Jazz hold off Spurs for second win of the season

SAN ANTONIO — The Utah Jazz are now 2-7 on the season, with both of the team’s wins coming on this four-game road trip. The latest was a 111-110 victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday that went all the way down to the wire.
“It feels amazing,” John Collins said after the win. “Selfishly I want to get one for the home crowd. Two road wins sounds kinda (a) little crazy, but we’re taking the wins graciously. Just shows how together we’ve been on the road.”
The Jazz were able to hold off a final push from the Spurs thanks to a late-game trey from Collin Sexton and free throw shooting from Sexton and Jordan Clarkson in the final moments, but two of the Jazz’s rookies played a key part in the Jazz coming away on top.
The Jazz were without Keyonte George (left foot soreness) on Saturday so, two days after making his NBA debut in garbage time in Milwaukee, rookie Isaiah Collier — affectionately called Zay by his teammates — was thrust into the starting lineup.
Jazz head coach Will Hardy said he casually told Collier he would be starting once George was officially ruled out for the night and left it at that.
He didn’t want to make a big deal out of the moment, figuring that there would already be excitement, eagerness and a little anxiety built into the news for the rookie. Before the team went out onto the court, he told Collier to guard the ball and play with impact.
Though Collier did not shoot the ball well, and it took him a while to get going offensively, he made the most of his time on the court, finishing with seven points, six rebounds, four assists, a steal, a block and zero turnovers.
“Just making the right reads, I had zero turnovers right?” Collier said. “See, just making the right read, making the simple play. I’ve come a long way for sure with that…Gotta get my legs under me and make shots. I’m not worried about it, I’m gonna keep shooting.”
Collier’s pace and tempo are what impressed Hardy. There were a couple of moments when Collier got the ball and pushed way ahead of his teammates, ending up in the front court without anyone to pass the ball to.
At one point Hardy said he called a timeout to remind the rest of the team to change ends of the court with a little more energy and match what Collier was giving, to which they answered and were able to get out and get some buckets in transition.
Rookie Kyle “Flip” Filipowski also featured heavily on Saturday, playing 25 minutes off the bench and finishing with eight points, six assists, five rebounds and a steal.
He was also on the court as a part of the closing lineup against the Spurs, a show of trust and confidence from the Jazz coaching staff.
“It’s always great when you have bigs that can pass,” Hardy said. “It gives you an added layer to your offense, and I thought that Kyle did a good job of that tonight.
“He’s very comfortable with the ball in his hands. He’s a good ball handler, and it gives us a lot of optionality on offense, especially when he’s out there with John and Lauri.”
It’s clear that Victor Wembanyama is going to be a force in this league. Teams are going to spend quite a bit of time trying to find ways to slow him down or take parts of the game away from him, and even then he’s probably going to still fare pretty well.
On Saturday, he finished with 24 points, 16 rebounds and seven blocks, shooting well above his average with 6-of-9 from 3-point land. It’s a good game by any standard, but the Jazz were particularly happy with the fact that, considering Wembanyama’s size and passing ability, he didn’t log a single assist and they held the Spurs to just 34 points in the paint with Wembanyama committing six turnovers.
“We need to try to play underneath him a little bit,” Hardy said. “He’s obviously incredibly skilled and is an amazing ball handler for his size, but it’s a long way for that dribble to get to the floor so you have to try to find ways to disrupt him a little bit.
“If we sit back and let him stay in a comfort zone, he’s too good.”
Using a committee of players (Collins, Clarkson, Filipowski, Markkanen) on Wembanyama and in help situations, the Jazz went into the game knowing they were going to play physical, use their hands a lot and try to be in passing lanes as much as possible. That plan seemed to work pretty well.
“That’s the plan, cause the dude is 7′6″, mobile, skilled, you know what I mean?” Collins said. “You need to do what you can to try to stop him, whether it just be play physical, whether we get into passing lanes, or whatever we can do.
“He’s gonna get a lot of points, but it’s our duty to make it as tough as possible, and he’s still gonna have a great game.”
Injuries are always a part of the game but certainly have been a theme of the early days of this Jazz season. Markkanen, who has already dealt with back spasms, took a really hard and awkward fall in the fourth quarter on Saturday that he’ll surely be feeling for the next few days.
With 2:44 left to play he drove to the basket and was fouled by Devin Vassell but ended up landing with most of his weight driving his hip/glute area straight into the court.
He was getting some treatment on the area after the game and was clearly feeling it, but with this type of a fall/injury, it’s going to likely be the coming days that hurt the worst.