The Utah Jazz manufactured a perfect outcome against the Chicago Bulls in their 128-126 loss. The Chicago Bulls were without Josh Giddey and were playing on the back end of a back-to-back. That meant the Utah Jazz would have to be strategic to not win the game. Hence, the scratch to Lauri Markkanen and Jusuf Nurkic.
Yes the Jazz were without Markkanen, Nurkic, and Kevin Love, but that gave other players on
the team a chance to shine and Brice Sensabaugh took full advantage.
Sensabaugh had a career night with 43 points while shooting 15/22 from the field and 5/10 from three. He was absolutely electric in the first half and showed that he has some great upside for the future. Will Hardy talked about it and how he’s evolved as a player and how he’s improved as not just a catch-and-shoot player but has been able to reveal more of his game in these types of opportunities.
And that’s what the Jazz should be looking for as the season goes on. They need to give their young players more chances to shine. At no point in this game did anyone say, “Gee, I sure wish Svi Mykhailiuk was out here getting these minutes instead of Sensabaugh.
On top of Sensabaugh, we also got some highlight plays for Ace Bailey to start this one. This alley-oop to start the game was an absolute thing of beauty.
Bailey looks like he’s back at full strength and can hopefully start getting more minutes. He would certainly benefit from the Jazz resting some of their players, like Mykhailiuk and Markkanen, so he can get featured a little more. He’s been extremely unselfish and playing impressive defense, but it would be nice to have him featured just a little more. And that might be the biggest thing for him is learning how to be featured, how to demand the ball, and then score when he gets it. The handle is not quite there yet, but I personally would like to see him test it out more. It’s probably the least reliable of stats but Ace Bailey leading in +/- is a really good sign of his defensive impact.
The two players who probably struggled the most were Kyle Filipowski and Taylor Hendricks, for different reasons. Filipowski had an efficient night on offense, but he has proven to be a near-zero defensively. Nikola Vucevic had a monster night with 35 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists, and scored at will all night against Filipowski. If Filipowski is going to be a winning player, the defense can’t be this bad. The good news for Filipowski is that he has the rest of the season to figure out how to be more impactful in his defensive assignments. If he can’t figure out how to be effective defensively, it’ll be hard to find minutes for him next season.
Taylor Hendricks also struggled to have a positive impact in this one. He played 19 minutes but only took one shot. It was a corner three, and he knocked it down, but Hendricks is running into the issues that Cody Williams was running into with being too passive on the floor. Yes, he’s knocking down threes, which is nice to see, but he has to find a way to be more impactful in the game. In 19 minutes, Hendricks also had just 2 rebounds. Hendricks missed out on a full year of development, and that’s made this season very hard to be a part of the rotation, but on nights like tonight, he has to start imposing his will more. Can he find a way to get more rebounds? Can he get some defensive shots? Can he get at least one weakside block? Anything? I’m excited for the potential of Hendricks, but at some point, he has to start living up to that potential. It would be very good for the Jazz to make it a point to get him into games more and demand he push himself more.
Finally, Cody Williams is becoming a rotation player for the Jazz. He’s becoming one of the best defenders on the team, and he might already be that, considering Walker Kessler is out with an injury. He had a variety of impactful plays tonight, including two impressive blocks. Something has definitely clicked with Williams and he’s playing a much more winning brand of confident basketball. The shot is still not there, but it’s something he can work on, and he’s shown he can make shots. One thing is for sure, he’s only going to get better from here and it makes you wonder what he could potentially become.
All in all, it was a perfect night for the Jazz, who had another hohum 25 point, 7 assist night for Keyonte George, with a two-point loss that gets them closer to another potential star in the draft.
