INSIDER: Will Hardy’s MEGA-DEAL with Jazz | Can He TRANSFORM Utah into CONTENDERS?

INSIDER: Will Hardy’s MEGA-DEAL with Jazz | Can He TRANSFORM Utah into CONTENDERS?

The first major piece of the Jazz rebuild is signed, sealed, and delivered for the future. We’re talking about it next on Locked on Jazz. You are Locked on Jazz, your daily podcast on the Utah Jazz, part of the Locked On podcast network. your team every day. How are you? I’m David Lock, radio voice, the Utah Jazz, Jazz NBA insider. This is Locked on Jazz, your daily podcast on the Utah Jazz, give you insight, expertise, geeky numbers, and hopefully making it way better to be a Jazz fan each and every day. We are free and available on all podcasting apps and on YouTube. Thank you so much for making Locked on Jazz your first listen of the day. Here’s what we got for you today. Lategame watch. Wow, what two fantastic games. I’m not even going to get to the Rockets Warriors lateg game watch from the other night. Uh we will talk about the Will Hardy extension. There are probably eight different angles that I have for you coming up on the Will Hardy extension and what it means to the Utah Jazz. Today’s show is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, customers get $200 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. The Jazz have signed Will Hardy through 2031. This is a big moment for the Jazz because this is truly the first major piece of the rebuild. As we sit here right now, I suspect that Walker Kesler will be on the roster when the Jazz make their next playoff game. I don’t know if Keonte George will be on the depends on his development, frankly, in this offseason. The player in the first two years has shown all of the signs to me. I’m still bullish on Kee. I think I’ve said that, but I don’t know on how Taylor Hendricks is going to bounce back from his injury. I do not know whether Isaiah Collier’s shooting. I do not know whether Kyle like the if you’re watching the playoffs it is abundantly clear that there is a massive difference between what the Jazz are playing and what the playoffs are and the skill level and what it takes to be a part of the winning at that level is so dramatically different than what we’re doing right now. So, it’s very hard to see who and what are actually major p going to be pieces of our first playoff series. And if you look at Detroit and Houston and Orlando who’ve all been through the process, it’s been a massive amount of turnover and a lot of players that they had that didn’t become part of it. What we do know now is that Will Hardy will be a part of that and that is super important for a few reasons. One, let’s just be perfectly clear that in to some extent without being too grandiose here, disaster was averted. The San Antonio Spurs job was open. Will Hardy was somewhat of the golden child out of the Spurs system. The Spurs are looking for someone to lead them to the future with an incredible array of talent and mainly just Victor Webinama. I don’t not even totally sold on Stephen Castle, but Darren Fox is good. And while Will Hardy was under contract, there is a scenario here where that could have taken place where the Spurs ask for the right to talk to Will Hardy. Will Hardy wants to go to San Antonio for both for all sorts of reasons and the Jazz who have now not been able to hold on to Gordon Hayward, Donovan Mitchell, and Rudy Goar. The narrative is they can’t keep a coach and instead Will Hardy opts on I’ll stay in Utah and the Jazz opt on making environment for Will Hardy to stay. Sure, it would have probably cost the Spurs a bunch of draft picks and Danny Gage has done this once before. He traded Doc Rivers and I don’t know how close that ever came, but I will tell you there was a subtle or not so subtle murmur across the entire NBA all season long. everywhere we went is Will Hardy the next first coach. So on the first level, you can decide, you can make your own personal decision of what you think of Will Hardy’s head coach. And it’s certainly I will agree that in many ways it’s very hard to evaluate a head coach who’s in a rebuilding process. But I will give you some reasons in a moment why I think you should be very pleased. But the fact is that there was a scenario here that was floating around the NBA the entire season and felt very real that Will Hardy left and then the Jazz were completely at point zero instead. now signed through 2031 is your head coach and any player who we draft when we draft Cooper Flag coming up here when we win the lottery on Monday and Cooper Flag is our first piece and by the way on tomorrow’s show our first wa my first watch of Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey I’m fine with both by the way but we’ll talk about those the when we d he knows this is my coach there’s Not the question that Jaylen Green