SACRAMENTO — A bad memory came back to Lauri Markkanen on Friday.
On Dec. 30, 2022, in Sacramento, Markkanen had what would have been a game-sealing rebound slip through his hands. Moments later, the Kings hit a game-winner.
On Friday, in the same arena, nearly the exact same thing happened.
With 6.4 seconds remaining, Sacramento’s Domantas Sabonis outmuscled Walker Kessler and Markkanen for an offensive rebound and scored on a putback, lifting the Kings to a 105-104 win over the visiting Utah Jazz.
“When the shot goes up, we need all guys in on the rebound,” Markkanen said. “Wasn’t our first loss in this building because of an offensive rebound. So it kind of stings, but we’re going to learn from it.”
That was the prevailing message for Utah as it left Golden 1 Center on Friday.
Turns out, the Jazz aren’t the juggernaut that showed up in the season opener. Sacramento made life difficult on Utah’s offense, forcing the Jazz to initiate their sets higher up the floor and aggressively jumping passing lanes.
Utah shot just 31% from 3-point range and committed 19 turnovers — yet still led by 1 with 28.1 seconds to play.
The Jazz were one stop away from a 2-0 start — and, by golly, they nearly got it.
Utah deflected the ball into the backcourt, forcing the Kings to scramble as the shot clock wound down. Sacramento guard Malik Monk missed a floater, and Kessler went up for the rebound — but Sabonis won the battle.
“Analytics wants to judge the full scope of the game, and I understand that,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said. “But competitors shouldn’t, and we lost the game because we couldn’t get a loose ball. We did everything we needed on that possession to generate a miss. The ball was in our hands — and we didn’t come up with it.”
Neither Kessler or Markkanen put a body on Sabonis, allowing him to steal the victory for the Kings.
“We’ve got to get a rebound at the end of the game,” George said. “So that was the main thing for us.”
And if they had, Utah’s ineffective final possession would have been a moot point.
Sabonis disrupted Kyle Filipowski’s inbounds pass, and Utah’s final play ended with a rushed Keyonte George fadeaway jumper that came up well short.
The play was designed for Markkanen — who finished with 33 points — but as the five-second count neared, Filipowski forced the ball to George, who had to make a quick decision.
“Key was just trying to help bail out,” Filipowski said. “It was getting close to five seconds, and I was trying to find an open guy.”
Markkanen was open when Filipowski passed, but he thought the five-second count was coming so he went with the person closest to him. The play was there; the execution wasn’t. It made for a tough learning experience.
“We haven’t been in a lot of situations like that, and you can’t really script them,” said George, who had 19 points and 10 assists. “The best thing for us is actually being in those moments and getting live reps.”
That’s part of the development process. Would a veteran like Jusuf Nurkic, Kyle Anderson, or even Kevin Love have handled that situation better? Probably. But what good would that do? The Jazz want their young players to be tested — and on Friday, they were.
They just came up one play short.
“We want these experiences,” Hardy said. “You have to go through tough moments together, go through high-pressure moments. I love that this game was on the road. It’s good for our group to feel those moments, because you can’t simulate them. We work on situations in practice all the time, but it feels nothing like what that just felt like.”
On Friday, there was pain. Hardy hopes that hurt will soon be worth it.
“This has the makings of a really fun team to be a part of, because it is a team,” Hardy said. “There’s a lot happening in our organization right now that’s trending in a really positive direction. It’s great for us to go through that moment at the end.”
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.