Will Hardy uses playing time to teach a lesson in Jazz’s loss to Clippers
The Jazz rookies started the game, but were benched after less than six minutes and did not return until midway through the third.
Utah Jazz head coach Will Hardy wants effort and intensity and urgency from his young players. But that’s not what he got in the first quarter of the Jazz’s 131-102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday night.
After the Clippers had run up a 26-7 lead over the Jazz midway through the opening period, Hardy subbed out four of the Jazz’s five starters — Collin Sexton, Keyonte George, Taylor Hendricks and Brice Sensabaugh — leaving only Ömer Yurtseven on the court with the incoming bench players.
Some poor defense, bad fouls, ugly shot selection early in the shot clock, slow recovery and a lax approach overall was enough for Hardy to leave his three rookies watching from the sideline through the rest of the first quarter, the entirety of the second quarter and giving a different group a shot at starting the second half.
George subbed back into the game with 8:21 on the game clock in the third quarter. Sensabaugh and Hendricks came in with three minutes left in the third.
“There are a lot of different methods to teach, there are a lot of different methods to hold people accountable, and we’ve cycled through a bunch of those methods,” Hardy said. “Sometimes minutes are the only thing that will reveal to you what needs to be done. And that’s not meant in a malicious way. I love every person in that locker room … but we’ve got to begin to learn and adapt and there are certain things that being young is not an excuse for.”
The Jazz trailed by as many as 38 points in the loss to the Clippers and it was a rough night for the rookies. The silver lining was the debut of both Darius Bazley and Kenneth Lofton Jr. for the Jazz, and both showed some versatility in their minutes, especially Bazley. Lofton and Bazley, along with Kris Dunn, Talen Horton-Tucker and two-way players Johnny Juzang, Micah Potter and Jason Preston, gave Hardy what he was looking for.
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