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SALT LAKE CITY — The Jazz kept on fighting against the Celtics, despite deficits and struggles. Different players made plays at key times, but all in all the loss means more than the any pride gained.
The Boston Celtics were playing at the tail end of their road trip with a game the night before. They are a veteran team who will fight every game despite the odds. Last night they fought and the Jazz couldn't find a way to get a victory.
The Jazz fought against different lineups and coach Tyrone Corbin looked at using different lines to help his ailing team find an offense. The bench was able to put together big runs and a mix-and-match unit showed what it could do, but in the end the Jazz couldn't muster up a victory.
"Tough loss," Corbin said. "I thought our guys played hard for the most part. We have a five-point lead at half, come out in the third quarter and give up 32 points. We fought our way back. I'm proud of the fact that we held in there and fought our way back and had some chances at the end."
The Jazz should be proud for fighting back. They started the fourth quarter down eight. Fighting against the Celtics the Jazz went on a 13-2 run to go up three with 8:40 left.
That was the point where the game changed again. Paul Pierce checked back in and the game started to change. In the fourth quarter the Celtics shot just 26 percent. But they hit big shots when they needed to.
"Paul just made some tough shots," Al Jefferson said. "I think DeMarre played great defense on him, Paul just made great shots. That's why they call him the 'Truth.'"
Once the game was in overtime Pierce went 3-3 and really took the game over. He was shooting well through the game, but as Jefferson said he made tough shots. The Jazz couldn't combat that. It could be easy to take pride in coming back and pushing the game into overtime, but that isn't what the Jazz were talking about.
"Take this as a learning experience," Gordon Hayward said. "We played hard, we competed, but we just got to get better."
Hayward played lights out. He had a great night with 26 points, hitting 4-7 from 3, and 8-9 from the line.
It is as simple as that. No one on the team has been accepting of losses not matter what they have gleaned from them. The young players have enjoyed extra playing time and the team is learning about themselves, but in the end if that is the goal the Jazz aren't happy.
"To me it would make it worse," Jefferson said. "I think we are trying to establish ourselves as a playoff team. Either we win or lose. There is no losing and 'at least we did this.' The second half of the season every game counts now. We kept fighting. We're going to fight to the end. But, we still lost so we got to go and tweak some thing and get ready for Wednesday."
Jamaal Tinsley didn't play so Alec Burks got a lot of minutes. He has been getting a lot of time to play over the past month and is making the most of it. He tallied 32 minutes and eight points. How did he react to the loss?
"We lost its over, now we play Wednesday," Alec Burks said. "That's the way we take it. We going to be ready Wednesday to get the Hawks."
The team was grumpy. They knew they had a chance to win, but didn't. They fought for 53 minutes, but the Celtics won. They took a little pride in getting back in the game, but above all else they did not like losing in the end.
