In blowout loss to Bulls, Jazz only find good in Markkanen's highlight assist

CHICAGO — Lauri Markkanen only had one option. When he raced down a ball on the sideline near halfcourt in the second quarter Monday, the only thing he could do to save it was to throw it one-handed over his shoulder.

Sometimes the best plays come by accident.

Markkanen launched the ball high behind him and it found Kelly Olynyk right near the basket. The final result was one of the more memorable assists you'll ever see.

The game was, well, less so as the Jazz continued their rough start to the year with a 130-113 loss at the United Center. But we'll get to that later — first to the unintentional assist.

"That was a shot!" Olynyk said about the lofted toss.

It turns out, Olynyk was right.

Markkanen was about 50 feet away from the basket, but the All-Star forward figured that missing an over-the-shoulder 3-pointer was better than throwing into the open court and giving the Bulls an easy transition chance (the Jazz committed 23 turnovers Monday — 15 of which came in the first half — so the team could have used more of that thinking).

"So I threw it to the rim," Markkanen said. "But I think it was a good pass."

To which Olynyk quickly replied: "It was a great pass!"

"Right on target," Markkanen said. "That was not a turnover."

That, unfortunately for the Jazz, was a unique occurrence during a sloppy first half.

The 15 first-half turnovers for Utah led to 23 Chicago points. When a team gift wraps that many points, it's pretty difficult to win any game — especially ones when the opposing team hits over 50% from 3-point range as the Bulls did Monday.

So even with some offensive anomalies — the Bulls made 11 mid-range jumpers and 11 above-the-break 3-pointers — those turnovers were on the top of mind for Jazz coach Will Hardy after Utah's third straight defeat.

"That's a tough way to win," Hardy said. "I think some of it just came down to probably taking one to two more dribbles than necessary, and getting a little bit deeper on the floor than we needed to before we made our decisions. And that put us behind the curve."

Jordan Clarkson and Talen Horton-Tucker each had five turnovers, and theirs highlighted Utah's overall offensive woes.

Both found themselves caught too deep in the paint with really nowhere to go. The Bulls collapsed upon Clarkson as he got the paint, and Horton-Tucker had the ball poked away by help defenders; Chicago finished with 12 steals. The Jazz, for comparison, had just one.

"There are times where I do think that their intention is to drive the ball and draw the defense," Hardy said. "I think both of them have gotten a little bit in trouble by just getting probably one whole dribble too far into the paint. I think both of those players, when they watch film, when they work at practice, they end up being some of the guys that have the highest assist numbers on the team as well.

"I think they're trying to pass. I just think there's moments where we're over dribbling."

That led to some poor offense, some easy points on the other end for Chicago, and, ultimately, a long night for the Jazz. Utah was down by 14 at the half, and despite some better play in the second half, never was able to get the lead to within single digits.

"Nobody's gonna feel sorry for us," said Markkanen, who had a game-high 29 points. "So just look at the film, get better, and we really need to grind one out to kind of break out of this. We should be frustrated and a little pissed after we lose a game, but once we leave this locker room, we've got to focus on the next one."

At this point, that's his — and the Jazz's — only option.

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