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The three worst teams in the league - Indiana, Washington, and Sacramento - call the most timeouts. The Bulls and Pelicans are fourth and fifth in timeouts, and not much better in the standings. Meanwhile, the same is true on the other end. The teams that call the fewest timeouts include the Pistons, Rockets, Knicks, Celtics, and Thunder, five of the top six teams in net rating. They don’t often have to worry about their opponent going on a threatening scoring run. And then there’s the Utah Jazz. Utah has the fifth worst record in the NBA, is outscored by eight points per 100 possessions, but Head Coach Will Hardy hasn’t stepped in to stop the bleeding. In the past, Hardy has talked about the value of letting players learn how to handle pressure and communicate under duress while taking responsibility for fixing mistakes rather than being bailed out by a stoppage. He may also be scared from that one time he lost his team a game with a timeout.
RC Buford: “I think we had many coaches over the last 10 years who could have stepped into that role. Ime Udoka was with us, along with James Borrego, Brett Brown, Mike Budenholzer, and Will Hardy. There were many people with us who could have stepped into that role, but the longer Coach Pop stayed, the more those coaches moved on to other opportunities. When we needed Mitch to step up, he did so in a big way. It was incredibly emotional for him to take on that role. ‘Interim’ is probably the wrong word, because at the time of Pop’s stroke, we didn’t know whether Pop could come back. Mitch had that year to show the players—and all of us—who he could be as a coach.”
“There have been some other teams in the league that have guarded Jokic with smalls, and it’s about trying to wear him down make catches tough,” Hardy told reporters in the postgame press conference. “If you know a good coverage for Jokic, please email me.”
Sarah Todd: Multiple sources believe that Vince Williams Jr. suffered a significant ACL injury. He’ll have an MRI in Salt Lake tomorrow. Left the arena on crutches. Will Hardy on Vince Williams Jr. “It doesn’t look good, we’ll get an MRI.” On the play: “that’s not basketball”
“With all of our young players, we are encouraging them to be free thinkers about their own career, about their own development,” Hardy explained. “It's about who they want to be as people, where they want to end up as players, because I think in today's world, we have so many individual trainers. We have strength coaches, and staffs have gotten bigger.” The alternative, Hardy warned, is a dangerous passivity. “So it can be easy for players,” admitted Hardy, “if they'd like, to check their phone, see the schedule that's laid out for them. They come to the facility and get what they should have for breakfast. We say here's the vitamins you should take. They go into the weight room, and it's two sets of something with eight reps of each. We got on the court and tell them where to shoot. They can go all day without making a decision for themselves.”
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Q. The league fined the Jazz right before the game. Do you have any thoughts on that fine? Will Hardy: No. Q. Moving forward, their approach to fining you, will that have any effect on who you choose to play? Will Hardy: What do you mean their approach to fining us? Q. So if they continue to fine you for say sitting Lauri Markkanen in the fourth quarter, would you avoid doing that moving forward? Will Hardy: I sat Lauri because he was on a minutes restriction. So if our medical team puts a minutes restriction on Lauri, I'll try to keep Lauri healthy.
The Utah Jazz have found a brilliant loophole around that policy while still finding a way to tank. In the last two games, the Jazz started Jaren Jackson Jr., Lauri Markkanen and Jusuf Nurkić . Granted, Nurk isn’t a star player, but he’s being lumped in with All-Stars Markkanen and JJJ for a reason here. All three players started in Orlando and in Miami this past week. All three combined to play zero fourth-quarter minutes. In both games. All three clocked in at 25 minutes in the first three quarters and then sat in the fourth quarters of both games. In Orlando, the tanking worked like a charm. The Jazz gave up a 33-23 quarter to the Magic and lost the game by three. It did not work Monday night against the Heat. Utah accidentally won that game 115-111. When Jazz coach Will Hardy was asked after the Heat win whether he considered putting Markkanen or Jackson back in the game in the fourth, he answered simply: “No.”
With tonight’s win, Tank Commander Will Hardy secures the worst win percentage (34%) by a coach with 300+ games for the same team.
Will Hardy: When I talked to Kevin Love this summer, he did have a lot of questions and rightfully so. He's earned the right to really try to understand what's going on here and how he fit. And I told Kevin, ‘I can't promise you minutes, but I can promise you a role and that we need you, because we have a lot of young players that are going through the early part of their career trying to find their footing and you have a ton of experience, and you've had good experiences, you've had bad experiences, but you also have what they want, which is longevity in the NBA. You've won at the highest level and you can say things to them that I can't. Like you can speak from experiences that I can't.’ And Kevin has been very honest with our team, he's been very honest with me in terms of moments that he's struggled in his career and why, what he's learned from those things, the perspective now that he has. And I think those things are helping all of us grow. Believe me, Kevin has an impact on me just like he has on our players.
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Will Hardy: I still have seared in my brain this this mental image of Tim Duncan in his last season in San Antonio, shooting jump hooks on the gun 45 minutes before a shoot around of game like 40 of the season. He's shooting three-foot jump hooks over the net with the gun in his last season. And then you're going, that's unbelievable, that that guy still had the want to and the awareness and the presence of mind to say like ‘this is my process and I have to practice these little bunnies to start my day.’ At that point obviously in his career, his routines were his routines. And my hope is that we can help our young players for each person build their own routines of what helps them prepare to play and prepare to win at the highest level.
Tom Orsborn: Beyond the obvious athleticism at the rim, Will Hardy raves about Dylan Harper’s smart way of playing the game: “He very rarely has a play where you go, ‘What was he thinking?’ He kind of plays within himself and within their team construct.”
Andy Larsen: Will Hardy says Jazz are sticking with the same starting lineup against the Mavericks this afternoon… which likely again means no Jusuf Nurkic or Svi Mykhailiuk. Also says he hasn’t heard from the league about his DNP-CDs.
“Comparison is the thief of joy.” That was Will Hardy’s first response when I brought up the fact that lately people had been comparing Keyonte George’s third season to Donovan Mitchell’s third season. “He’s got a lot of sayings,” George said with a laugh when I told him what the Utah Jazz head coach said. “But when it comes to that type of stuff, he’s real good on keeping you grounded.”