Jazz were their 'own worst enemy' in loss to Spurs

SALT LAKE CITY — Victor Wembanyama apparently feels right at home playing in Utah.

The last time the San Antonio Spurs' rising star was in Salt Lake City, he recorded a rare five-by-five. On Tuesday, he hung a 30-piece. Heck, the Jazz even seemed to welcome him, too, with the team's special NBA Cup court looking much more Spursian than Jazz-like.

Wembanyama had 34 points and seven rebounds as San Antonio pulled away late for a 128-115 win over the Jazz at the Delta Center.

Wembanyama was 13-of-23 from the field, hit six 3-pointers and added seven rebounds and three blocked shots.

Yet, to Jazz coach Will Hardy, another big performance from Wembanyama wasn't the reason the Jazz were eliminated from NBA Cup contention on Tuesday.

"I really do think that, ultimately, tonight we beat ourselves," Hardy said.

There were two glaring issues he pointed to: turnovers and giving up offensive rebounds.

The Jazz had 21 turnovers, including 12 live-ball giveaways, leading to 33 points for the Spurs; that number is hard to overcome.

"We have way too many turnovers dribbling in a crowd," Hardy said. "We have way too many turnovers getting stripped one-on-one, and then we have too many kind of pass and catch turnovers."

So the biggest issue when it comes to the giveaways is there's, well, not a single big issue.

In the game's third minute, Keyonte George passed the ball out of bounds because John Collins wasn't looking at the ball.

Brice Sensabaugh, after getting on a heater by catching and shooting in the second quarter, decided to go one-on-one against Chris Paul, which ended with him getting it stolen (Isaiah Collier and George had similar miscues).

Multiple Jazz players fumbled the ball on seemingly simple catches, which led to quick breakaways.

"It's an appetizer sampler of turnovers," Hardy said. "So it's been brought up. It'll continue to be brought up again. I never fault the guy's intent, like nobody wants to make a turnover, but we've got to do, again, the little things."

Sometimes those "little things" are fairly elementary: catch with two hands, pass fake and then throw, and don't just randomly go one-on-one for the fun of it.

"I feel like there are moments where we get in a groove and things start going well, and we sort of abandon some of the things that are the reason why it's going well," Hardy said. "We kind of start playing a little bit too much one-on-one. The ball starts to stick a little bit when what's gotten us in that flow is the ball moving."

Hardy is confident, though, that the turnovers won't be a long-term issue. He said some of it has to do with youth and some of it's just learning how to play together. As for George, who finished with 26 points, but six turnovers, Hardy said it's about figuring out how to read the game better.

Even with the turnovers plaguing the team all game, the Jazz were still only down by 3 points heading into the fourth quarter. But that's when the second issue reared its head.

Utah allowed eight offensive rebounds in the final frame, which helped San Antonio pull away at the end.

"There were a couple that were a weird bounce, but there were also way too many where we weren't covering up the free-throw line area," Hardy said. "That's an emphasis, I would assume, for every NBA team with the amount of jump shots that are being taken. And we just didn't come up with those balls. … We had too many people under the basket. We didn't have those two guys around the free throw like we needed to."

And that turned a promising game — the Jazz shot 51% from the field and 37% from 3-point range — into a loss.

"We were our own worst enemy, especially when it comes to the rebounding and the turnovers," Hardy said.

Lauri Markkanen, who finished with 14 points, had to be helped off the court after he banged knees with Wembanyama late in the game; he didn't return. The Jazz said the injury was a left knee contusion.

Related topics