Utah Jazz vs Los Angeles Clippers: Recap and final score

The Utah Jazz, doing everything they could to not win this game, nearly won this game. The headlines for this one will talk about Kawhi Leonard and his 45 points, but this was an absolutely pathetic performance from the Los Angeles Clippers.

Coming into this one, the Utah Jazz rested their most important players, including Keyonte George, Lauri Markkanen, Jusuf Nurkic, and Kevin Love. Oh, and Ace Bailey was also out due to injury. All that, and Utah was leading in the fourth quarter. To actually win this game, the Clippers needed every single point from Kawhi Leonard. The dictionary, Wikipedia, and the internet in general should replace whatever is there for fool’s gold with this Clipper team. They are horrible to watch and absolutely should be relegated to the G League.

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For the Utah Jazz, they got some nice performances from a few of their young guys. Isaiah Collier was very nice in this one with 16 points, 10 assists, and 6 rebounds. He shot 6/9 from the field, including going 1/3 from three. We also saw a career night for Cody Williams, who scored 18 points. It’s nights like these, where the Jazz are working towards a better draft pick, that you find out if your young prospects can develop into rotation players. To see Cody Williams shoot 6/10 from the field and 2/5 from three is a great sign. He’s also driving to the basket with a lot of aggression, something he wasn’t doing well before this season. If Williams can continue to improve, he’s going to prove to be a nice pick. He can definitely become a nice 3-and-D option for the Jazz down the road.

There were a few players who didn’t shine in this one. Kyle Filipowski had the worst game of his career tonight, scoring just 4 points on 2/13 shooting and going 0/5 from three. Combine that with his subpar defense, and it is definitely something to worry about. We also had a pretty tough night for Brice Sensabaugh, who is looking like he’s completely lost his outside shot. Tonight, Sensabaugh shot 0/5 from three and is now shooting 32.4% from three.

The fact is, it was important for the Jazz to lose this game, making tonight a considerable success. On top of losing the game, it helps the Clippers improve their standing, which can help push the Jazz lower in the standings to improve their pick. This is going to be a lot of what we see for the rest of the season. We can only hope that come lottery night, which is not too far away, the Jazz get lucky in a way that they haven’t in the past.