overall, it was a frustrating match for fans of both teams – just search on Twitter or read the game threads to confirm it. Like I said, I think it’s been a good refereeing season so far, but tonight was an exception.