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SAN FRANCISCO — Ahead of Sunday's season finale, Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy said that winning the last two games has "kept the spark alive."
"I think it's really important that we continue to train ourselves that every time we take the floor we're trying to win," Hardy said. "And that is the most important thing."
That mentality, though, almost led to a minor disaster.
As the clock ticked under the four-minute mark Sunday, the Jazz were up by a point. The Warriors had emptied their bench, and Utah was looking at a reasonably clear path to a third straight win to end the season.
A win that, due to draft positioning, most fans — and likely most in the Jazz front office — probably didn't want. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you wanted the win anyway), the Warriors saved the Jazz from themselves.
Golden State finished the game on a 6-0 run to beat Utah 123-117. Utah finished the season 31-51 and will have the eighth-best odds in next month's draft lottery.
A Jazz win would have allowed Brooklyn to tie them for the No. 8 spot in the draft. That would have meant worse lottery odds and a draft slot decided by a coin toss.
As it is, the Jazz will have a 26.3% of landing a top-four pick in the draft lottery on May 12 and a 6% chance of getting the No. 1 selection.
There is still a small chance the Jazz would lose that pick. The pick is top-10 protected, so if three teams happen to jump the Jazz on lottery night, it will go to Oklahoma City. The odds of that happening are tiny, though.
The final day of the regular season also shored up Utah's other two picks in the draft.
They will have the 29th pick, a pick the Jazz got in the trade that sent Ochai Agbaji and Kelly Olynyk to Toronto. The Jazz also has the 32nd selection (the second pick of the second round) in the draft. Utah received that pick in the Simone Fontecchio deal.
But all of that clearly wasn't at the forefront of the Jazz players' minds in San Francisco.
"First and foremost, we're all competitors," Hardy said. "It doesn't matter what it is. It could be a basketball game, a free throw competition, they can play video games, they can play cards, that's a group of hyper competitors in there."
Keyonte George had a strong close to the season, finishing with 21 points and four assists. He had one of the better shooting nights of his rookie year, going 8-of-11 from the field and 5-of-6 from the 3-point line.
"I think tonight going out on that note, the aggressiveness he showed at the point of attack was good," Hardy said. "Obviously caught a little flurry there in the third quarter, which was nice."
Taylor Hendricks had 16 points and eight rebounds and Brice Sensanbaugh added 14 points as the rookies combined for 51 points in the final game.
"We've got some good young players on this roster," Hardy said. "But they and we all have a lot of work to do to get to where we want to go."
Cue the offseason.
