SALT LAKE CITY — On Sunday night, Will Hardy spoke in a hushed tone following a Utah Jazz 105-104 defeat to the Los Angeles Lakers. As a head coach, his basketball life is about making snap decisions while everyone around him deals with hindsight. Some decisions are clear. Most are murky and can go either way. Most make you a genius or an idiot almost instantly.
Hardy’s decision to call timeout as Jazz shooting guard Collin Sexton drove to the hoop deep into the fourth quarter seems like the wrong call. With a chance at a good win over a good team, Sexton had gotten a step on Los Angeles forward Rui Hachimura off the dribble and was at the rim. While making a teardrop layup at the basket, Hardy called timeout. That shot would have given the Jazz a one-point lead. Left with 2.1 seconds to work with, and with the Lakers having a chance to set their defense, Utah couldn’t get a decent look at the basket, and what could have been an emotionally uplifting win turned out to be a defeat that we are all talking about.
In the locker room, Hardy looked at Sexton and essentially admitted to making a mistake.
“I told him that I robbed him of a moment,” Hardy said. “He was extremely gracious after the game. He was a lot more frustrated in the moment.”
The Jazz are 4-16 on the season, and many who follow the Jazz know what this season is about. Whether anyone wants to say the quiet part out loud, the Jazz would like to be at the top of the talent-rich 2025 NBA Draft. If current Duke star forward Cooper Flagg or Rutgers guard Dylan Harper are in a Jazz uniform next season, or even BYU guard Egor Demin or Rutgers guard Ace Bailey, then Utah will have done its job for this season. It almost became a running joke on social media Sunday night, Hardy’s timeout being whispered as some sort of elite tank job by the Jazz.
That doesn’t mean this season isn’t about building blocks or about development. For several young guys, this season is about the small wins that come here and there on the scoreboard. Sunday night was an opportunity for one of those wins. The Jazz fought the Lakers. The Jazz fought through the noise made by scores of Lakers fans who infiltrated Delta Center to see LeBron James and Anthony Davis each turn in terrific games. The Jazz fought back from a 97-90 deficit to give themselves a chance to win. They came up with clutch stops defensively. They came through with big shots offensively when they needed. The Lakers were often the bully on the block and the Jazz looked them squarely in the eye down the stretch.
That’s why that timeout was such a topic — the “Should he have or shouldn’t he have?” aspect. And to be fair, it looked a lot worse live than it did with the benefit of hindsight.
“My normal policy in that situation is to let the play go,” Hardy said. “It’s better to try and get a good shot in a scramble situation. But once Collin started to retreat dribble, I started calling timeout. It was obviously loud in there. The hope would be to have had a few more seconds than two. But, yeah, it’s tough.”
There are a few factors that made this more convoluted than what normally appeared.
When you watch the replay, Davis heard the whistle and stopped playing. Watching the play live, it appears Sexton had an open lane to the basket. That’s not the case. Had Davis not stopped, he would have been in position to present a stiff shot-blocking challenge at the rim. But even if that happens, Utah center Walker Kessler would have been in prime position to put back a potential miss. So Davis would have had to block the shot cleanly and probably send it out of bounds, or the Jazz would still have had an advantage there.
“I was definitely in position to tip the ball back in,” Kessler said. “I was right there.”
Hardy started calling for the timeout well before it was actually granted, which is of significant importance here. Hardy started that process with at least four seconds remaining on the clock, right as Hachimura’s pressure defense forced Sexton to retreat from the basket off the dribble. This is what makes Hardy’s decision not as bad as it looks. His first attempt to signal for a timeout came when Sexton was beyond the 3-point line, and not when he was closer to the basket. The issue was Delta Center at the moment being almost as loud as it gets, the officials being focused on the play and not being focused on Hardy. In the end, Hardy had to come to half court to get his timeout granted. And by then, the Jazz were almost out of time.
“I don’t blame him (Hardy) at all,” Sexton said. “The Lakers made a different adjustment to guard our last play and we didn’t counter it fast enough. That’s why we didn’t get a good shot off. So that was the really tough part about it. It was going to be a great coaching call, but they sniffed it out. I was frustrated, but this is no different than coach if he pulls me out of a game and screams and yells. I know it’s not coming from a bad place.
“In this situation, coach did what was best for the team. So, there’s no fault or blame anywhere. Sometimes, you live and you learn. It happens.”
The Jazz want to develop this season, but the best thing to come out of Sunday is how much the Jazz rallied around each other in a situation that could have melted other locker rooms. It began with Hardy addressing Sexton in the locker room. It continued with Sexton knowing that a decision that would be scrutinized was sound in its reasoning, even if the result wasn’t the desired one. And it continued with Sexton and the Jazz backing their coach postgame.
No matter what happens this season with the Jazz in terms of wins and losses, Utah needs to establish a culture going forward. Sunday night tested the character of the Jazz, and the trust between coach and players. It’s obvious the team, in that sense, is on the proverbial same page. In a season of transition, that is something that is sorely needed, especially as the franchise moves forward beyond this season.
(Photo of Collin Sexton: Jamie Sabau / NBAE via Getty Images)
