With the Utah Jazz already facing a talent deficit on most nights, the last thing they would want is to enter games with poor preparedness and a distinct lack of energy. But on Tuesday night, and in an NBA Cup game against the Los Angeles Lakers, no less, the Jazz were simply outplayed on both ends of the floor — with Dalton Knecht exploding for a career-high 37 points on a rookie record-tying nine threes to hand the Jazz a 124-118 loss that wasn’t as close as the final score line would suggest.
It was in the third quarter when the game got out of hand for the Jazz. Knecht caught fire towards the end of the period, scoring 18 of the Lakers’ final points in the quarter to double their lead. And it’s safe to say that head coach Will Hardy wasn’t too pleased with how his team allowed Knecht to easily torch them from beyond the arc.
“In the second half, it seemed like everybody in the gym knew that Dalton Knecht was going to shoot the next shot, with the exception of a few people. The problem was that those few people were on our team,” Hardy said in his postgame presser, per Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune.
That is not even a subtle shot anymore at the Jazz defenders; that is a full-blown call out from Hardy, and it’s understandable where he’s coming from. The Jazz defense was very much asleep, allowing Knecht to walk into rhythm three-pointers without much resistance.
The Jazz players that were on the court for Knecht’s third-quarter heater were Lauri Markkanen, Drew Eubanks, Jordan Clarkson, Isaiah Collier, and Cody Williams. The problem was that the Jazz were running zone for the first two possessions in which Knecht made a three, allowing him to get into a rhythm.
This then forced them to switch to man coverage. This led to the rookie Williams being exposed; Williams allowed too much space for the 23-year-old to pull from beyond the arc, and, to top it off, also fouled him on a three-point attempt. And then on Knecht’s final triple in the third, Eubanks was playing too far down in drop coverage — affording plenty of room for Knecht to launch from three with Clarkson unable to fight off the screen.
Will Hardy and the Jazz experience growing pains
Related Utah Jazz NewsArticle continues below
There should be no question that Will Hardy is among the brightest young minds in the head coaching business today. But he wouldn’t be able to do much with such a young Jazz roster. It should not come as a surprise to anyone that Cody Williams will struggle on the defensive end of the floor; he’s only 20 years old and he has plenty of things to learn still about playing defense on an NBA-level.
Following that third quarter Dalton Knecht explosion, Hardy benched Williams and never put him back in the game again. This should be a humbling experience for the rookie, and it should make the chip on his shoulder that much bigger moving forward.