On Saturday, the Utah Jazz were scheduled to hold practice at noon, but as 2 p.m. approached, no on had taken the court at Zions Bank Basketball Campus.
The team was still in the film room and had been in there the whole time.
After Friday’s 41-point loss to the Golden State Warriors, Jazz head coach Will Hardy decided that rather than spend the time on the court, everyone’s time would be better spent practicing from a mental standpoint.
“We just watched the entire game,” rookie Cody Williams said. “Broke down each play, each clip and just went from there. It was kinda more of an open discussion instead of Will just yelling and telling us what we did wrong. It was us saying what we see and how we can fix it.”
The points of emphasis for the Jazz during the film session were urgency, competitiveness and body language. While edited down clips are good for teaching a specific action or read, Hardy feels that in order to address bigger concepts, watching the flow of the game allows for context to be understood.
“It’s like, this shot wasn’t good, not just because we don’t like the shot, but we don’t like the shot based on the last two possessions being turnovers and sloppy and we haven’t made them guard for three minutes now,” Hardy said.
He continued with an example of a play on defense: “This play defensively in transition with Buddy Hield is unacceptable always. It’s even more unacceptable because he’s just made two in a row. This is the third one. We’re not recognizing what’s going on, and so when you watch the game and flow, the guys can see and feel how a game can get away from you.”
In addition to watching how the Jazz were playing on both sides of the ball, there was particular emphasis put on the players’ body language as the game progressed.
For example, there might be a stretch in the second quarter wherein the Jazz commit two turnovers in a row, and instead of bouncing back and playing hard on defense, you could see how disappointed the players were.
They were visibly deflated, and that type of reaction to mistakes impacts effort and physicality and breeds even more mistakes.
“Scheme doesn’t matter if you don’t play hard,” Hardy said. “Nothing’s going to work if you go half speed, and the games are way too long and the season is way too long to overreact to everything that doesn’t go our way.
“The body language piece is a big deal for us as a group.”
The open forum-style film session like the one on Saturday works on a few different levels for the Jazz. It gives Hardy a chance to see and hear things from the players’ perspective, it makes the team feel like they aren’t being lectured constantly and it is also used to get the younger players and some of the more introverted players on the roster used to speaking up and not being afraid to share and ask questions.
“For us to get where we want to go, we’ve got to strip some of that down and have the ability to openly communicate with each other,” Hardy said.
“We don’t feel like we have to make every message neat and tidy, and it’s definitely good for the the introverts of the group to speak up in front of their teammates and to see that speaking up is OK and you don’t get cracked for doing it, so I thought today was a really good day for our team.”
The Jazz are 0-2 on the season and will play their first road game of the 2024-25 campaign on Monday in Dallas before returning home.