Analysis: The final sequence, botched calls and defensive issues from the Jazz’s thrilling loss to the Kings

The Utah Jazz were so close to winning. I mean, they were one or two tenths of a second away from winning.

But ultimately it was the Sacramento Kings that walked away with a 117-115 victory on Tuesday night at Vivint Arena.

What’s interesting about the Jazz is that being in close games in the closing moments is not unfamiliar territory for this season’s squad.

The Jazz are tied for second in the league for most games played in clutch minutes, which means that the scoring margin is within five points with five or fewer minutes remaining in a contest.

The Jazz have been in 25 such games this season and are 10-15 in them. They were 10-10 in clutch games, but they are on a five-game losing streak, and each of those five games have been decided by five points or fewer.

Tuesday’s loss in particular is going to eat at the Jazz because of the wild way it all ended.

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The final sequence

Lauri Markkanen had just made three much-needed free throws to tie the game 115-115. On the Kings’ next trip down the floor, with the clock winding down, De’Aaron Fox got Markkanen switched onto him, waited, drove past Markkanen and laid the basket up with less than a second remaining, giving Sacramento a 2-point lead.

Jarred Vanderbilt inbounded the ball, a nearly full-court pass to Markkanen, who turned and shot just as the final buzzer sounded, and he makes it.

The Jazz celebrated!

But, upon review, Markkanen’s final shot was called off because the ball didn’t leave his hand before time ran out. He needed just a fraction of a moment more. Kings win.

Now let’s rewind just a little bit.

When Fox’s game-winning bucket went through the net, the game clock was stopped at 0.4 seconds.

But there should have actually been more time on the clock. From my view, the Jazz should have had 0.6 seconds, which would have given Markkanen the time he needed to get off his final shot, which looks like it might have been a 3-pointer and a game-winner.

In order to get that, the officials would have had to review and change the clock, and then the Kings might have defended the inbounds play differently and Markkanen might not have got the shot off or got the same quality of shot.

And it’s important to note here that humans are controlling the clock. I tried to replicate the final moments to understand the level of difficulty.

Watching the Fox shot, I used a stopwatch to see how accurate I would be in stopping the clock. I ended up with 0.4 seconds on my first try and got to 0.45 seconds on my second try. It’s incredibly hard to get these things perfect.

“I saw the screenshots saying that there was supposed to be 0.6 left, but with human error, it’s impossible to know exactly when to stop the clock,” Markkanen said after the game.

“It’s easy to say from a picture that there should have been 0.2 more and then the shot counts, but in the moment, someone just pressing a button, it’s impossible to get it exactly right.”

The botched calls

There are three calls the officials either didn’t make or made that are really going to bother Jazz faithful when they think about this game, and there’s absolutely good reason for that.

The first is this clear backcourt violation by Domantas Sabonis, which was initially called correctly and then after a conversation between officials, was overturned and possession was given back to Sacramento.

Sabonis does lose possession when Kelly Olynyk swipes the ball, but he gains possession and dribbles the ball in the frontcourt before then stepping into the backcourt.

The second questionable officiating decision was this no-call when Fox stepped out of bounds.

The Kings maintained possession and Keegan Murray hit a 3-pointer despite the fact that Fox was clearly out of bounds when he tapped the ball to Murray.

Finally, there was this jumpball that was called between Markkanen and Murray (shoutout to Mark Pereira for helping provide videos).

I don’t think that this qualifies as a jumpball scenario. There is a section in the NBA rule book that calls for a jumpball when “the ball becomes dead when neither team is in control and no field goal or infraction is involved.”

But this is a live ball that isn’t being held by two players and is still in play. This should have been a no-call, in my opinion.

The Jazz’s defense

Now, the final sequence and the botched calls from the officials will probably stick in the craw of some of the players as well as the fans, but if we’re being completely honest, the Jazz shouldn’t have had to rely on those moments to win the game.

If we look at Fox’s game-winning shot, Markkanen gets blown by.

“Disappointed in myself,” Markkanen said. “De’Aaron Fox was making some tough shots and I pressured up on him a little too much and he got a layup.” 

But even before the final minutes, the Jazz players put themselves in a bad spot. They played pretty good defense after the first quarter, for the most part, but the defense in that first quarter was awful.

The Kings jumped out to an early 31-17 lead, forcing the Jazz to fight back throughout the rest of the night.

If the Jazz didn’t allow the Kings to get rolling early and if they weren’t so stagnant with the ball on the offensive side in those early minutes, we’re probably not talking about tenths of a second or a couple of no-calls.

Those are the things that the Jazz are going to focus on in the coming days. Those are the things they’re going to want to fix.