and Aman Thompson, well, Aman Thompson went straight to Idoka, but that Jaylen Green and others went through and Steven Silas was pretty clearly not Houston’s head coach. That Detroit went through with a messy year of Monty Williams and all that garbage. No, this is now stability. We don’t have a lot of advantages as a franchise. We don’t have a big market. We don’t have a glitzy history. We don’t have a bunch of advantages as a market. We don’t have a night life. Sorry. We don’t have a diverse population. It’s hard. I know a lot of people really want to dismiss some of the aspects of Salt Lake City that make it hard. Let me tell you, it’s real. It’s real. So, we don’t have a lot of advantages. In fact, if we’re totally honest and look in the mirror honestly, we have some disadvantages. So, we need every advantage we can possibly get. We need a fabulous practice facility. We need a fabulous environment. We need an incredible fan base. We need to treat the players great. We need stability. We can’t add to our list of disadvantages. And today or yesterday, the Jazz gave stability. They gave us the first major piece of the rebuild and they avoided disaster. The second one I the other one I would say here that I think’s really maybe something that it’s overlooked. We’re still learning about the governorship of Ryan Smith and Ashley Smith. This has not been a long run. the first thing that their first act of Ryan Smith was to get his people in board. Justin Zanna stayed through but Danny Ames and it became a new regime with a new head coach and a new model and a rebuild and now we have a new going to have a new stadium and we have a new practice facility and we’re going to have a new home centric office. Like there’s major changes going on in the Ryan Smith Ashley Smith governorship. We’ve seen from a fan standpoint that the commitment to a fan experience is unprecedented. Whether it’s bringing in a hockey team or making sure that bottles of water are $3 or $2 or ice creams are $2. That’s been consistent that this from the very first moment it’s about the fan experience. Even the redo of the Mountain logo from the black yellow fan experience, the naming of the m experience, naming the mascot fan experience. This we now see is really the first basketball statement and that is he’s not Mattisia. He’s not the VC in Sacramento. He’s stability. He’s get talent and reward them. He’s get good people and believe in them. This might be the most important lesson of the Will Hardy extension that he’s not lost by the wins and losses, not swayed by the wind, not caught up in silliness of of emotions night to night. We have seen this with many of these brilliant entrepreneurs who are in a win-win environment in the tech world where multiple people can win at the same time and they all can rise up together and they all feel that they’re brilliant and then they get into the sports world where there’s it’s a win-lose proposition and they lose it. We are not seeing that from Ryan Smith. And that might be the single most important thing that Will Hardy’s extension shows. Why this extension is good for you as the Jazz fan with Will Hardy coaching. Why this extension is important to Will Hardy as we continue on today’s edition of Locked on Jazz. Today’s edition of Locked on Jazz is brought to you by Murdoch Hyundai located at 4646 South State Street, also in Logan and in Lynen. The Murdochs have been in Utah for over 80 years, making sure you get the no regrets experience and that you get the best possible experience. And we make sure of that with a locked on VIP experience you get by being an everydayer. And the Hyundai lineup of cars, just fabulous. The Ionic 5 and Ionic 6 are the electric cars. They’re taking the world by storm. They’re everywhere. The Sonata and the Elantre, the affordable sedans and the SUV line, it was amazing. The Palisade with its third row of seats and the Santa Cru Santa Fe that I’m driving right now, the brand new one with the uh square back rides fabulously, enjoying that each and every day. They’re all at Murdoch Hyundai at 4646 South State Street, also in Logan and in Lynon. Make sure you email me first so that we can get you the VIP experience that you deserve at Murdoch Hundai. It is Murdoch 4646 State Street Logan and Lindon. Email me at dlock09gmail.com so that we can give you the VIP experience that you deserve. Today’s show is also brought to you by FanDuel. FanDuel is the official sportsbook of Locked On. And right now, when you win your first $5 bet, you win $200 in bonus bets. So the NBA playoffs are in full swing. NHL is rolling. Every night delivers incredible momentum shifts and games. Last night was crazy. Whether it’s game-winning shot, breakout player, whatever you want to go after, you can with player props, performance trends, same game parlays, fans have