Jazz’s late-game gamble back in 112-111 loss to Pacers

Salt Lake City – With 17.2 seconds back in the game, Lauri Markkanen looked against the jazz bench for instruction.

He had just missed the first of his two free kicks to spread a chance to tie a 2-point game on the line and needed to know if he should try to miss the second on purpose.

“I thought with the lineup we had in the game and who they had in the game at the time we had a chance to get it,” said Jazz Coach Will Hardy.

They didn’t.

The field shield went early a hair and was called for a runway. And that moment, big in Indiana’s 112-111 victory over Utah Monday in the Delta Center-a single point (or free throw) away from overtime.

“We have general things that we look at,” Hardy said of the decision. “I felt like the group we had out there, we had a good chance to dig out that ball. It didn’t work.”

It was an interesting choice to be sure. If the field can be free and jazz to play the bad game, the worst case is that they would be down 3 points with over 10 seconds left. Not a terrible position.

Don’t you get rebound? It made the jazz need some free throw for luck or a few lucky jumps and they didn’t happen.

So smart decision?

“You always think about it after the game,” the field can said. “I should probably have done it. Or it could go both ways, we get the offensive rebound and win the game.”

If the jazz had been rebounded after the unanswered free throw, they would have had a 19.7% chance of winning, according to the NBA Win pocket calculator at Inpredictable.com. If the field can simply did, it would have been only a hair lower at 17.9%. But is it missing and not getting a rebound? The winning percentage Plummer to 7.8%.

So essentially hoped jazz Shocker – Does not practice missing too much) to improve the chances only with a small amount.

So was it a fun experiment? A stealth tank relocation? Or just a lunch of HARDY?

“There are also moments when you just go with your gut a little,” he admitted.

It didn’t work on Monday.

In tight games it is easy to fix on singular games or decisions like that.

But that kind of pressure is critical of the growth of a young team. Blowouts – be it winner or loss – don’t have the same feeling and they don’t come with the same lessons.

“There’s a lot of acting you can point out,” Hardy said. “There are jump balls we don’t get, there’s a little too much floating at the end of the game, just as we can’t expect to get a flute.”

Crunch Time is often the best teacher, but Hardy would have preferred that things never came to the lesson part Monday.

Utah led with 12 points with six minutes left, and then Pacers went on a 14-1 race (you can go ahead and paste a tank-tuning here) to steal the game late. In the critical moments, jazz was pushed out of their sets, led to bad shots or turnover.

“We have to play through these things,” Hardy said. “We have to play in straight lines, we have to set up, we have to help our teammates create an advantage. And these are great lessons for our team to learn because I think again, That there is a lot of good things that happen in our dressing room.

And the team thinks Monday’s game, loss and all, will only help lead to more good things in the future.

“Being in these moments, the physical that happens in these moments, I think it’s all good to take it on the chin,” said Keyonte George, who ended with 16 points and 11 assists. “We learn we’re watching the movie and we can only get better. That’s the best thing about this.”