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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy didn't wait to be asked. He knew the questions were going to come after he shockingly drew up a play to get Walker Kessler a 3-point shot on the first play of the game.
"Yes, the first play was designed for Walker to shoot a three," he said. "Yes, he bullied me into it after All-Star weekend when he made that three in the skills competition. And yes, I'm very happy that it went in — even though I may have created a monster."
The first play out of the All-Star break for the Utah Jazz was Kessler lining up — and more importantly — making his first career 3-pointer.
And, surprisingly enough, it wasn't close to his most memorable play in Utah's 120-119 overtime win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. But more on that later; let's get back to that 3-pointer.
Hardy said Kessler bullied him into it ("Oh, yeah, I showed up at his house," Kessler joked), but the real story is when Hardy saw the rookie center bury the corner 3-pointer in front of a national audience on Saturday night during All-Star weekend, so he figured he'd have some fun.
"He was like, 'All right Kessler, first play out of break, we're gonna run a play for you to get three,'" Kessler said.
Kessler thought his coach was joking; he wasn't.
The team went through the play during the morning shootaround; and when the time came, Kessler didn't disappoint. He drilled the shot, which sent his teammates — both on and off the court — into a celebration.
"I wasn't surprised at all," Talen Horton-Tucker said. "The first conversation I had with Walker, I asked him, does he like to roll or pop? He told me he liked to pop."
So will he be doing more of that? Considering he didn't come close to taking another 3-point shot the rest of the game, that's probably not likely (at least not yet). But there was someone else that was a little surprised by Kessler on the other end.
"He's a rookie, right?" newly signed guard Kris Dunn said. "For him to be a rookie and to be able to understand the defensive concepts. … Defensively, if he's doing this as a rookie, just imagine Year 4. He could be phenomenal for the Utah Jazz for a very long time."
Phenomenal is a pretty good way of describing Kessler's game-saving block at the end of the regulation. Ahead of it, Kessler looked cooked. He had come out to contest an apparent 3-point shot by Oklahoma City's Isiah Joe, and the smaller player had dribbled right by him. It looked like it would be an uncontested look for the game-winner.
It was anything but uncontested.
"I knew at that moment, because I'm a shot blocker, he's probably going to reverse it," Kessler said. "So what I do is I take an angle towards the middle of the floor."
Instead of playing Joe, he played the rim. Kessler attacked the middle of the basket, which made it possible for him to block the shot on either side of the hoop; that's one of the things that makes Kessler so special defensively. Yes, he's tall and has good athleticism; he has good instincts and a good IQ for what players are going to do; and he can also block shots with both hands.
That's unique.
Think of it as a crafty guard that can finish with his left or right hand; Kessler is that on the defensive end.
So when Joe went up and under, Kessler jumped and swatted it away with his left hand, preserving the tie that he, himself, created with a layup on the other end seconds earlier. Kessler finished with 18 rebounds and seven blocks in the win.
"Walker does a ton for us," Hardy said. "I am on him endlessly, and then I come back in the locker room and look at the stat sheet and he had 18 rebounds and seven blocks, and so maybe I'm an idiot, but I just think he has so much to give."
And that's more than just an added 3-point shot — though, he added, that could be coming, too.
"I still think that he can continue to do more," Hardy said. "We've got to continue to put him in situations where he is guarding perimeter players some. We have to switch with him a little bit. We have to try to create defensive versatility with our team by how we use Walker. And that's for now and with the future in mind.
"I think that Walker has the potential to be somebody that you build a defense around, and he's shown really great progress so far this year, but it's on us as a staff to continue to help him expand."
