Jazz’s Will Hardy makes blunt statement after blowout loss to Kings

After the Utah Jazz earned their best win of the season against the Portland Trail Blazers, they had a completely opposite performance in their away contest on Sunday as they lost completely to the Sacramento Kings, 97-141.

The game got out of hand pretty early as the Jazz trailed by 17 points at halftime and shot 34.2% from the field overall. Things didn’t quite improve in the second half, as the Kings shot an excellent 62% from the field and 65% from three of 13. The loss effectively moves Utah to 5-18 on the season, failing to snap its first two-game winning streak of the year.

Following the contest, third-year head coach Will Hardy shared what he saw during the Jazz’s 44-point loss.

“Yeah, we got our asses kicked,” Hardy said. “They made a lot of jump shots tonight. We gave up 44 points in the game and they made five free throws. So that’s a hell of a lot of jump shots in one game. This is what the NBA is like now.” Games can feel crazy when teams are eager to shoot the ball from everywhere.

The Kings had six players score in double figures, with the effort led by a 26-point performance off the bench from Kevin Huerter.

For the Jazz, Keyonte George led the way with 25 points, five rebounds, six assists and four steals, while Lauri Markkanen struggled in his first game back from his back injury, scoring eight points on nine shots and shooting 22.2% from the field .

Overall, the offense clearly showed its growing pains as Utah finished the night with 20 turnovers and 38.8% FG shooting.

“(20) turnovers, again, is a difficult number, but they have a really, really talented offensive team,” Hardy continued. “They have a lot of guys who can shoot the ball. Fox took a couple of mid-range shots tonight that I thought a couple of them were hard, a couple of them were open. But overall I felt like Fox-Sabonis played relatively well for most of the evening. Huerter really made an impact in this game. He’s a really good player who can always move well. He was open tonight, he made us pay.

“There is still a lot of work to be done,” Hardy said. “Tonight we didn’t do a particularly good job of recognizing the staff. They deserve credit for their good shots tonight. There are definitely things that need to be cleaned up. On the other hand, we didn’t fire any shots. I think that’s what we did. “Five to 16 in the first half… And ultimately the turnovers really hurt us tonight.”

The Jazz will have some time to recover from the loss as they face a four-day break before facing the Phoenix Suns at their home stadium on Friday, December 13th.

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