The thing with Ricky Rubio is that his flat-ass jumpers never feel sustainable. They go in often enough, I guess, but do you ever see him put one up and think “oh yeah that’s definitely going in”? No. So when he has a good stretch of gametime where he’s line-driving them into the hole, you just know that it’ll stop at some point.
This game, the Jazz needed a replacement for Donovan Mitchell’s missing scoring. And for the first half, Rubio was that replacement. But it was all jumpers. All flat jumpers that pale in comparison to Mitchell’s beautiful arches. In the end, his scoring tapered off, an the Grizzlies came back and won behind Shelvin Mack’s burning desire for revenge.
I also want to take issue with the oop he threw to Grayson Allen. Here’s the deal: that play was reserved for Gordon Hayward ONLY. No one else gets to catch an oop on that play. I don’t blame Rubio necessarily for running the play his coach ordered, but it wouldn’t have been a bad time for some insubordination. Some things are just sacred, man.