Our preview asked whether Will Hardy could keep Keyonte George, Ace Bailey or Darryn Peterson on the floor for all 48 minutes. He couldn't. By our count of NBA.com's play-by-play, the Jazz played 5:52 with none of them out there, down from 8:08 on Monday. We said anything under two minutes was a win for Hardy, so he misses our bar. Those minutes also broke even, 13-13. The pick was Spurs 115, Jazz 109. It finished 117-111 Spurs, so we had the right winner and the exact margin, and it took an extra five minutes to get there. Call it a B-plus. We also had Mo Bamba starting at center, and Jaxson Hayes was cleared before tip and played 37:24.
Fans spent the night blaming the bench lineups. This time the bench held, and we lost the game in the close. Peterson sat the last 2:06 of regulation and all of overtime, and George started overtime on the bench too. Against San Antonio's five starters, on the second night of their back-to-back, we opened the extra period with Bailey, Hayes, Josh Green, Isaiah Collier and Brice Sensabaugh. We'd have closed with the rookie.
The 5:52 held up
The bench groups came in twice. Late in the first, with George out at 3:07 and us up 26-20, Sensabaugh, Collier and Josh Okogie pushed it to 32-22 by the end of the quarter. Late in the third it went the other way. George came out at 2:45 with us up 78-74, Collier threw it away to Stephon Castle, Victor Wembanyama hit a three, and Castle's 4-footer at 1.2 seconds tied it 85-85. That's the all-bench stretch fans groaned about in the postgame thread, and it cost us a four-point lead.
Add the two and it comes out even. Monday we lost the minutes without those three by 11. Wednesday it was a wash, and that's what we asked for, more or less.
Seven minutes without the rookie
Peterson had the best night of his five-game career: 18 points, a career high, on 4-of-13 shooting, 3-of-8 from three and 7-of-7 at the line. He'd already been through a scare. At 7:45 of the first he went up to dunk on Wembanyama and missed, and he came out 14 seconds later. Eric Spyropoulos, the Jazz's digital reporter, posted that he'd been hit in the face on the attempt. He was back to start the second quarter.
He came back in at 6:35 of the fourth with us down 97-96, and found Bailey for a 17-foot pull-up and a 98-97 lead on his first trip. That shot gave Bailey 19, his season high. Then Peterson missed two threes 34 seconds apart, at 4:08 and 3:34, and at 2:06, down 105-100, Hardy took him out for Green and sent Sensabaugh in for Okogie. Peterson didn't play again.
We don't know why, and by Thursday morning nobody else did either. The Associated Press, in the wire story the Deseret News ran, wrote that Peterson "didn’t play down the stretch or in overtime" and gave no reason. Jonah Kubicek of Roundtable Sports, writing on Yahoo, says Jazz fans will want an explanation from Hardy. None of the recaps we read had a word from Hardy, and nobody on the Jazz side has said. Peterson played 25:56, two seconds off his 25:58 on Monday. That could be a plan for his minutes or a coincidence. Either way, the r/UtahJazz postgame thread had the same question, and one commenter put it about as well as anyone: "I don’t think benching your 2nd overall pick who is having the best game of his career so far for the end of the 4Q and all of OT is a great idea."
The case for Hardy is Sensabaugh. After Peterson sat, the Jazz scored 11 points, and Sensabaugh scored 9 of them: a 26-foot step-back three at 1:56 of the fourth, then both of our baskets in overtime. He finished with 16 in 18:24, on 4-of-5 from deep. Keeping him on the floor was right. Taking Peterson off to do it wasn't. Collier started overtime with five turnovers already, and Green was out there with 2 points on three shots.
Overtime was George against five
George tied it at 105 with a driving layup at 0:41 of regulation, after Wembanyama was called for a loose-ball foul. He finished with 31, his season high, on 11-of-27 and 5-of-12 from three. He had 11 points before the game was three and a half minutes old. He also had 5 turnovers, and from the 5:58 mark of the fourth on he went 2-of-10, including the three Castle blocked with 4.9 seconds left in regulation.
