The Utah Jazz are no longer putting up a fight when in actual fights

The Utah Jazz are supposed to be bad right now. That's been the whole point of the post-NBA Trade Deadline version of the team; Play the guys who aren't going to win you a lot of games while resting the stars of the squad covertly. It's how they hope to get their pick back, and hopefully ratchet up the expectations for next season. For them to tank properly and lose enough games to get their pick back, however, they can't really put out a quality product.

That's the sad truth with tanks, the basketball is nearly unwatchable. The Jazz are nearly unwatchable, and that's by design. They're not really in any games anymore and the team has no real fight in it when the team squares off with better squads. Yet, we didn't think the team would actually stop fighting completely. We thought maybe the team could win 35 games this year, but that's not happening.

They may not even win 30 games, and they currently have 29. It's a miserable stretch of games, but it's not the losses that have us most concerned but the lack of fight both in the games and in between the whistles that is the most disappointing thing.

On Saturday night, Kris Dunn and Jabari Smith Jr. got into a scuffle on the court in a moment that got both men ejected, but after watching the exchange, it certainly didn't look like a fight. Dunn took some awkward cross-body shots, and Smith looked like this was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

Now, we don't condone fighting, especially in sports. It's a pointless and childish endeavor, but if you're going to get ejected and probably suspended, at least put a little effort into the fight. The exchange wasn't gone and was downright miserable to see how little fight the Jazz had put in the last few weeks.

And while we're cracking a bit of a joke by pointing out how bad the fight was between Smith and Dunn, what's not a joke is that this team isnt' putting forward any effort. As Ben Anderson, a Jazz writer for KSL.com wrote, they put up one of the worst halves in franchise history.

The Jazz broke a lot of records last night and all because the team didn't have any desire to play defense, or fight to get back into the game. The fact that Dunn has one of the more miserably funny exchanges in NBA history with Smith is more of a symbolic encapsulation for the season. A showing that didn't feature much effort, heart, or desire.

Which has been the Jazz's identity since February. This team has no fight anymore and that may be the saddest thing yet.