The Utah Jazz notched their 50th loss of the season and sixth straight loss on Monday night, in Boston, with a 114-108 defeat at the hands of the Celtics.
Though still working with a shorthanded roster, the Jazz’s loss was not caused by lack of effort. The Celtics' Sam Hauser caught fire in the third quarter, scoring 23 of his career-best 33 points, including hitting seven of his nine 3-pointers in that period alone.
Hauser’s flurry helped to put the Celtics up by as many 24 points. And yes, there were certainly some defensive issues along the way — add Hauser to the growing list of players to have a career night against the Jazz — but the Jazz could have caved and given up hope at the end of that third quarter.
Instead, heading into the fourth quarter, down by 21 points, the Jazz did their best to put together a respectable fourth quarter that they could be proud of.
“Incredibly proud of the team’s effort, the way they carried themselves, their competitiveness, digging their way back into the game,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. “I really do believe this is one of the best games that we’ve played in a while. We didn’t shoot the ball well — we got hot a little bit late — but I actually thought the way that we played, the shots we generated, our defense in general for the majority of the game was very good, and I thought that the team executed at a really high level."
John Collins, who was playing for the first time since Feb. 28, was Utah’s leading scorer with 28 points, but it was a tough road to hoe in getting to that 28. He missed his first eight 3-point attempts and finished shooting just 2-of-11 from deep and 12-of-30 overall.
Of course, that’s the kind of stuff that can be expected of a player who is rusty and has been held out of eight of the last nine games. In fact, Collins has played in just 39 games this season and has been really solid despite the amount of time he’s been in street clothes. A bad shooting night was bound to creep in at some point.
Luckily for the Jazz, Brice Sensabaugh, who had been shooting the 3 at a 42.4% clip over the 10 games leading up to Monday’s contest, caught fire for the Jazz as they stormed back against Boston, hitting 5-of-7 from long range en route to a 22 point night to go with five rebounds and four assists.
But, there were small things late in the game that held the Jazz back from being able to end up on top. They missed a chance to secure a rebound on a late free throw, turned the ball over at critical moments of the game and couldn’t catch guys in transition.
“That is hard to recover from as the game is winding down,” Hardy said. “So those are really good learning moments for our group as we continue to try to understand and grow into a winning team. But I’m really proud of the team’s effort. I feel good about how the team played tonight. They should walk out with their heads held high.”
The Jazz will complete the five-game roadtrip with a game against the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night before returning home later in the week.