Lauri Markkanen scores 14 in explosion in the first quarter

On By Littum

Salt Lake City – Lauri Markkanen goes right by Lakers in the opening quarter and leads Utah to a 33-30 advantage after one.

Jazz (12-40) hosted the new look Los Angeles Lakers (32-19) at the Delta Center on Wednesday, February 12. LA enters the night and runs high on a six-match winning stripe and sits fourth in ultra-competitive Western conference.

Related: Utah Jazz vs. La lakers live blog

The former All-Star knocked an early three down to get started before taking his talents to the curve in a power show.

The field can be used by its seven-foot frame to attack the basket and got the free-casting line for four freebies. He was 4-of-8 from the field with a few three in the quarter.

Los Angeles opened an early lead, but a five-point, five assists and three rebound neighborhood from Rookie Isaiah Collier helped Utah fight back.

Luka, LeBron Lead Lakers past jazz

A look at the box’s score suggests that Lakers performed a basketball-ball-masterclass on Monday night, but those who saw the game saw a less than inspired effort from jazz.

Five revenue in the first quarter and a 2-9 three-point shooting performance allowed jazz to fall behind with double digits early in the competition. They never forced lakers to push Luka Dončić to the limit after missing 22 matches with a calf injury.

The latest Laker’s Superstar scored 14 points on 14 shots in his debut in Los Angeles, while LeBron James added 24 points, eight assists and seven rebounds.

Dončić played only 25 minutes, added five rebounds and four assists to the state as he co -coasted through his laker’s debut.

“I don’t think we’ve seen somewhere close to the kind of top of these two that play together and what it will look like,” said Jazz Coach Will Hardy.

Jazz’s offensive was slow reading against a Lakers defense that played motivated but lacks traditional stoppers at a high level.

Defensively, they were slowly responding to Lakers’ ball movement and could not end belongings, allowing LA to grab 10 offensive rebounds while shooting 54 percent from the floor.

While the jazz is tied to the second best wins in the NBA, they have rarely been blown-to-thread as in LA.

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“I think it was an evening where we let the lack of shots or not get shots or harsh acting on the goal that bleeding into our defense and our attention to details,” Hardy added.

Maybe the bright lights in Hollywood were too much for the young list, or maybe they were exhausted from playing the third game in a three-game road trip, but jazz didn’t show up in one of their most expected matches of the season.

Jazz-Lakers Gameday Reading

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Tonight’s match against Lakers is being the television at Kjzz, streamed on SEG+and heard at 97.5 KSL Sports Zone.

Ben Anderson is Utah Jazz Insider for KSL Sports and Co-host for Jake and Ben from 10-12p with Jake Scott on 97.5 KSL Sports Zone. Find Ben on Twitter on @Benshoops, On Instagram @Benshoops, or on Bluesky.

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Brian Preece is a kslsports.com -insider that covers locals in MLB and Salt Lake Bees. Follow Brian’s Bees and Beehive Baseball here. Find Brian on X and Instagram at @Bprece24.