PHOENIX — The Utah Jazz had a four point lead with 4.7 seconds left in regulation Friday night against the Phoenix Suns, but then Greyson Allen hit two of the most clutch shots of his career to send the game into overtime.
Allen hit the first trey with 2.2 seconds left to pull Phoenix within a point, and the Suns immediately fouled on the ensuing inbound play. Lauri Markkanen went to the free throw line and sank both bonus shots.
Then Allen hit his second heroic 3 as the final regulation buzzer sounded.
In overtime, the Suns outscored the Jazz 12-5, sprinting to a victory on the back of 47 points scored by Devin Booker on a night when he was honored at the Footprint Center for becoming the Suns’ all-time leading scorer.
But before the overtime period, before Allen’s buzzer beater, there were reasons to heap both praise and criticism onto the Jazz’s players, especially their young ones.
Offensive excellence
Markkanen, John Collins and Walker Kessler combined for 60 points and were all nailing what they do best. In particular, knowing they would have a size advantage through large stretches of the game, the Jazz pulled down 25 offensive rebounds and scored 27 second-chance points.
Kessler finished the night with a staggering 19 points and and 22 rebounds on his own.
Rookie Isaiah Collier had one of his best NBA games, dishing out 10 assists in the first half alone. He finished the night with 15 points, 13 assists and four rebounds.
“I thought Isaiah was terrific,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. “He had 13 assists, and in my mind he probably (should have) had 20. His pace and his decision making has been fantastic. His speed in transition and the force he puts on the paint, he’s getting better and better.”
Fellow rookie Kyle Filipowski also had a double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds in just 15 minutes off the bench. Hardy noted that Filipowski has had to change the way he looks at playing basketball. After coming from high school and college where he’s been an offensive focal point and one of the guys who is getting plays called for him on nearly every possession, he’s now in a position where he has to try to find a way to impact the game without the ball.
That’s meant that often Filipowski is trying to make sure that he’s committing to hard screens, talking on defense, crashing the glass and looking at the best opportunity no matter the circumstances — whether thats making a good pass, taking a quick floater or just forcing his way into a boxout.
In his 15 minutes on the court, he grabbed eight offensive rebounds. For context, that’s just one shy of what Kessler got in 37 minutes.
“He doesn’t get to play 36 minutes and so you don’t get the rhythm of the game quite the same,” Hardy said, “but he’s bought into doing little things — his effort, his rebounding, his screening...I’ve been really proud of how he’s taken that messaging, and he’s dealing with it as well as any young player can.”
Defensive flaws
The Jazz were a tad slow on their switches on the two dagger 3s Allen hit at the end of regulation, but those are things the Jazz can watch on film and teach really quickly. Those are smaller mistakes in the grand scheme of things.
It was the defense throughout the 47 minutes leading up to that point that got under Hardy’s skin.
“Tonight’s game has nothing to do with the last four and a half seconds,” he said. “It has to do with the fact that we did not direct Devin Booker ever in isolation. He went away from the help 75% of the time tonight, and then we got caught in rotations because of it.”
The players most responsible for this on Saturday night were Keyonte George, Collier and Svi Mykhailiuk, but once there is one mistake that leads to rotations, it’s the responsibility of every other player to communicate and move fast enough to make up for the first mishap.
Booker is the kind of player who, even if he is forced into the middle of the floor, he’s going to hit some low-percentage but really impressive mid-range fadeaways.
He’s just that good, but it shouldn’t be a cake walk into layups, cross court passes and easy buckets. However, he got all of that and them some against the Jazz.
“Our isolation defense and the ability to direct the ball is not very good right now,” Hardy said. “We have a lot of players who have to improve in that area.”
The good news is that the Jazz get to try it again Saturday in a back-to-back against the Los Angeles Clippers.