more ways than ever to play smart and win big. Which players are showing up in the biggest moments? How can you track those trends for your next bet? You get after it. And right now, a $200 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. New to FanDuel? Perfect time to sign up. Head to fanuel.com. Place your first $5 bet. If it wins, you get $200 in bonus bets. Make every moment more with FanDuel, the official sportsbook partner of Locked On. If the Timberwolves, if the Warriors win tonight, it’ll be the first time ever in the conference semi-finals that all three teams or all four road teams win. The Warriors though are a 6 and 12 point underdog. The Cavaliers are a 9-point favorite to equal the series against Indiana tonight. Boston’s a 10-point favorite to equal their series and Oklahoma City is an 11 and a half point favorite over Denver on Wednesday as well. So, that’s there are not a lot of uh there there are they are expecting some not as close games here coming up on FanDuel. Thanks so much for making Locked on Jazz your first listen of the day. Locked on NBA, two great shows. If you have not caught the Doug Branson, Matt Moore Hayes daily edition of LockNBA NBA, it is really fabulous. Then game night runs you through every game, every night. All right, so we’ve touched on three areas where the extension is really important. One, the first building block for the Jazz. Two, stability to the new player coming in. three, disaster averted, and four, Ryan Smith’s leadership and Ashley Smith’s governorship, both of them. There’s the Brent Brown factor here. So, Brent Brown is known as one of the better was known as one of the better upand cominging coaches in the NBA. He was in San Antonio system. He was very, very well respected. He came from an international background when international background was invogue and he got named the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers and they ran him through the ringer for four years. Then they did let him work his way through it. Got them to 50 wins and this and and then before Doc Rivers took over. But really, Philadelphia had their most success when they allowed Brent Brown through four years of the rebuild and then to keep through it for seven years with the Philadelphia 76ers to get to the 52 and the 51 wins to let him be the same guy. And they got to the Eastern Conference semi-finals and interestingly enough they’ve done they did better with Brent Brown than they did with anyone else. Then they let him go in the midst of I think COVID and everything else and hired Doc Rivers and whatever. Um, but I think it’s important that this has been done before and can be done successfully. So that it’s not we keep hearing, well, what about culture and losing? I mean, to some extent, we just answer that one. There just aren’t going to be that many players that are still left with the team by the time we’re good. So, you know, if we get Cooper flagged tomorrow on Monday, he’s our he’s our culture and the culture in losing goes away. We probably lose again for another year. We Oklahoma City has our pick. if it’s top eight. If we get Cooper flag, I still think we’re going to win 20 games next year. The and I think that’s still the right thing to do. But this is important. Brent Brown worked his way through this process, got bludgeoned, and showed that you can still be the head coach that wins on the backside with 52 51 wins and then was on pace for probably a 48 win season in his final year. we only played 73 games that year was the it was the uh co year. So I think that’s really really important. The other thing is that as a head coach for Will Hardy, I think it’s important that he knows that he gets the Brent Brown opportunity that if he’s going to get bludgeoned for four or five years in a row that he at least gets the backside and can coach with that vision instead of having to coach scared. There’s a level in what the Jazz did this year that they ended up with the best odds for Cooper flag in the number one lottery position because they were aligned as an organization and Washington’s probably pretty aligned in the organization with Brian Keef as their head coach as a first year head coach and a first year GM. But Charlotte has a new ownership and Charles Lee is a first year head coach and he’s trying to prove himself. That might have been the difference between being third and one and Willie Green in New Orleans was trying to save his job and so was David Griffin and that might have been the difference between New Orleans being 17 and 21 and Jordy Fernandez in Brooklyn was trying to be a firstear coach and pro right like and Darko in Toronto’s trying like yeah we’ve eliminated some of the stuff where if our vision is to make sure that Oklahoma City does not get our pick again next year that there’s a security to what