The Utah Jazz were a peculiar team on Monday night.
The passion wasn’t there. The joy of playing with one another wasn’t there. The fight, that was almost nowhere to be found. The Jazz have been universally fun this season. They weren’t fun on Monday night against a Dallas Mavericks team that had almost nobody of note because they had just traded for Kyrie Irving and they were already missing Luka Dončić to injury.
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In a game that should have been a layup for Utah, the Jazz played like it should have been a layup. And it turned into a brick, a 124-111 loss at Vivint Arena on a night when Utah couldn’t stop Jaden Hardy or Josh Green.
Do you want to know where Jaden Hardy and Josh Green were roughly this time last year?
Well, Hardy’s stock as a one-time lottery prospect was in the midst of dropping to an eventual second-round draft pick because he couldn’t make a shot in the G League. And the Jazz were busy scheming their defense away from Green and intentionally leaving him wide open in a playoff series because he couldn’t make shots at the NBA level.
Green and Hardy have improved a ton since then. In particular, Hardy has the ball skills, the quick-twitch athleticism and the inner confidence to turn into an offensive force in this league. But on a night when they emerged as option No. 1 and No. 2 for Dallas, they had little business dropping 29 points each against a Jazz team that should have been focused on winning every game possible in the middle of a playoff race.
But, the Jazz weren’t focused on this night. And that’s what head coach Will Hardy was most disappointed with. They are not a perfect team and currently sit at 27-28 on the season. They are 10th in the Western Conference, and there are flaws within the roster to go along with strengths. But, nobody has had to ask this team to focus and fight this season. Nobody has had to ask this team to be resilient this season, to make every game an adventure, to make every game worth the proverbial price of admission.
For whatever reason, however, those attributes weren’t present Monday. At least not with the Jazz. They were certainly present with Dallas.
“The Mavericks played harder than we did,” Will Hardy said. “They out-executed us. This is the first game all season where I felt disappointed in our focus. I felt, collectively, that we didn’t have the necessary focus or the physicality to be successful tonight.”
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As we round into the 48-hour mark until the trade deadline, the possibility exists that this could at least, in part, be a different roster after Thursday afternoon. And the Jazz played Monday night without Jarred Vanderbilt, a self-starting ball of energy when he plays.
Sitting because of back spasms, the Jazz missed Vanderbilt’s defense. They missed his ability to rebound in traffic and push the ball in transition as a big. They missed his offensive rebounding and natural passing ability. They missed the example he sets time and again by diving for loose balls and putting his body on the line for 50-50 balls.
In one second-quarter stretch, the Mavericks scored nine consecutive points in the same exact manner: Missed shot. Offensive rebound. Kick to the shooter at the 3-point line. Shooter knocks down wide open 3.
In a game the Jazz led by as many as 15 points in the first quarter, the signs were ominous from almost the start. The Jazz allowed Tim Hardaway Jr. and Reggie Bullock, Dallas’ two best shooters, to make practice level shots from beyond the arc. The Jazz allowed Jaden Hardy and Green to beat them to the basket time and again off the dribble. The Jazz allowed Dwight Powell to consistently find positioning underneath for offensive rebounds, put-backs and kicks to shooters who giddily knocked down 3s. The Jazz allowed McKinley Wright IV to play what was by far the best game of his young career and to be a game-changer defensively and in transition.
“We didn’t play well,” Will Hardy said. “We did not deserve to win, and that’s why we didn’t win.”
Even with a performance as bad as the Jazz turned in on Monday night, context is important. Because this is trade deadline week, and because the Jazz are one of the teams that may be very active by Thursday afternoon, focusing on basketball could be difficult for the players. They are human beings, and that must be remembered. And as human beings, one or more of them may have to pack and move to a different city in a few days. And even if this team stays intact beyond Thursday, nobody knows which way this will go or how active the front office will be. That can be difficult.
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And in terms of basketball, the Jazz did miss Vanderbilt. Not only for the attributes listed above, but they were small and non-athletic as a group whenever Walker Kessler or Lauri Markkanen were not the floor. As a result, Powell was able to feast on the offensive glass. The Mavericks were terrific in getting out into transition and getting easy baskets. And without Kessler on the floor, the Jazz had a lack of rim protection that proved easy to exploit.
The good news for Utah? The Portland Trail Blazers and Oklahoma City Thunder both lost on Monday night, meaning the Jazz didn’t lose ground. But, the Jazz still have to solve their transition defensive issues, and they haven’t been able to do that all season. They still have to figure out how to rebound without Kessler on the floor, and they haven’t done that all season.
They have survived through resilience and guile to mask those issues. But, when that fight isn’t there, the pure basketball issues become more glaring.
And they certainly were more glaring on Monday night.
(Photo of Josh Green and Mike Conley Jr.: Alex Goodlett / Getty Images)
