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SALT LAKE CITY — Ahead of Friday's game, love was shared.
Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy talked about how much Boston — both the city and the people still in the Celtics organization — meant to him. Boston coach Joe Mazzulla spoke about how much he learned from Hardy during their year together.
Their two teams, though, didn't catch that loving feeling during Boston's 122-114 win over Utah at TD Garden.
Jaylen Brown was called for a flagrant foul after elbowing Talen Horton-Tucker on a move to the basket; Blake Griffin, who was frustrated by a lack of calls after being leveled on multiple Utah drives, and Jayson Tatum were both called for technical fouls. And then Kris Dunn caught Marcus Smart with an elbow of his own.
Soon after the play, Dunn and Griffin were face to face. Griffin sported a smile on his face as Dunn grabbed Griffin's Jersey. The altercation — and plenty more words said — eventually led to Dunn picking up two technical fouls and earning an early walk down the tunnel.
By that point, though, it was a 15-point Boston lead with 3:31 left in the game. For all intents and purposes, it was over. So why was it so chippy?
"That environment is a very hostile environment being an away team," said Walker Kessler, who finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds. "Unbelievable environment. That was the main thing, and we were both battling, so we got a little heated."
When it came to the chippy affair, Hardy didn't have a problem with it. He thought it showed that his team wouldn't back down if challenged, and didn't think anything crossed the line on either side.
"I'm all for the fight; I'm not for fighting," he said, making sure to differentiate between the two. "There are moments in sports where it is chippy and guys get tangled up and guys start chirping, and I'm glad that our team doesn't back down."
He said there are times when those incidents do go overboard, though, and they can potentially cost a team a game. He didn't think that was the case on Friday — again, there wasn't much time left for Utah to mount a comeback. He just thought it was a hard-fought game, and the minor skirmishes in the fourth quarter represented that.
"I'm not disappointed by our team tonight at all," Hardy said. "I thought they had backbone, they fought, they didn't back down. The game got chippy, both teams were a little bit chippy. Nobody was dirty in any way; that's just a really hard fought competitive NBA game."
As for Dunn's ejection, he thought it was mostly a case of the official tightening up everything. That could be seen based on Utah's free throw attempts in the final 12 minutes. Utah went to the free-throw line two times in the first three quarters; they shot 12 in the fourth.
Hardy said both teams had been issued a warning that anything extracurricular — including some extra talking (which earned Dunn his ejection) — would result in a technical.
"I understand that sometimes the emotions get the best of you," Hardy said. "He didn't throw a punch, he didn't do anything outrageous, he just kept the talk going. … The worst thing that can happen is a bench clearing fight, so I understand the officials at that point were doing what they had to do to get everybody out of the gym safely."
Boston got out of the building safely with a win — a late third quarter rally helped wit that. The Jazz, who were, once again, without Lauri Markkanen (along with Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson and Rudy Gay), cut the Celtics' lead to 4 points with 4:32 left in the third.
Less than two minutes later, it was back up to 14 via a quick 12-2 run as Boston drilled four straight 3-pointers. Utah didn't get it down to single digits again until there was just 1:04 left and the game had been more or less decided.
Tatum had 39 points and 11 rebounds to lead Boston. He was 5-of-8 from 3-point range, including a couple late-in-the-shot-clock ones in the fourth quarter. It was a dominant performance from the All-NBA forward after he was held to a scoreless second half in the Jazz's surprise win over Boston earlier in the month.
Horton-Tucker had 28 points, eight rebounds and seven assists for Utah.
Surprisingly, the Jazz didn't lose ground in the play-in battle.
The Oklahoma City Thunder suffered a loss to the Indiana Pacers on Friday, which kept the Jazz 1.5 games out of the final play-in spot.
