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NEW YORK CITY — Will Hardy liked his team's chances.
Less than five minutes remaining in the game. Tie game. Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.
"It's a great environment for our team, and we relish those moments," Jazz coach Will Hardy said.
How could they not? Just one night ago in Toronto, the Jazz used an improbable late run to shock the Raptors. They were ready for the encore in the Big Apple.
Except, that didn't come.
On Friday in Toronto, the Jazz controlled the last four minutes of the game, but on Saturday in New York, it was the Knicks.
The Knicks used a 9-0 run in the closing minutes to pull away from the Jazz for a 126-120 victory on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. Utah dropped to 28-30 and fell to 11th place in the Western Conference standings.
"I love our team in a tie game with four minutes left; I think it's a great spot for our team to be in," Hardy said. "That's where you really learn the ins and outs of how to win in a sustainable way."
And for the Jazz, it came down to the simple things, and actually just one simple thing: rebounding. The Knicks had seven offensive boards in the fourth quarter, which led to 12 second-chance points. That, right there, decided the game, especially because those offensive boards helped nullify Utah's own fourth quarter offensive surge.
Lauri Markkanen responded from a 4-of-17 start to drop 17 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter. Talen Horton-Tucker, meanwhile, had a season-high 23 points to go along with seven assists (he had six points and five assists in the final quarter).
"I think it's just finding a body," Markkanen said. "We've got to get a hit on a body rather than trying to out-jump them. Of course, some bad bounces on long rebounds, but mostly it's on us finding a body on the shot and not leaking out and we need all five on the floor."
After Jordan Clarkson tied the game up at 109-109, the Knicks connected on 3-pointers on their next three possessions. The kicker, though? Two of those backbreaking triples came after multiple offensive rebounds.
"Part of it is we didn't do a good enough job at the point of attack guarding the ball," Hardy said of the rebounding struggles.
Jalen Brunson's statline showed that enough. The former Dallas point guard, who terrorized the Jazz last season in the playoffs for Dallas, had 38 points and five assists. He broke the paint, the Jazz were forced to get into rotations, and weren't in position to rebound the ball when shots were missed.
It was a vicious cycle at the end.
"It all fits together," Hardy sad. "Like it's not just, 'Oh guys didn't care about rebounding and didn't try.' If we don't do thing one well enough, it puts you behind on things two, three and four."
That's what happened late in New York on Saturday. The 18 free throws New York attempted didn't help, either.
"Our competitive spirit was there. I thought the team battled and executed. Obviously, the fourth quarter was just sloppy," Hardy said.
The good news, as the Jazz showed in Toronto, it's not always that way.
