Well, that’s not an ideal way to start a five-game road trip.

There was a sequence in the third quarter where Marcin Gortat missed a layup on one end, the Jazz snagged the miss and countered on the other end with a Donovan Mitchell three-pointer. It was that kind of a night as the Wizards got blown out on Monday night, 116-69.

The no-longer-under-the-radar-rookie Donovan Mitchell jump-started the Jazz with 21 points on 8 of 13 shooting as the Jazz had this one wrapped up early in the second quarter.

Washington needs to bury the tape from this one and move on as quickly as possible to the next game.

Takeaways

Washington falls into the Jazz’s trap

When the Jazz force you to play their brand of basketball, it’s game over. They shorten the game, swing the ball, force you into taking midrange jumpers while they create opportunities in the paint and get open corner threes. That was all on display in the first half as the Jazz put their mark on this game early.

Utah got too many easy baskets close to the hole as they scored 34 points in the paint in the first half compared to Washington’s eight. After establishing their paint presence, the Jazz started swinging the ball around the horn resulting in seven first half three-pointers as the Wizards were left to chase them around the perimeter.

On the flip side, it wasn’t much prettier as Utah ran Washington off of the three-point line and funneled them into taking midrange jumpers all night. The Wizards narrowed the three-point attempt gap in garbage time, but the Jazz still wound up attempting 14 more threes than Washington and making a dozen more than the Wizards did.

Terrible first half plagues Washington

The first half was ugly.

The Wizards shot just 27 percent from the field in the first half and only managed to hit on 11 field goal attempts. No Washington player scored in double figures and Otto Porter was the only Wizards player to shoot at least 40 percent from the field.

Washington lacked anything resembling tenacity as the Jazz more than doubled the Wizards up in the half, 64-30. In fact, the Jazz had more points in the paint (34) than the Wizards had in the half (30).

You had to look very hard to find a stat that favored Washington in the first half of play.

Bradley Beal struggles again

For the third time in four games, Bradley Beal had a tough night. After starting the evening just 1-5 from the field, he got rid of his protective goggles as they looked to be bothering him once again. Beal finished the night with 11 points on 4-15 shooting and missing all of his three-point attempts.

It’s not time to push the panic button yet, but Beal has been in a bit of a funk over these past four games and the Wizards need him desperately to snap out of it.

Game Notes

• Washington scored just 69 points tonight, a season-low.
• Tomas Satoransky’s streak of three straight games with no turnovers ended tonight.
• The Wizards had as many assists (4) as they did turnovers (4) in the first half (OK, I’ll stop with these kinds of stats.)
• Jason Smith got playing time tonight (!!!)

Next up: The Wizards are back in action on Tuesday night as they face the Blazers in Portland at 10 p.m.