NEW YORK — The Utah Jazz lost to the New York Knicks, 126-120, on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.
Here are three keys that contributed to the Jazz’s loss:
- Lauri Markkanen was having one of his worst games of the season, scoring just 12 points through the first three quarters and 0 of 6 from 3-point range in that span. He started to get into more of a rhythm in the fourth quarter, but the Knicks were able to capitalize on the Jazz’s mistakes to offset what Markkanen was able to do.
Markkanen finished with 29 after an impressive outing in the fourth, but his lack of efficiency early on meant the Jazz were never able to pull ahead.
- Timely 3s in the fourth quarter allowed the Knicks to break open the game. Jalen Brunson, R.J. Barrett, Josh Hart and Julius Randle all scored some clutch baskets off broken plays, in transition and on second-chance opportunities with the Jazz struggling to recover off misses and offensive rebounds by New York.
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- Though things settled a little for the Jazz as the game went on, the first half included a lot of bad decisions, turnovers and fouls that continued to stall the game and the Jazz weren’t able to get into a good rhythm. Kelly Olynyk picked up two fouls in the first five minutes, Collin Sexton would eventually foul out of the game in the fourth quarter and the Knicks made good on 28 of their 38 free-throw attempts, including Brunson going 14 of 15 from the charity stripe.