“I’ve talked rather a lot about how we supply ourselves which means one thing to me, and people phrases are usually not hole,” Hardy stated. “That second half was actually disappointing, and it’s not consultant of who we need to be as a corporation. It’s not consultant of who I would like us to be.
“There are only a few instances the place I’ve been dissatisfied in our group, and tonight I’ll drive residence dissatisfied. However now we have to all get up tomorrow and get again to work. And it’s one recreation. It’s one half. I perceive that, and I’ll get some sleep and get up tomorrow with perspective. However through the recreation, perspective’s for the birds. The lights are on, you’re competing. You’re representing a corporation, representing a fan base, our neighborhood. That was simply unacceptable.”
Rookie ahead Cody Williams (0-for-6, -26 in 18 minutes), second-year guard Keyonte George (0-for-4, -19 in 9 minutes) and second-year ahead Brice Sensabaugh (0-for-2, -22 in 10 minutes) had been among the many Jazz kids who struggled within the second half of the blowout loss to Memphis. It was hardly simply on them although — all 11 gamers who noticed the court docket within the third and fourth quarters had a plus/minus of -10 or worse throughout their minutes.
Whereas Hardy didn’t single out any particular members of the Jazz in his feedback to reporters, he famous that “plenty of our younger gamers are getting the prospect to play” in video games down the stretch and stated he needs these gamers to acknowledge that their alternatives shouldn’t be taken frivolously. He additionally known as for his crew to play much less selfishly and take extra accountability.
“Cross the mom—-ing ball,” Hardy stated when requested for specifics on what he needed to see from his gamers. “Run again on protection. When it’s time to speak what we’re doing on protection, it’s best to do it at a quantity louder than I’m speaking to you proper now. When there’s a unfastened ball, it’s essential to need it greater than the opposite crew. You’re a member of a crew. This isn’t about you. This isn’t a private exercise for you.”
As Larsen notes, whereas Hardy is true that the Jazz ought to be taking part in as laborious as they will, the entrance workplace has put its teaching workers and gamers in a foul place by making it clear with its actions that profitable video games isn’t a high precedence within the second half of the season. It’s troublesome, Larsen continues, to ask gamers to provide it their all when the group has gone into full-fledged tanking mode and isn’t main by instance.
After Tuesday’s loss, Utah has a 16-57 document on the season and has dropped 13 of its previous 14 video games.
Nonetheless, Hardy is doing his finest to push his gamers to compete more durable through the last stretch of the season and to play a extra selfless recreation, telling reporters that when “you make every thing about your self” it turns into an “an infection” that impacts the remainder of the crew.
“I perceive that one recreation and one half shouldn’t be one thing that any of us overreact to,” Hardy stated. “However you place plenty of time and vitality into it, plenty of thought into it, plenty of emotional vitality into it, and it’s disappointing typically once you don’t really feel like individuals are pouring into themselves and understanding the chance that they’ve.
“I don’t faux to have all of the solutions. I’m a younger coach. I’m nonetheless figuring rather a lot out. It’s my fifteenth yr within the NBA, and I’ve seen plenty of gamers make it and I’ve seen plenty of guys behave in a approach that if they may return in time, they’d take it again. I assumed we performed like a crew for a few half, after which it regarded like a pickup recreation at Lifetime Health, the place we simply all met 10 seconds in the past, and we’re all simply sort of out right here attempting to get a exercise.”
