Before the Utah Jazz tipped off against the Denver Nuggets on Friday night, Jazz head coach Will Hardy was asked if he studied teams like the Nuggets in order to see what is working for a winning team in the NBA.
“We’re trying to study the best teams in our league all the time,” Hardy said .“You get a moment to focus on them a little bit differently when you’re preparing to play them, but I mean, these are things we’re looking at throughout the season, and then especially during the playoffs — watching as many playoff games as you can and trying to study and determine what ultimately wins, what actually wins in the playoffs in our league."
Respectfully, if I were the Jazz, watching the Nuggets, studying what they were doing and trying to emulate that, I would simply get one of the best players of all time and a team full of pressure-tested dogs who are talented and efficient.
If I were studying, what would I take away from the Jazz’s 135-129 loss to the Nuggets — a game that the Jazz were leading by as many as 14 points in the third quarter?
I would see that the good teams, the ones that are headed for the playoffs, sometimes relax and find themselves trailing against a clearly inferior team.
At that point, the good teams, they just do better. They try harder, they utilize their superior talent and then they win the games with ease.
In this, the 74th game in an 82-game season, I hope you’ll excuse some sarcasm from a beat reporter who has seen every single moment of the Jazz being absolutely abysmal throughout this rebuild and tanking effort.
What’s the saying? Play stupid games, win stupid prizes?
This is what you get when you are playing the worst lineup you have. Even if that lineup surprises a better team that has its guard down, that lineup still isn’t capable of beating the best in the business.
There were some impressive moments from Jazz players Friday, if you ignored the relaxation and unnaturally blasé effort from the Nuggets.
A really great 25 points from Kyle Filipowski and 24 for Cody Williams. Adorable.
And then Jamal Murray had a 31-point, 14-assist double-double and Nikola Jokić notched a 33-point, 15-rebound, 12-assist triple-double.
So, yeah...the talent gap is massive.
“Games like tonight are great more than the prep piece,” Hardy said. “It’s great for our young players to play against the top players and top teams in the league and continue to feel the level that’s needed to compete against the best.”
Well, I hope they felt that on Friday. I hope the Jazz players really internalized the feeling that they are not in fact Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, and that in order to win at the highest level in the NBA, those are the kinds of players who need to be on the court.