The Utah Jazz were really looking forward to Wednesday's game against the Dallas Mavericks . After an overtime win against the Portland Trail Blazers , they'd had two days of really good practice, a full day off and then a lengthy shootaround in Dallas.
And then they walked into American Airlines Center and were absolutely run off the floor by the Mavericks, 147-97 — a 50-point drubbing.
"That was an absolutely horrendous performance from start to finish," head coach Will Hardy said. "That was a masterpiece of dog----."
The Jazz were going to again be without Lauri Markkanen (left hamstring strain), Jordan Clarkson (right thigh contusion) and Kelly Olynyk (right shoulder strain), so they knew that scoring might be an issue in Dallas, but the plan was to be as physical and intense on defense as possible.
Well, things obviously didn't go according to plan.
Luka Doncic made back-to-back 3-pointers on the Mavericks' first two possessions and it was clear that he was going to have a good night. But, rather than pick things up on the defensive end, the Jazz fell apart.
"I was most disappointed with our defensive intensity to start the game," Hardy said. "I think defensively it was poor the entire night."
Doncic would go on to have a historic first-half, recording the highest scoring first-half triple-double in NBA history with 29 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists at the midway point of the game.
And Doncic is a player who wears everything on his face. At one point in the first quarter, he sent a no-look lob to Derrick Jones Jr. , and as he let go of the pass he made eye contact with Hardy.
Jones finished off the alley-oop and Doncic ran back to the other end of the court smiling and shaking his head.
He didn't feel the Jazz's defense and he was letting them know that there wasn't much they could do to stop him.
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"We've got to take more pride on defense and just guard — guard the yard, three feet to the left and three feet to the right and not look for help each and every time," Collin Sexton said.
"With a guy like Luka, we know he's a facilitator as well as a scorer, and we just gotta continue to be better. We've got to be better, we've got to be tougher … I feel like too many times we were on our heels and allowing guys to just to do what they want, walk up the court."
Doncic finished with 40 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds and didn't play in the fourth quarter in a game that the Mavericks led by as many as 52 points.
"I haven't been disappointed in our team very often this year," Hardy said. "I think tonight, from the beginning of the game, it's hard to place what the reason is, but it seemed like the Mavericks were moving at a different pace than we were."
The Mavericks had an incredible shooting night, hitting 22 3-pointers at a 44.9% clip, and that's the kind of shooting night that would be difficult for anyone to overcome, but had the Jazz been a little bit quicker and played into the body of some of the Mavs jump shooters a little more, maybe that number wouldn't have been so high.
Then you look at what the Mavericks did in transition, scoring 29 points off 19 Jazz turnovers, or on second-chance opportunities or getting 54 points from their bench, and it's hard to make any kind of argument in favor of the way the Jazz played.
"It's unacceptable," Keyonte George said. "We can't go out there and lose like that — not play hard and not communicate, not compete.
"This is a great organization to be a part of, a winning organization with winning DNA … There's got to be a point where we got to show it each and every night, every 82, so I mean, we just got to continue to keep building and keep building and keep taking small steps."