Sensabaugh's three at 3:15 of overtime put us up 108-105. The Spurs scored the next 12 points. Devin Vassell hit a 10-footer. De'Aaron Fox stole the ball from Collier, and Dylan Harper made two free throws after Collier fouled him. George checked in during those free throws, with 2:24 left. Vassell tipped in a miss, and Wembanyama hit a 13-footer. Then George threw it away twice, at 1:25 and 0:59.7, and Wembanyama and Fox dunked both. We went 2:25 without a point until Sensabaugh's last three.
That's four turnovers in five minutes (Hayes, Collier and two from George), and six of the Spurs' 12 overtime points came right after them. We shot 2-of-7 in the extra period, and both makes were Sensabaugh threes. Their whole night looked like that. We turned it over 19 times to their 11, they had 14 steals to our 3, and they scored 17 points off our turnovers to our 11. Collier had 6 of the 19 to go with 7 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists.
Fans in the postgame thread kept describing the same overtime possession: George, a screen, two Spurs jumping out at him, and a tough shot with the clock almost gone. With Peterson next to him, San Antonio has to guard a second guy who can make a play. With Collier, Green and Hayes, it didn't. Hayes had 11 rebounds and 4 assists and went 0-of-2 from the field, and the Spurs could afford to leave him.
The AP saw a tired George, too. Its story said George "seemed gassed at the end of regulation and overtime carrying the Jazz offense." That's the best defense of Hardy starting overtime with George on the bench, and plenty of fans in the postgame thread made it. We'll buy it. If your best scorer is out of gas, though, the guy you want out there is the one with fresh legs who can also make a play, and that was the rookie with 25:56 on his clock. Jared Koch of Jazz On SI counted "questionable rotation decisions from Will Hardy" among the reasons we ran out of gas. Sitting Peterson is the one we'd want back.
The rest of the box
We made three more threes than the Spurs (15-of-39 to 12-of-38) and went 18-of-19 at the line. Wembanyama made up for that inside: 36 points on 14-of-25, 14 rebounds and no turnovers in 38:48, and the Spurs won the paint 54-34. Our preview said we'd like to think the extra day of rest would show late, and that we weren't counting on it. Good thing. Kubicek thought the Spurs looked tired from the opening tip, and our 11-point lead in the second quarter says he had a point. The team on the back-to-back still won overtime 12-6.
The refs got plenty of heat in the game thread. The box doesn't back it up: 18 fouls each, 19 free throws for us and 21 for them.
We're 1-4. Without Lauri Markkanen (right wrist sprain, out per the Jazz's injury report), Jaren Jackson Jr. or Jusuf Nurkić, we took Wembanyama and the Spurs to overtime, and we'll take the effort. What we want from Hardy before Saturday's 1 p.m. game against Portland at the Delta Center (schedule) is an answer on Peterson's minutes. If 26 is the plan, spend some of them at the end.
Take note.
Sources: NBA.com box score for player lines, minutes and team totals (turnovers, steals, points off turnovers, paint points, threes, free throws and fouls); NBA.com play-by-play for the 5:52 without George, Bailey or Peterson and the 13-13 in those minutes (our count), Peterson's exits and return, both teams' overtime lineups, the 12-0 run, the turnovers and George's shooting after 5:58 of the fourth; NBA.com box scores for the Grizzlies, Pelicans, Lakers and Grizzlies games for the season and career highs and Monday's minutes; our Oct. 27 recap for Monday's 8:08; the Utah Jazz on X for the injury report; Eric Spyropoulos on X for Peterson's first-quarter exit; the Associated Press, via the Deseret News, for his lines on Peterson and George; Jonah Kubicek of Roundtable Sports on Yahoo; Jared Koch of Jazz On SI; r/UtahJazz game thread and postgame thread.