Ace Bailey\u2019s Thursday night performance of a career-best 33 points against the Milwaukee Bucks, which included shooting a single game Jazz franchise record 19 3-point attempts, had everyone talking.<\/p>\n
Utah Jazz head coach Will Hardy called the shot volume \u201ccrazy,\u201d and Philadelphia 76ers head coach Nick Nurse brought it up ahead of the Sixers\u2019 game against Utah at the Delta Center on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, he\u2019s not afraid to shoot, not afraid to shoot high volume 3s,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cHe got 19 of them up the other night… I think it goes back to his ability, with his length and his size and his release and all that stuff that he can actually find those and get them up.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, on Saturday, Bailey used his length, size and athleticism to impact the game on the other side of the ball, too.<\/p>\n
In a 126-116 loss to the Sixers, Bailey finished with a game-high tying 25 points to go with seven rebounds and four assists, but the stat that stood out was his five blocks, a career high, which he racked up in just three quarters.<\/p>\n
\u201cShoo! I might be a big,\u201d Bailey said with a laugh. \u201cI already told Nurk (Jusuf Nurki\u0107) and Walker (Kessler). I was just talking to Walk and he said I\u2019ve got three more to catch him.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s definitely a harder feat to reach eight blocks, which is Kessler\u2019s career high, but competing with Kessler is not Bailey\u2019s goal. <\/p>\n
Instead, he wants to make enough of an improvement on the defensive end that Hardy won\u2019t have any reason to take him off the court next season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the team we\u2019re looking to have, being a defender, it\u2019s gonna be a very big role, especially if you wanna stay on the court, and if you wanna win you\u2019ve got to, and I want to win, so I have to play offense and defense,\u201d Bailey told the Deseret News.<\/p>\n
Coming into the NBA, it was Bailey\u2019s ability to score and create for himself that were so impressive. Every team that was within the range to pick Bailey, who went No. 5 overall to the Jazz in last June\u2019s draft, was blown away by his offensive ability.<\/p>\n
The questions were whether or not he was going to be a willing passer and how much he would use his size and skill on the defensive end, which were things that weren\u2019t as obvious and clear from his lone season at Rutgers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s grown more defensively than offensively,\u201d Hardy said. \u201cIt\u2019s harder to discuss an individual\u2019s defense in these settings, because there are fewer things that you can really measure. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, tonight we\u2019re talking about it because he had five blocks…but Ace is an incredible athlete, and it\u2019s not just offensively. Like, his ability to cover ground and close out his ability to guard the ball…I truly believe that he\u2019s grown more on the defensive side of the ball than he has offensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all echoed by Bailey\u2019s teammates and praised from coaches around the league, who see that he is impacting things on both ends of the floor and doing it more so as the season has progressed.<\/p>\n
The idea of having a tall, versatile wing who can be a positive defender is something that the Jazz haven\u2019t had in a long time, and it\u2019s going to be a big part of the Jazz\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very exciting,\u201d Hardy said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ace Bailey\u2019s Thursday night performance of a career-best 33 points against the Milwaukee Bucks, which included shooting a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,7,6,1111,678,207,3817],"class_list":{"0":"post-672215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-news-feed-local","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","14":"tag-philadelphia76ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116271528922697556","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}