PORTLAND — Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy didn’t mince words after his team was blown out by the Portland Trail Blazers 121-105 on Wednesday night.
“That was ugly,” he said.
The Jazz trailed by as many 32 points and finished the game with a season-high 24 turnovers to their name, and all of this came against one of the youngest and worst teams in the league.
“We have moments of just real, true stubbornness as a team,” Hardy said. “It’s going to continue to bite us if we don’t correct those things and we don’t show a willingness to just take the simple plays that are right in front of us.”
The Jazz went on the road following two solid games at home against the Phoenix Suns in which they played hard but lost. Although the results were not what the Jazz wanted in those contests, their execution and their effort were at the right level and they felt like they were trending in the right direction.
But the last two games on the road have left the Jazz feeling like some of the progress they’ve made this season has been undone.
“I think the flow offensively, before we got on this road trip, was was where we wanted it to be in terms of moving the ball, opportunities, creating, scoring, getting in the paint,” Jordan Clarkson said. “I don’t know where that went here these last two.”
Ultimately the lack of effort, execution and general level of caring led to Hardy making some interesting decisions on Wednesday.
Hardy changed some of the rotations, going to Simone Fontecchio, Ömer Yurtseven and Kris Dunn earlier in the game than he has previously (or if at all, in some cases). But then as the game proved to be out of reach for the Jazz, he left his normal starters on the court in the final minutes of the game.
“We needed to work on some stuff,” Lauri Markkanen said. “We knew that we might not come back and win the game in the last four minutes. That was more about getting live reps against another team and of how we wanted to execute.”
The Jazz ran the same two plays multiple times in those final minutes, ironing out what had gone wrong with those sets earlier in the game.
That’s a good use of time when you know you aren’t going to win, but the problem was how the team was playing before that point. The real problem came down to the same things that happened the night before in L.A. — sloppy offense and sleepy defense.
“The way we’ve played the last two games is not representative of who we want to be as a program,” Hardy said. “This is collective… I’m with them, and they know that and I go home after every game, win or loss, and I am constantly beating myself up about things that I did or didn’t do.
“And I just want them to take the same responsibility and ownership over this program. If you’re gonna wear a Utah Jazz jersey, you’ve got to give a (expletive) about the Utah Jazz.”
The hope is that the Jazz will be able to take Thursday off, enjoy their holiday at home with their families and come back to work on Friday willing to work through some of their issues with a fresh mind.
If they continue to run into the same problems though, Hardy is not shy about the fact that things could change as far as minutes and rotations go.
“We have to have the ability to be honest with each other and face the moments that are ugly,” Hardy said. “The world’s not ending, this is not doomsday for our team, but we’ve had two ugly games in a row and so tomorrow’s a reset day.”