Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 113-96 loss to the Sacramento Kings from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. Welp, now Lauri Markkanen’s out
The hits keep coming for the Jazz.
Just one day after Taylor Hendricks suffered a season-ending leg injury, Lauri Markkanen pulled up gimpy in the second quarter thanks to back spasms. Certainly, the latter is less serious — Markkanen actually played for a couple of minutes after suffering the initial tweak. But the injury throws another blow to the Jazz who, well, didn’t have a lot of depth to begin with.
Usually, back spasms aren’t an injury to be too concerned about. HashtagBasketball.com keeps track of injury absences in the NBA since 2010, and found 55 instances where a player was out with back spasms, with an average absence of five days. (Minimum of 1, maximum of 26). If we want to get particular, the lower back spasms the Jazz diagnosed Markkanen with have been seen 25 times in that time period, with an average absence of seven days.
Officially, Jazz head coach Will Hardy noted that back issues are usually day-to-day, and that they’d see how Markkanen felt at game time Thursday.
But with the Jazz in the tank race, and a winnable home matchup against the San Antonio Spurs coming up, it might be smart to have Markkanen sit for that game, while being more available against better opposition on the road trip. Heck, you don‘t even really need to have be particularly conspiratorial — it’s simply better for Markkanen to be as cautious as possible about back spasms, which can be a weird and lingering injury. Missing games now is fine. Missing games in a potential world where the Jazz are playoff competitive? Less so.
Without Markkanen, the Jazz started Kyle Filipowski in the second half. Again, John Collins was the more obvious option, but it‘s clear at this point that Hardy prefers Collins off the bench, meaning he’s not playing alongside Walker Kessler. If Markkanen is out for future games, I hope they keep Filipowski playing with the starters — even though it means an incredibly young starting lineup.
2. Starting lineup changes
Cody Williams replaced Taylor Hendricks in the starting lineup. As I wrote about yesterday, that makes some sense as the closest like-for-like substitution: Williams is one of the only wings on the team, has the length for defending a lot of different types of players, and won’t use a lot of possessions on offense.
But that wasn‘t the only change to the starting lineup: Jordan Clarkson replaced Collin Sexton. That one was more of a surprise, but here’s what Hardy said about the change:
“Yeah, we’re trying to make the two groups function a little bit better, and we can do that without impacting minutes too much, impacting opportunity too much. You know, I believe in Collin. Collin knows that this has nothing to do with his play. It’s about what makes the two groups function the best. I think early in the game, the first group showed some pretty decent cohesion offensively. I think I have some work to do to help Collin with that second group, if it’s something we continue to do,” Hardy said.
“But nothing with our team right now is set in stone. I had a conversation with Collin before the game about wanting to try something different to see if we could find a little bit of a rhythm offensively. And Collin’s great. He understands he wants the team to do well. He’s always done anything and everything that I’ve asked from a role standpoint, and so it’s my responsibility that, if he is going to be accepting of those things, to continue to try to think about him and put him in a position to be successful.”
I kind of get what Hardy is going for here: the second unit had previously been a tire fire, so putting your second best player in those lineups should have helped them. Sexton had a rough night, though: 0-7 from the field, -11, three turnovers, only 18 minutes on the floor. He had left the locker room by the time media arrived, so we didn’t ask him about the change.
Because he‘s your second-best player, though — and perhaps first-best with Markkanen out — he probably also deserves a bit of respect in this situation, too. For a lot of NBA players, that means starting. Finding the way to best support him may be worthwhile, and it’s good Hardy nodded in that direction too.
3. Keyonte George, being nicer to himself
An update on a Triple Team point from two games ago:
Keyonte George has been really, really bad in the first four games of the season. He’s shooting 26% from the field, which is honestly a bit hard to do. The bright side of this 3-13 FG performance tonight was two-fold: first, 10 of those shots were threes, which makes lower percentages from the field more palatable. Second, he picked up 11 assists, giving him a double-double.
He‘s been extremely hard on himself, because he wants success as much as anyone. Generally, I like that sort of approach, because far worse is the Talen Horton-Tucker approach — unflinching confidence that what you‘re doing is right despite all evidence to the contrary. But the truth is the low body language and pressing George has been doing in the season’s first week have also been damaging.
So Hardy asked him: How would you treat a teammate who‘s going through a slump? Why don’t you treat yourself the same way?
George said the question reframed how he was thinking about his own play — that he realized he needs to be more supportive in his own self-talk. I think that showed in his interview today with the media, which was a nice mix of being critical and forward-thinking, was a step in the right direction.
To be sure, George needs to play better. Much better. But there is an exaggerated spotlight on him because this is still so early in the season, when so many narratives are set. A week-long slump in the middle of February just gets fewer eyeballs, and exists in the context of other play. It‘s worth waiting a bit to see if there’s more from George coming this year.
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