The Utah Jazz didn’t stand much of a chance against the 22-1 Oklahoma City Thunder, falling 131-101 in a game where everything — and I mean everything — went sideways. Lauri Markkanen was out with an illness, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and several Thunder starters rested, and somehow it still felt like OKC was playing at full strength. The Thunder owns Utah’s first-round pick if it lands outside the bottom eight, so depending on how conspiratorial you are, the whole thing had some interesting timing.
Utah’s defense opened the night with another implosion, giving up 45 points in the first quarter. Nobody talked, nobody matched up in transition, and it looked like half the roster didn’t know where they were supposed to be. Offensively, the only guys doing anything early were Ace Bailey, Keyonte George, and Kyle Filipowski — and even that felt like a stretch. Without Lauri, the Jazz ran a lot of his usual sets for Ace, which led to some flashes but not nearly enough to keep them afloat.
Walter Clayton Jr. completely changed the tone at the start of the second quarter, dropping 12 points with 2 rebounds and 3 assists in what was easily the best stretch of his NBA career so far. He carried over the momentum from his big fourth quarter in New York. Even then, OKC only lost the quarter by one. Keyonte, meanwhile, had one of his roughest halves of the year — 2/8 shooting, 5 turnovers, and a team-low -31 as the Jazz went into halftime trailing 74-48.
The night only got weirder. The Delta Center’s smoke machine malfunctioned twice, randomly pumping smoke into the arena. Then the shot clock broke entirely, forcing the PA announcer to literally count down the final seconds of each possession over the loudspeakers like it was a high-school game. It finally got fixed halfway through the third quarter, long after the Thunder had already blown things wide open.
Chet Holmgren took full advantage of Utah’s lack of a real defensive anchor, getting whatever he wanted. On the bright side, this was easily Taylor Hendricks’ best game of the year — playing minutes at center, moving better, and finally giving you some of the flashes of the guy the Jazz hoped he’d be before the injury. Walter Clayton finished with a career-high 20 points, and Cody Williams did some things late — though mostly against garbage-time lineups.
In the end, the Jazz never had the personnel, discipline, or defensive awareness to stay competitive, and the Thunder rolled to a 30-point win. For a team fighting to keep its draft pick, the loss isn’t necessarily the worst outcome. But the process? Still ugly, still inconsistent, and still full of nights where everything falls apart at once.