Our preview asked whether we could make Memphis play in the half court, and it drew the line at 15 fast-break points: "Fifteen or fewer and we like our chances." Memphis finished with exactly 15. We said we'd be wrong if the Grizzlies won the offensive glass by ten. We won it 14-6, and the paint 46-34. So the question gets a yes. The pick (Jazz 117, Grizzlies 112) gets a D. We called a five-point game and handed it to the wrong team. Memphis won 110-105 and is 4-0. We're 1-3.
The glass paid off this time. Those 14 offensive rebounds became 15 second-chance points to Memphis's 12. What beat us was shooting and one substitution pattern. Memphis made 16 threes to our 10, an 18-point gap from deep, and won points off turnovers 16-8. And Will Hardy played 8:08 with none of Keyonte George, Ace Bailey or Darryn Peterson on the floor. We lost those minutes 25-14 and won the other 39:52 by six. With Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. hurt, Hardy can't spend eight minutes like that again.
Down to three before halftime
Jaxson Hayes was out before tip with right shoulder soreness, per the Jazz's updated injury report. Lauri Markkanen played 6:02. He came out with 5:58 left in the first quarter and us up 13-11, and the Jazz said his right wrist would keep him out the rest of the night. Memphis closed the quarter 19-8. Jaren Jackson Jr. lasted 9:43. He went out at 10:04 of the second and didn't come back, and KSL reported a right knee injury.
"We'll know more tomorrow once they get some imaging," Hardy said after the game, per Yahoo Sports' Dan Devine. As of Tuesday morning nobody has said how bad either one is, and we're not going to guess.
So the night came down to George, Bailey, Peterson and whoever could stand next to them. Two starters were gone by the second quarter and Hayes never suited up, and we still won the second and fourth quarters. We'll take that part.
The 8:08
The worst of it came late in the third. Down 74-66 with 4:39 left, Hardy went to Brice Sensabaugh, Isaiah Collier, Josh Okogie, Svi Mykhailiuk and Tony Bradley. Memphis won the next 3:32 by 13-8. Quinten Post, Cam Spencer and Cedric Coward hit threes on three straight trips, the run the AP's game story singled out, and Memphis led 87-71 with 1:40 left, its biggest lead of the night. All three came with George, Bailey and Peterson on the bench. A six-point halftime deficit was 13 going into the fourth.
At halftime the fan argument was about Hardy and Peterson's minutes. Peterson played 25:58, which is plenty for a rookie on the second night of a back-to-back, so we'd look at when his minutes came. Resting all three at once made sense when Markkanen and Jackson were around to hold things up. Monday both were done by the second quarter, and the bench units couldn't shoot: Okogie went 0-of-4 in 20:44, Mykhailiuk 0-of-4 and Kyle Filipowski 0-of-3. Outside Bailey, Peterson, Sensabaugh and Josh Green, we went 0-of-15 from three.
Carson Hilton of the Deseret News saw the same split from the building: Hardy started with the usual bench and found what worked in the second half with Bamba, Green and Okogie. Green finished plus-14, best on the team, on 2-of-4 shooting. The fix for Wednesday is to stagger the bench around George, Bailey and Peterson instead of giving it a stretch of its own.
Sensabaugh is the odd case. He scored 11 in 8:57 on 3-of-4 from deep and still finished minus-16, because nearly all of his minutes came without George or Bailey. "Sensa needs way more time on the floor, dude is auto offense," one commenter wrote in the r/UtahJazz postgame thread. We'd go further: play him next to George or Bailey and let him shoot. Collier is harder to judge. He had 8 rebounds, 8 assists and no turnovers, then shot 2-of-9 and 3-of-7 at the line and finished minus-12.
Mo Bamba's first minutes of the season
Down 89-76, a group built around George, Bailey and Mo Bamba won the fourth 29-21. Bamba hadn't played a minute this season. He was a coach's decision in all three games before this one, and Monday he went 28:34 with 14 points on 7-of-8 shooting, 7 rebounds, 4 blocks and a plus-11. His one-handed dunk off a Bailey pass at 5:31 cut it to 98-95, and the NBA's account called it a "ONE-HAND POSTER SLAM." With 1:01 left, Peterson grabbed his own miss, Bailey found Bamba again, and it was 106-105.
The dunks got the noise, but we'd point to what he did at the other end. Memphis scored 21 in the fourth, and only two of those points came in the paint, on a Ty Jerome layup at 5:16, as Hilton pointed out. The rest was three threes, two Jerome 16-footers and free throws. "His rim protection was great," Hardy told the Deseret News. "His presence at the rim, I thought, was terrific for us tonight."
Bailey finished with 17 points on 6-of-10, 3-of-6 from three, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks, plus-11, for his second straight double-double after 17 and 12 against the Lakers. George had 26 on 9-of-17 and went 8-of-9 at the line. Until Markkanen and Jackson are back, Bamba next to those two is the best group we've got, and he should keep these minutes ahead of Filipowski and Bradley.
The last 41 seconds
Jaylen Wells made two free throws at 0:41 for 108-105. We didn't call timeout. George missed a 12-foot pull-up at 0:30, Peterson got the rebound and missed a 10-foot pull-up at 0:21, and Green fouled Jerome at 11.6 seconds. Jerome made both. We called our timeout after that, down five.
"Love Will, but really thought we needed a timeout in that final minute down 3 to settle things," another commenter wrote in the same thread. We agree. A two with 30 seconds left is fine, because there's time to foul and get the ball back. Two quick pull-ups off the dribble, with a timeout still in our pocket, is what we'd change. Jerome shot 4-of-15 and still made the two shots that mattered, 16-footers at 2:44 and 2:15 that turned 102-101 into 106-101.
Peterson missed three twos in the last 2:55 and went 2-of-13 inside the arc for the night, mostly floaters and pull-ups from 7 to 12 feet. Hardy isn't backing off him. "We want him to shoot. We believe in his ability to put the ball in the basket. He's shown that at every level," he told the Deseret News. We're with him: we'd want him taking those shots in his fourth NBA game, and we'd want someone in a timeout drawing up where they come from.
The Spurs are at the Delta Center on Wednesday at 7 p.m. MT (schedule). The first news to watch is the imaging on Markkanen's wrist and Jackson's knee. After that, watch whether Hardy keeps one of George, Bailey or Peterson on the floor at all times, and whether Bamba stays in the rotation. Monday we lost by five and lost the minutes without those three by eleven.
Take note.
Sources: NBA.com box score for player lines and team totals (threes, offensive rebounds, paint, second-chance, fast-break points and points off turnovers); NBA.com play-by-play and ESPN's play-by-play for the lineup minutes and plus-minus (our count), the injury exits, Memphis's biggest lead and fourth-quarter scoring, the timeouts, Bamba's dunks and the last 41 seconds; NBA.com box scores for the Grizzlies, Pelicans and Lakers games (Bamba's three DNPs, Bailey's line against the Lakers); Carson Hilton, Deseret News, for Hardy's quotes on Bamba and Peterson; Dan Devine, Yahoo Sports, for Hardy's imaging quote; John Coon, the Associated Press; the Utah Jazz on X for the injury report and Markkanen's status; KSL's report on Jackson as relayed by SleeperJazz on X; the NBA on X; r/UtahJazz postgame thread.