Will Hardy Says The Jazz Have To Put All Four Quarters Together

The Utah Jazz fell to the Orlando Magic last night in dismal fashion. Leading 87-85 after the third quarter, Orlando outscored the Jazz 38-21. This pushed the Jazz to 1-11 and now in sole possession of last place in the Western Conference.

"I thought in the fourth quarter our energy dipped a little bit after playing a sound game up to that point," Hardy said.

The Jazz committed six turnovers and gave up ten second chance points to the Magic.

Turnovers have been the theme for the Jazz this season. Utah ranks 26th in the league with 17.4 per game.

"Turnovers are hard to diagnose," Hardy said. "They usually aren't one thing. But we've got to value the ball, and I thought that up until the fourth quarter we did a really good job of that. These are things that are massive emphases for our team." 

Darryn Peterson led the way with 22 points on 7-of-19 shooting in 32 minutes. Brice Sensabaugh had 19 off the bench and shot an efficient 6-of-10 from the field and knocked down three 3-pointers.

Without Jaren Jackson Jr., Jusuf Nurkic, and Lauri Markkanen in the lineup, Utah relied on 47 combined minutes from Jaxson Hayes and Mo Bamba. The duo finished with a minus 15 plus minus.

For the Magic, wing Franz Wagner exploded for 38 points on 13-of-23 shooting and went 9-of-10 from the line. When asked about the struggles from perimeter or interior defense, Hardy made clear that both led to Wagner's big day.

"I actually thought that we gave tremendous effort on Franz," Hardy said. "I'm more concerned about Desmond Bane getting 11 threes off. I felt like we made Franz really work. He's a really talented player, and he did make some tough ones. It's not one or the other. It's got to be a combination of things to stop really good players in our league."

It's been a frustrating month of November for the Utah. The Jazz are winless, going 0-6 so far. Three of the loses have realisicallty been a result of a bad third quarter. Hardy has put an emphasis on playing all four quarters and finishing games.

"We've got to continue to dig in and fight," Hardy said. "It's about how we're functioning on both sides of the ball. We need to know and continue to recognize taking the result out of possession. That's what we're working on every single day: trying to repeat those things regardless if the ball goes in or not."

Utah plays its second NBA Cup game on Friday when they travel to Houston to play the Rockets. Houston ranks third in offensive rating this season and is third in the West.