The Utah Jazz Participate in Loss to Boston

Last night, Salt Lake City hosted a professional basketball game in which the Utah Jazz lost to the Boston Celtics 123-107.

Out of all the basketball games the Jazz have played, this was certainly one of them.

Boston came in as the better team, left as the better team, and Utah notched another post trade deadline loss, now going 2-11 since and slipping to 28-37 on the year.

Outside of “watching young talent develop” this team has been hard to stomach as of late.

The Jazz seem as a rudderless ship, slowly counting down the remaining 17 games on the calendar before they can put another year behind them.

Now, one wouldn’t expect Utah to compete with the best team in the NBA, let alone without Lauri Markkanen and Taylor Hendricks.

And even then, the loss still just felt so uninspiring.

It’s not necessarily the L in the win/loss column but more so the effort on the floor that has left fans feeling burnt out.

There were times in this game, where the Jazz did look competitive. The offense sputtered, but hung with Boston in the 2^nd quarter and even had the game sitting at 98-91 at the end of the third due to a nice rally led by Kris Dunn.

You also had a time in which the Jazz went scoreless for six minutes.

There were players who were incredibly fun to watch. There are fun things to witness still when tuning into the Jazz.

Keyonte George is a great example. The upstart rookie guard had a 26-point night, hit 5 triples for 50 percent three-point shooting and led the team with six assists.

Between Keyonte George, Collin Sexton (20 points), and Jordan Clarkson (21 points), the Jazz backcourt combined for 67 points.

They took 51 of Utah’s 86 shot attempts and went practically 55 percent from the field.

The backcourt was excellent and despite some ill-advised shots and some rough turnovers, they were largely the reason the Jazz looked halfway competitive.

You can be proud of the guard lineup going toe to toe with Tatum and White, a top tier backcourt in the association.

You can be pumped about Keyonte being this good against the likes of Derrick White and Jrue Holiday.

But for every fun thing, there’s always another setback or growing pain.

You can also be disappointed elsewhere, as in how does 2^nd year “building block’, Walker Kessler, end up being less impactful than Luke Kornet.

Or how does John Collins only have 10 points on 9 shots against Sam Houser?

I’m ok with the losses, Jazz fans expect them now, but we at least want to see some of these guys ready to take the next step, actually, well ya know.. take steps.

But come on, Utah was never going to win this game, evident by this call alone:

The Celtics didn’t have Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porzingis or Al Horford suit up and still had too much star power for the likes of Utah.

Jayson Tatum got his 38 points. That’s fine. Derrick White got his 24 points. That’s fine. Jrue Holiday had 16 points. That’s fine.

Sam Hauser got the start and had 14 points, that’s not as fine. Luke Kornet had 12 pts and 9 rebounds and six assists which tied a season high in rebounding and was his third best scoring mark on the year (also tied).

The Celtics bench consisted of three players getting time in Payton Pritchard (10 pts), Xavier Tillman (7 pts) and Oshae Brissett (2 pts).

Not the most inspiring rotation that Boston has rolled out in their 51-win season up to this point, but certainly enough to deal with Utah.

If the team isn’t giving you enough reasons to feel a bit deflated about cheering for your favorite basketball squad, the prices in the team store just might:

What happens first? The Jazz look like a complete team, or prices drop on the Utah Jazz Stanley cups? Only 17 games to find out.