The Utah Jazz finally snapped their losing streak on Wednesday night.
They hadn’t seen a winning score at the end of a game since the last game Mike Conley played in, on Nov. 19th.
But behind 33 points from Jordan Clarkson, 23 points from Lauri Markkanen and 21 points from Collin Sexton, the Jazz came away with a 125-112 win over the Los Angeles Clippers.
Sticking with Clarkson through foul trouble
At the 8:54 mark in the third quarter Jordan Clarkson picked up his 4th foul. Immediately, Will Hardy called Malik Beasley over from the bench. But as Beasley walked toward the scorers table to check in, Clarkson approached Hardy on the sideline and pleaded with the head coach to leave him in the game.
“I just kind of game him a hand signal and told him, ‘I’m good, I’m good, I won’t foul,” Clarkson said. “And shoot, big ups to him, he trusted me on that. I didn’t pick up my fifth ‘til late in the fourth.”
Hardy, convinced by Clarkson’s promise to not foul again, left Clarkson in the game. After all, he’d already scored 18 points and seemed to be on a bit of a heater. The decision paid off as Clarkson continued his tear, scoring 11 of his game-high 33 points in the third quarter alone.
“I just thought we was on a good pace in the game,” Clarkson said. “Just wanted to kind of create some separation at that time and, man, I appreciate him.”
The rest of Clarkson’s teammates could feel that he was having a good game and saw how much he’d helped to put pressure on the Clippers on both sides of the ball to that point. So, in order to keep Clarkson’s word to Hardy good and to make sure that the leading scorer was going to be on the floor through the rest of the game, it took some really smart maneuvering by the Jazz on the defensive end. The Jazz wanted Clarkson to be able to close the game and that meant they had to do whatever they could to keep him from picking up another foul.
“When I got in that foul trouble, those guys were so active in getting me off the ball and pushing me to different situations where I could kind of get out of the play defensively,” Clarkson said. “I just thank them for their communication and all that effort that they put in on that end, for me to stay in the game and keep continuing to make plays offensively.”
Breaking the losing streak, by any means necessary
While Hardy had thought about giving a guy like Clarkson a couple minutes away from the game early in the third quarter, when it came down to the final period of the game, Hardy saw the light at the end of the tunnel and decided that all rest could be had on Thursday.
The Jazz were leading by nine points heading into the fourth and the Jazz’s head coach wanted to get this win. He wanted the five-game losing streak to end. He did not want to concede anything in the final quarter.
So, even though Lauri Markkanen and Clarkson had played the entirety of the third quarter, and Collin Sexton had played all but 45 seconds of the third quarter, Hardy was not going to take them out of the game.
Markkanen thought a couple of times that he was going to get subbed out, but every time he looked up he realized that nobody was coming in for him. Hardy said that midway through the fourth quarter Sexton asked for a sub, which Hardy denied. Instead, his message to the team was to use timeouts wisely, take a breath, drink water, and get ready because they’re not coming out of the game.
“I was like ‘Coach, I need a quick sub,’ and he was just like, ‘You’re not tired. You’re not tired. I’m gonna just walk away so better catch your breath,’” Sexton said, laughing about the interaction. “I caught my breath and then he was like, ‘Alright, now go pick up full court.’”
Sexton finished the night having played just over 30 minutes.
Clarkson, who Hardy told outright at the end of the third that he wouldn’t be coming out of the game, was just shy of 40 minutes by the end of the night. Markkanen and Kelly Olynyk each played 36 minutes. Hardy played just seven players in the second half of Wednesday night’s game.
“We were trying to win,” Hardy said. “I thought those guys had good mojo tonight. It was just a feel thing. Nobody necessarily did anything wrong or terrible. It was just I thought that group was playing very well. I thought it was really important that we come out of tonight with a win.”
The Jazz will not practice on Thursday, they earned the day off.