The Utah Jazz started bad and ended worse

Tuesday night's Utah Jazz game was always going to be a tall order, even with the league-leading Boston Celtics missing multiple key players.

With Jaylen Brown, Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis sidelined, it would be on Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, and the rest of the Celtics to pull things together on the road against the Jazz.

Meanwhile, the Jazz were missing Lauri Markkanen, their leading scorer. And rookie Taylor Hendricks was also held out, with a toe injury.

Keyonte George did his best to keep the Jazz in the game early, with 11 points as the Jazz trailed 27-25 just 7 minutes into the first quarter.

The Celtics stepped up at this point, outscoring the Jazz 17-8 to end the quarter with a 44-33 lead.

Jordan Clarkson and Micah Potter went on a mini-tear to open the 2nd, getting the Jazz within 54-50 and waking the Delta Center crowd up momentarily.

The Celtics responded with another run, this one 17-7 to lead at the half, 72-57.

In the 3rd, the Jazz fought back against the Celtics and drew within 2 points with 36 seconds left in the quarter, before Jayson Tatum and Jrue Holiday hit baskets to push the lead back to 98-91 going into the 4th quarter.

And then the Celtics clamped down defensively. Bridging the last minute of the 3rd and going until just under 6 minutes left, Boston went on a 20-0 run to take control of the game. The final would be 123-107 for Boston.

Keyonte George led the Jazz with 26 points and 6 assists, while Jordan Clarkson had 21 off the bench and Collin Sexton had 20 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists.

Jayson Tatum led the Celtics with 38 points, while Derrick White added 24. Sam Hauser had 4 three pointers and finished with 14 points.

Percentage wise, the Jazz actually shot better than the Celtics, with shooting splits of .477/.469/.909, compared to .467/.408/.895 for Boston. However the Celtics had more shots than the Jazz.

Utah (28-37) stays in the lottery hunt with the loss, remaining 9th for now. They are home for a few days, and have their next game at home on Friday night, against the Atlanta Hawks (29-35).