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SALT LAKE CITY — When Jordan Clarkson hit an 8-foot jump shot with 36.2 seconds remaining in the third quarter Tuesday night, it got the Utah Jazz to within 2 points against the juggernaut Boston Celtics.
The next time the Jazz got the ball to go through the hoop — a Clarkson layup with 5:34 remaining in the fourth — it got them within 20.
In between, there were 12 empty possessions.
"That was fun," head coach Will Hardy quipped afterward.
It was a stretch that effectively sealed the outcome — a 123-107 defeat.
And every missed shot, every turnover, every wonky possession was as excruciating for the team as it was for the impatient and agitated Delta Center crowd.
"Woooooo! Very much frustrating!" Collin Sexton exclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief.
That was, pretty universally, the sentiment.
All night long, the Celtics would surge ahead, and the Jazz would show some resilience and battle back and narrow the deficit. And then they went seven minutes and two seconds without a point. While Boston scored 20 straight.
A big part of the problem, Hardy explained, is how frequently the team is now deploying lineups that simply don't have much experience together, given the team's trade deadline machinations and some subsequent injuries that have collectively wreaked havoc on the rotation.
"I've talked in this room a bunch this year about trying to get to a place where we're thinking as a group, and we're all seeing it the same," he said, "and I felt like in the fourth quarter, some of our stagnation was we just weren't all seeing the matchups the same and recognizing where the weak points in the defense might be."
Perhaps the best example of that actually came after the Jazz started scoring again.
With roughly five minutes remaining, Sexton got isolated on Celtics reserve center Xavier Tillman, but he waited, and waited, and waited … for John Collins to come and set a screen.
The problem?
Collins was being guarded by perimeter-defender extraordinaire Jrue Holiday, who promptly switched onto Sexton.
The Jazz salvaged the possession when Sexton called for Collins to come and re-screen, and wound up generating enough distance to make a 3-pointer. Hardy nevertheless subbed Sexton out at the next stoppage in play just to discuss what had happened and to drive a point home.
"We're basically just putting the best defender in the gym on Collin. In that moment, that's where we all have to recognize the same thing — probably Collin driving (on) Tillman is our best opportunity," Hardy said.
The more succinct version?
"I just said, 'Hey, for the rest of our lives together, anybody but Jrue,'" Hardy recounted with a smirk.
Still, while that possession was emblematic of a bigger problem, it at least resulted in points. Too many in the preceding minutes were just as clunky, and yielded a worse outcome.
"The main goal for us is try to get all five guys on the same page, thinking the same way, knowing what we want to do as a group. And that comes with reps, obviously," said rookie guard Keyonte George, who hit his first five shots of the game, then went 4-for-12 thereafter.
"It starts with me — I gotta use my voice. If I see something going on, and the timeout happens, we can't just hear Will's voice, we've got to hear a guy that's going to battle for the other four guys on the court."
The Jazz had plenty of battle in them Tuesday night; they just didn't have enough results. And as a result, they've now lost three games in a row, and 11 of their past 13, in dropping to 28-37 on the season.
Hardy was asked in his postgame media session if the pressure mounting as the scoreless minutes started to accumulate en masse was a tangible feeling.
He remained quiet for a few moments before issuing a decidedly deadpan: "Yes."
Then he elaborated slightly, in a chagrined tone of voice.
"Very much so, and I have 18,000 friends that reminded me."
