New coach, same old Wizards: Jazz rout Washington in interim coach's debut

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WASHINGTON — Turns out, firing your coach doesn't change your roster.

It was a strange day in Washington D.C. Thursday. The Washington Wizards surprisingly let go of head coach Wes Unseld Jr. in the morning (in the middle of a back-to-back set, no less), citing the team's lack of competitiveness.

Maybe the Wizards' brain trust has another trick up their sleeves because the Wizards were, well, pretty noncompetitive Thursday as Utah rolled to a 123-108 victory in the nation's capital.

"Anytime there's a coaching change, it's interesting to watch how players react," Jazz coach Will Hardy said. "I assume there are some players who are happy with their role and there are some players that are hoping that this change gives them a different role. And so all that stuff is between (interim coach) Brian (Keefe) and his staff, but I would expect to see a team that comes out and plays really hard."

Washington had its moment, jumping out to a 13-4 lead. The Jazz, though, answered that with a 28-5 run. After that — even when the score was relatively close — it felt like the result was inevitable.

The Jazz were going to win; the only question was by how much.

"It puts a little fire in you when a coach is gone all of a sudden," said Lauri Markkanen of losing a coach midseason. "We knew we had to come out, play hard and take care of business."

Markkanen led the way with 29 points, seven rebounds and five assists; John Collins had 22 points and 16 rebounds; and Kelly Olynyk and Jordan Clarkson both had 19 points off the bench.

"John Collins' activity tonight, his energy level, screening, rolling, getting on the glass — 22 and 16 with seven offensive rebounds — I thought that he was a huge reason why we won tonight's game," Hardy said.

And that activity was important because it wasn't the cleanest game by the Jazz.

There were periods of sloppy play, and the Jazz never fully closed the door until late. Hardy even felt the need to call a timeout with 4:52 left to make sure things wouldn't slip away.

But against a poorly constructed Wizards team — even a slightly more energized one — being just OK was more than enough. Utah dominated the glass, and the Wizards shot just 7-for-30 from the 3-point line.

It was a get-right game for Utah against a team most get-right against.

Because the same thing that plagued the Wizards before Thursday's firing remained the same against Utah. Washington's roster is the worst in the league — and frankly, it might not be that close. They have one legitimate building block (rookie wing Bilal Coulibaly) and one player who is a top 100 NBA player (former University of Utah wing Kyle Kuzma).

"We can tolerate losing a game in which we were competitive for 48 minutes. We can tolerate losing a basketball game where we see the team improving as a collective," Wizards president Michael Winger said at a news conference Thursday night before the game. "In the absence of 48 minutes of competitiveness, in the absence of collective team basketball progress over the course of time, irrespective of the individual improvement, we have an issue to address. And that's sort of how that conversation unfolded."

Maybe they'll be happy with how the Wizards fought to the end — making things at least look a little respectable — but the same thing happened Wednesday against Denver.

Nothing changed. Except for the man coaching.