Nobody in the NBA gives up more threes than the Miami Heat. Opponents make 16.4 a game against them and shoot 39.4 percent doing it, per NBA.com's opponent stats: the most makes in the league and the third-worst percentage. We make 11.5 a game at 32.2 percent, 26th. Something has to give at the Delta Center on Tuesday night, and we think it's Miami. Eight straight losses end tonight, as long as Ace Bailey takes the open threes the Heat hand him and makes a few of them.
That's the question tonight answers. Miami pressures the ball and leaves somebody open. Can a 22.6 percent three-point shooter make them pay?
Who's left to shoot
Keyonte George is out with the right ankle sprain he suffered in the fourth quarter Sunday in Minneapolis, per the NBA's official injury report (8 p.m. ET Monday, 6 p.m. MT). ESPN's injury list, read at 6 p.m. MT Monday, puts his expected return at Nov. 11, the Orlando game the next night. That's ESPN's estimate. The Jazz have only listed him out for Tuesday. Lauri Markkanen is questionable on the same report with the right wrist sprain that kept him out Sunday, and ESPN has him day-to-day.
Those two have taken more threes than anybody on the roster: Markkanen 73 in eight games (29 makes, 39.7 percent), George 59 in 10. Take them out and the volume lands on Darryn Peterson (19-of-52), Brice Sensabaugh (14-of-35) and Bailey, who is 12-of-53 for the season and 4-of-28 over the last five games. All of that is our count of the NBA.com box scores.
Will Hardy says the looks are there. "I thought the team's process offensively was pretty good," he said after Sunday's 115-100 loss in Minnesota, per Eric Spyropoulos's Jazz.com takeaways. We went 7-of-24 from three that night. Against Miami, the process gets its fairest test of the season.
How Miami guards
On Sunday in Sacramento, the Heat threw their pressure at Kings rookie Darius Acuff. Couper Moorhead wrote on Heat.com that Acuff was good enough "to draw blitzes and traps out of Miami," and that "the high-risk, high-reward nature of that coverage took a toll a few times over." With George out, Peterson is our Acuff. He had a career-high 26 Sunday on 11-of-21, 4-of-8 from three, and Hardy liked how he "handled ball pressure" against Minnesota, per the same Jazz.com piece. If Miami traps him, the ball goes to the open man, and on this roster the open man is a lot of Ace.
Bailey's part of the job is three makes. He has made more than two threes once in 10 games (3-of-6 against Memphis on Oct. 26). He's 20, and teams are going to leave him open until he makes them stop.
The Jazz's own preview makes the same point, with "Let it fly from deep" as its first key, and hopes the Jazz "knock a few down early." A few won't cover it. Miami's opponents make 16.4. We need 15, with Bailey's three in there.
The other end
Giannis Antetokounmpo is probable with a right wrist sprain on the official report. He's averaging 27.5 points and 12.8 rebounds and is 5-of-25 from three, our count. Moorhead wrote that Sacramento sent extra bodies at him every time he put the ball down, and Miami got the catch-and-shoot looks it wanted, with Klay Thompson hitting 7-of-13 from three on the night. Thompson is 40-of-93 (43.0 percent) on the season, and Davion Mitchell feeds everyone, at 8.5 assists a game.
Those kickouts are where our defense gets tested. Opponents shoot 35.7 percent from three against us, ninth-highest in the league per NBA.com, so we can't afford to be late to Thompson in the corner. We do block 6.3 shots a game, fourth in the NBA. Jaxson Hayes has 15 blocks in nine games and went 6-of-6 for 18 points Sunday, and Mo Bamba has 10 in six.
The glass shouldn't decide this one. Bamba played 17 minutes Sunday and Minnesota finished with 10 offensive rebounds, per NBA.com's box score, two nights after Dallas took 21 off us. Miami gets 10.3 a game, 28th in the league.
Tuesday at the Delta Center
Tip is 7 p.m. MT, on KJZZ and KSL 97.5 FM (schedule). We're 1-9, 15th in the West and 1-4 at home, back from an 0-4 road trip for two games in two nights, Miami tonight and Orlando on Wednesday. The Heat are 4-6 and eighth in the East. Utah is the last stop of a five-game West trip for them, after the Lakers, Clippers, Warriors and Kings, and they won the last one 114-108. They also give up 121.1 points a game, fourth-most in the league. DraftKings has Miami by 10.5, per ESPN, as of Monday evening.
Nobody has announced starters. Sunday's NBA.com box scores had Josh Green, Bailey, Hayes, Peterson and George for us, and Pelle Larsson, Antetokounmpo, Bam Adebayo, Thompson and Mitchell for Miami. Erik Spoelstra moved Larsson in for Andrew Wiggins on Sunday, per Moorhead. Jaren Jackson Jr. (right MCL tear) and Jusuf Nurkić (right foot, second plantar plate tear) are out, along with two-way players Trey Alexander, Kobe Bufkin and Harrison Ingram, listed "G League - Two-Way."
Jazz 116, Heat 112. The streak ends at eight. Miami is playing its fifth road game in nine days, and its defense leaves the arc open. What would make us wrong is Bailey going 1-of-4 again, like Sunday, while Thompson gets loose on the kickouts.
The number we'll check in the recap is our made threes on the NBA.com team line. We say 15 or more, with at least three from Bailey. If we make 15 and still lose, Giannis beat us. If we make 11 again, the slump is the shooters.
Take note.
Sources: NBA.com box scores for all 10 Jazz games and all 10 Heat games this season (three-point makes and attempts for Markkanen, George, Peterson, Sensabaugh, Bailey, Antetokounmpo and Thompson; Antetokounmpo's points and rebounds; Mitchell's assists; Hayes's and Bamba's blocks; Sunday's Jazz-Timberwolves box for Bamba's minutes, Hayes's line, Minnesota's offensive rebounds and our 7-of-24; the Nov. 6 Mavericks box for Dallas's 21; Miami's Nov. 8 Kings box for the score, Thompson's 7-of-13 and the starters; all season totals our count); NBA.com team stats for the opponent three-point numbers, points allowed and both teams' three-point, block and offensive rebound ranks; NBA.com's Heat schedule for the road trip; the NBA official injury report, 8 p.m. ET Nov. 9, for every Jazz and Heat status; ESPN's injury list (read 6 p.m. MT Nov. 9) for George's expected return and Markkanen's day-to-day entry; ESPN's standings for both records, conference places and the home record; Eric Spyropoulos on Jazz.com (Timberwolves takeaways, Nov. 8, for both Hardy quotes, George's injury and Peterson's career high; Heat preview, Nov. 9, for its first key and the two-game home stop); Couper Moorhead, Heat.com, Nov. 8, for both quotes on Miami's coverage, the Kings' pressure on Antetokounmpo and the Larsson lineup change; the line from DraftKings via ESPN.