Edit: wanna add to this that I’m not just trying to look for positives to look for positives, it was a rough night and this 5 game losing streak has really kicked our ass and perspective on the season.

I’m a hardcore Ochai defender, also a Taylor Hendricks defender as he was my man going into draft night, but a reason I like these guys so much is their defensive capabilities and overall effort in every aspect of the game.

To get straight into it, his effort on defense goes way overlooked, tonight he did a phenomenal job staying with his man while Keyonte and Clarkson struggled to guard especially late. He had a killer chase down block on Mathurin which Utah had to challenge to even get it to count. On the offensive end he made some really huge passes and he’s extremely unselfish, he had a play where they kicked it to him in the corner and he had a pacer defender closing in quick, rather than taking the shot he kicks it to the opposing wing to THT who would make a nice pass to Collins for the open three on the other corner.

He doesnt have great handles, that’s no secret, but he also knows when to pass the ball and just made the right reads all night. I wanna talk about a play in the Chicago game where we got smacked, but Chicago had a fast break where Lavine got the trailing pass and Ochai once again got the recovery chase down block, then Chicago saved it passing it back to Coby white who was on the opposing wing and Ochai beat everyone back for the recovery contest which still resulted in an open 3 from a lack of help. He also was the 2nd best defensive option on DeRozan behind Markkanen and Chicago didn’t even get DeMar the ball much at all when Ochai was on him. Tonight it was the same way on every defensive possession, Indiana attacked Keyonte, Sexton, THT and Clarkson but rarely Ochai (someone should break these ones down a bit better though because half of the plays I couldn’t even tell who was supposed to be guarding too, just looked awful as a team).

Ochai tonight goes 1-3 from the field, 3 shots is it, and his first was in the 2nd half, I personally think you gotta get him some shots early so he can get in rhythm then get him some shot attempts late. Even an extra two attempts goes a long way for him tonight. On the negatives he had a few Turnovers but so did everyone else it seemed. He also gets 4 boards and like Kris Dunn Ochai really puts in the work to get his rebounds.

My whole takeaway with him is that the team just looks so much better when he’s on the floor and he’s exactly the guy Utah needed in their last two playoff series. I think you keep him in that starting lineup and you let him develop the same way you let Keyonte develop, except I feel like his development is going to lead you to closer games, more wins and just an overall more bearable experience to watch.

We still have a long way to go this season and obviously it looks even more bleak than it did a few days ago, but there are things that could flip the switch for us and Ochai is one of them. To cap it off, I can’t wait until Hendricks is ready for NBA action because I feel the same way about him, although he’s going to make a lot of rookie mistakes. Hope things go well for the team as a whole though figured I’d just spread my Ochai agenda because I have noticed his impact like crazy.