INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 No Lauri Markkanen, no Keyonte George, no Kevin Love, no Jusuf Nurki\u0107, no Ace Bailey. <\/p>\n
The Utah Jazz were missing the majority of their top scorers and most of their size heading into Thursday night\u2019s game against the Los Angeles Clippers, so it\u2019s not surprising that the Clippers came away with a 118-101 victory over the Jazz.<\/p>\n
But the Clippers needed a 20-point fourth quarter from Kawhi Leonard in order to break open the score because prior to that, the Jazz had been right there in a game in which there were eight lead changes.<\/p>\n
The biggest reason the Jazz were staying in the fight was Kyle Anderson.<\/p>\n
For the first time since Jan. 27, 2023, Anderson scored more than 20 points. He finished the night against L.A. with 22 points, eight rebounds, two steals and two blocks off the bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cK.A. played great,\u201d Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. \u201cHe\u2019s a really good ball handler, so you can put him in a bunch of different spots. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he did a good job of beating his man one-on-one few times, did a good job playing in the pocket, had a couple of nice cuts, so it was a variety of things that made him successful, but that\u2019s who Kyle is. He\u2019s always been a really smart, crafty player on the offensive side.\u201d<\/p>\n
And on a night when the Jazz were lacking in not only scoring and size, they were also lacking in experience in a game against some of the most experienced players in the NBA \u2014 Leonard, James Harden, Brook Lopez and Nicolas Batum. <\/p>\n
So Anderson\u2019s presence and experience were welcomed alongside teammates Brice Sensabaugh, Isaiah Collier, Taylor Hendricks, Kyle Filipowski, Walter Clayton Jr. and Cody Williams \u2014 the young core that made up nearly the entirety of the Jazz\u2019s available roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cKyle has been in so many situations. He\u2019s played in the playoffs, he\u2019s played on a couple of different teams, he\u2019s played some different roles, so obviously there\u2019s experience,\u201d Hardy said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an understanding of who he\u2019s playing against. He knows personnel. I\u2019m really happy for Kyle that he turned in that game. Obviously he hasn\u2019t gotten what he has wanted this year, but it\u2019s a credit to him for staying ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true that Anderson had hoped for more playing time, but he\u2019s been trying his best to use his time wisely both in helping the younger players develop, but also trying to improve himself for whatever opportunity is around the corner.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust treating it like it\u2019s the summertime,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cJust really getting to work, staying after shootaround, working hard before the game, support my teammates and going from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Jazz continue their four-game road trip with a stop in San Francisco to face the Golden State Warriors on Saturday night. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 No Lauri Markkanen, no Keyonte George, no Kevin Love, no Jusuf Nurki\u0107, no Ace Bailey.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99,4219],"class_list":{"0":"post-383615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-utah-jazz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}