At some point, you run out of ways to be positive when absolutely everything is going wrong. The Utah Jazz lost their 11th consecutive game against the Houston Rockets. At least this time, they fought until the very end. Even more impressive is that they did it against a West contender on their home floor, and they lose yet another player while they were at it.
The biggest positive is that the Jazz stayed in the game from start to finish because of the efforts of they guys they hope would be their three best players on their active roster: Keyonte George (27 points, four threes, seven assists, six rebounds), Darryn Peterson (28 points, four threes, seven rebounds, two steals, and a block), and Ace Bailey (21 points on seven-for-13 shooting).
For everything that absolutely continues to go wrong, their young stars continue to blossom. The Rockets have been one of the NBA's best teams, so to see those three not back down from the challenge is a great sign. Maybe not for this season, but going forward.
In their previous losses, the Jazz have either valiantly fought back after being down big or kept it close before ultimately losing by double digits. Not this time, so they should at least be proud that, as their hole gets deeper and deeper to climb out of, they are fighting harder.
It took an Alperen Sengun heater to beat them
The Rockets won this game because Sengun dominated. Granted, he's an All-Star who is in the midst of a fantastic season, but he went off more than usual tonight. 43 points on 17-for-24 shooting to go with 12 rebounds and five assists are superstar-like numbers, and it was barely enough for Houston to topple Utah.
The Jazz threw Jaxson Hayes (who sat out the second half due to injury), Mo Bamba, and Tony Bradley, so it's not a surprise that Sengun dominated as much as he did. At the same time, a team liek the Rockets should have ended this game by the end of the half. The fact that they didn't shows that the Jazz are getting better at this.
Circumstances continues to ruin the Jazz's hopes of coming back from their paltry record, but they're not lying down. They were a few clutch buckets from winning a game like this. In fact, it took a comedy of errors - Fred VanVleet almost losing the ball then banking it in miliseconds before a shot block violation with seconds left - just to put the game away.
Yes, the Jazz are a bad team, but let's not act like luck hasn't played a part in it. Besides, the trio of Peterson, George, and Bailey all not only looking good but giving the Rockets all they could handle is a positive sign.
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