“I’ve talked quite a bit about how we stock ourselves which means one thing to me, and people phrases aren’t hole,” Hardy stated. “That second half was actually disappointing, and it’s not consultant of who we need to be as a company. It’s not consultant of who I would like us to be.
“There are only a few instances the place I’ve been disillusioned in our group, and tonight I’ll drive residence disillusioned. However we now 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 in the course of the recreation, perspective’s for the birds. The lights are on, you’re competing. You’re representing a company, 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) have been among the many Jazz children 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 “a variety of our younger gamers are getting the possibility to play” in video games down the stretch and stated he needs these gamers to acknowledge that their alternatives shouldn’t be taken flippantly. He additionally known as for his crew to play much less selfishly and take extra accountability.
“Go 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 is best to do it at a quantity louder than I’m speaking to you proper now. When there’s a free ball, you should 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 correct that the Jazz ought to be taking part in as arduous as they’ll, the entrance workplace has put its teaching employees and gamers in a nasty place by making it clear with its actions that successful video games isn’t a high precedence within the second half of the season. It’s tough, Larsen continues, to ask gamers to offer 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 greatest to push his gamers to compete tougher in the course of the closing 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 a variety of time and power into it, a variety of thought into it, a variety of emotional power into it, and it’s disappointing typically while you don’t really feel like individuals are pouring into themselves and understanding the chance that they’ve.
“I don’t fake to have all of the solutions. I’m a younger coach. I’m nonetheless figuring quite a bit out. It’s my fifteenth 12 months within the NBA, and I’ve seen a variety of gamers make it and I’ve seen a variety 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 appeared like a pickup recreation at Lifetime Health, the place we simply all met 10 seconds in the past, and we’re all simply type of out right here attempting to get a exercise.”
