In Utah Jazz head coach Will Hardy’s postgame comments, he didn’t mention that Brice Sensabaugh scored 41 points. Frankly, with so many of the Jazz’s normal scorers sidelined, someone has to put the ball in the basket.
Instead, he pointed to what every watching at home saw with their own eyes — the Jazz were absolutely demolished in a 147-111 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night and didn’t look like they even put up a fight.
“There’s some games where you lose and there’s some games that are disappointing — that one was disappointing," Hardy said.
“It’s not about one person. We were just sloppy all the way around and pretty much start to finish. We had a little flurry there to start the game where we made shots, but we called the quick timeout because we were just walking around defensively.
“And 15 live ball turnovers is hard to overcome. We put ourselves in some bad spots in transition because of it ... a better job in the second half, protecting the paint, but the scramble after that to get to 3-point shooters was not good enough.”
Hardy mentioned that the Jazz players looked like a team that was at the end of a long trip. But the Jazz were on a three-game trip, not a super long one. And they had a day in between each of the first two games and then two days off before their game in Minnesota.
If anything, the players should be thankful that they had two days off before what will be a very quick turnaround, with the Jazz slated to play home at the Delta Center on Thursday in the second game of a back-to-back against the Milwaukee Bucks.
“We’ve got to just really focus right now on trying to find our energy,” Hardy said. “And it’s not just physical, like it doesn’t manifest itself as just physical energy. We need to communicate. We need to be a little bit more engaged as a group. Tonight, we just sort of felt flat from start to finish.”
Even in the final minutes, with the rarely utilized Mike Conley and Joe Ingles on the court for the Timberwolves, alongside their deepest of bench players, Minnesota was able to maintain it’s nearly 40-point lead over the players the Jazz had on the court.
Part of a loss like this is an indictment on the active roster, which is by design missing the most talented of the Jazz’s players — Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr., Walker Kessler, Keyonte George — but even in the doggest of dog days of the season, with players who are likely playing for their careers and given a chance to showcase their talent to the NBA, a head coach shouldn’t have to call into question energy and effort.
Hardy is right. Had the Jazz lost this game based on being bested and facing a more talented team, then it would have been different than what actually played out on Wednesday. Instead, they looked like they’d already thrown in the towel.