Will Hardy's statement perfectly sums up both the coach's helplessness and Dalton Knecht's heat in the third quarter. “In the second half, it seemed like everyone in the room knew Dalton Knecht was going to shoot, except for a few people. The problem was that these few people were on our team. »
It must be said that the Lakers rookie scored four winning baskets in a row in less than two minutes, almost in the same place on the floor. Certainly, he always had a defender more or less close to contest the shots, but Utah did not find, for 120 seconds, a way to stop him and lived a never-ending story, conceding the same basket again and again.
“Becoming aware of what is happening during the match, the ability to recognize and resolve problems collectively is something we must continue to work on,” says Will Hardy. “Systems, both offensive and defensive, usually have rules to maintain order. Nevertheless, there is a freedom to play, to understand things. At certain times, we have to say that we don't care about the rules because the guy has just taken four shots in a row. »
Do not take a time-out at every difficult moment
But if his players don't succeed, isn't it the role of the coach, because he has the power, to stop the game with a time-out, to put things back in place? The Jazz coach will take one 75 seconds from the end of the third quarter, once the Dalton Knecht wave has passed.
“There are times when we kind of roll the dice and say we want the players to feel things, adapt and communicate. Can they find solutions on the job? “, replies the technician, who confesses that he too could have done better. “In this meeting against the Lakers, we threw the dice and we were not able to correct things immediately. We are there, we do things like this and I can take my share of responsibility for that. »
The right side of this desire is the idea of empowering your players on the floor so that they progress. The head side is also a “clean” way of losing matches, therefore “tanking” without saying it, because since the start of the season, the Jazz have displayed a difference of -10.9 points on average. There is therefore little chance that the players will get through it without the help of their coach and their record, the worst in the West, proves it (3 victories in 14 matches).