Will Hardy is embracing as he goes through that and that’s important and for Will Hardy as a coach to know that he’s moving the next step. Now let’s take the big question on the table. Is Will Hardy a good head coach? Super hard to tell. Here’s where I will give you four areas where I think Will Hardy’s a good head coach. one, he has a fabulous ability in each of the first three years for the team to come out of training camp for him to watch the first 10 or 15 games and adjust what we’re doing and get better. So, in other words, we’ve played, if you go look at our offensive rating, particularly in the first 10 or 15 games and our second 10 or 15 games, there’s a massive jump every season. To me, that’s him looking at his talent, trying to figure out how to play, having a maybe having a vision in the offseason that’s wrong. That’s possible. and then having the humility to look at actually what’s taking place in real games and adjust and get better. There’s a humility here that I actually think is the most important part of Will Hardy’s coaching. He’s certainly uber confident. He’s young. He’s uber confident. He’s not questioning himself a great deal, but it is a humility to his leadership of trying to get better all the time and being willing to pivot off of where he is. He is not anchored to his decisions in a negative manner. So that’s the first one is I’ve seen really tremendous ability to adjust in a season. And if you actually look at our defense this year, it kept improving at different points in the season and then until we pulled the plug. Really pulled the plug. The second one I would say is his communication with the players has been elite. He’s kept the veterans on board. He’s had the young players grow. Kee had a 24-hour window where he moped around after getting put on the bench, but Will brought him back around. The team had a few moments this year where I thought they were teetering on the edge of like the losing was going to wear them out and the frustration was going to start. There was one game I remember where I said something someone someone the vet kind an old veteran of the league looked at me and said like yeah losing sucks. It’ll wear you out and he brought that back around. There’s a moment two years ago, I think in Orlando that strikes me where we were in one of our transition stages on a season we were kind of close to making a run for the play and in the front office pivoted and he sat down with Jordan Clarkson and Lowry Markin and maybe John Collins at the time and Colin Ston and kind of said like okay like here’s where we are. He kept them on board with truthful honesty and communication. I think the players really believe he cares about them. I think he really does care about them. actually might be the more important comment there. So I think those first two things an will a humble willingness to adjust and an ability to adjust and really crafty X’s and O’s communication with players. Then the other one that I would say from behind the scenes that I know about Will is a constant quest for improvement. Will has spent already this off season talking with two of the most modern kind of forwardthinking names and voices in the world of organizational structure as well as performance as well as business like he’s talking to people that I would as a someone who’s been a whatever you want to call it entrepreneur runs another company people I read people I would love to meet people I’ve built the culture of locked on found Will Hardy’s arranging to get on Zoom meetings, fly into cities, go talk to fly them into our city so that he can interact with them. So, it’s a constant quest to get better. And then the last one I would say is he clearly has the vision of where he’s trying to take the team in this long-term vision, this lesson. There were thing he believes in the zone defense. They shelved it for much of the year this year because they were trying to get the fundamentals of how to play defense. He’s using each of the 82 games in this at this stage for how to get better later. He believes fundamentally you have to have a multitude of different looks to get through the playoffs, but at this stage in our development, it’s like, let’s get really good at one or two things and we’ll build that playoff team later. So, I think you’re seeing that kind of vision, that kind of approach from him that I think is is a good sign. So, do I think Will Hardy’s a good coach? Yes. Do I think he’s done the most with what he could do? Yes. Do I think he executed this year perfectly? Yes. Do I think you can judge him on his win losses and his defense and offensive rankings? Probably not entirely. So that’s it. First building block stability for those coming in. Disaster averted. Ryan Smith’s leadership and Ashley Smith’s leadership. For all of us who ever watched Larry Miller and then learned about Gail Miller afterwards, we really should be smart enough to realize it’s it’s a team effort. Will Hardy specifically, his exo’s growth, his humility of adjustment, his communication with players, his quest for improvement, his vision for the future, and then the last one, I think, is to him to know that he will get the opportunity to turn the corner with this franchise. So, a big day, a big step in the Jazz rebuild. Oklahoma City, Boston one seeds fall both in late games. We’ll late game watch it next on Locked on Jazz. Thanks so much for making Locked on Jazz your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all podcasting apps and YouTube. If you like what you’re getting, a fivestar review would be super. Just subscribe and follow. We’d love that as well. Bell button on YouTube. All right, let’s go to Denver OKC. Pretty incredible. 113102 OKC up by 11 with 427 left. Some interesting defensive things. Lou Dort was on Murray. I thought it was interesting. OKC has Caruso and Dort on the floor at the same time. I know Dort made a bunch of his shots this year. I know that Dork made his playoff his shots last year in the playoffs. I know they want to be defensive minded, but I got to say what’s most interesting, big big picture comment coming here on both OKC and Boston. There were things in the first round when we did late game watch that I didn’t like. If you remember, go back to Boston. I talked about they had a late game where they won. I just really did not like what I saw at all. And there was OKC where I did not like what I saw against Memphis. I thought both these things really became prominent last night. Okay, Chad Homegrren is a 38% three-point shooter. Lou Dord is a 41% three-point shooter. And Caruso is a 35% three-point shooter. I want to see what those numbers are as this series goes on. I have some real doubt that I think Chad Holgren in the playoffs is shooting 38%. And I have some real doubt that Lou Door is shooting 41% and Caruso is 35% and just not a great three-point shooter. And there is just a and what what Denver did late in the game, they guarded Dagnel likes to run Sha’s isolations from the top. Okay, so that’s the first thing probably. I mean, nothing wrong with that. But what OKC what Denver basically did is they had a guy guarding Shay and then they played a four-man zone behind it so that there were no driving lanes for Sheay and Sheay wants to play from the top. I think you’re going to see them possibly move Shay in a different spots on the floor here before this before this series is over. I don’t think they can keep running Shay isolation from the top. Shay’s the best isolation, one of the best isolation players in the NBA. He’s in the 89th percentile in isolation. When he runs isolation, he runs 71% of them from the top during the regular season and he’s great at it. But they played in a way that other teams had not played this year. They played with basically two a guy on each elbow and guys late and then they just decided they were going to rotate and flare out to shooters. One of the things they were doing was interesting is if you think of the guys on each elbow at the top of the free throw line and two guys down by the baseline, the guy at the elbow’s responsibility was to get out to the corner shooter. I that’s a long way to go. And that’s where Caruso missed a three, Homegrren missed a three. I want to see how those guys shoot their threes as this game as this series goes on. The concern on Oklahoma City is that they don’t really have a secondary primary ball handler. That if you get the ball out of Sha’s hands, then Jaylen Williams has to make plays and that is not necessarily Jaylen Williams strength. His strength is coming off of other people. So, let’s see what happens. By the way, in the clutch this year, Lou Dort one of six from three. Alex Caruso played seven games in the clutch all season. Was on the floor in the clutch last night. Chad Homegrren played four games in the clutch all season. Did not take a single clutch three all year. Chad Homegrren played four games all year that were within five points with five minutes left. Alex Crusoe played seven. They only played Shay only played 22. They did not play close games this year. Let’s see what happens. That would be what I saw last night. And then they bring in Homegrren and they’re I mean at one point they’re playing Harkinstein, Caruso, and Dort. That’s three nonshooters. I know Dort’s 42%. I still not buying. And if Isaiah Joe really can’t play, he only played 12 minutes last night, went 0 for four from three. That’s a problem for them. I think you’re going to see massive lineup changing as this series goes on. Denver’s foul drawing was incredible late in that game. Oklahoma City just overly aggressive. Didn’t understand what Denver was doing to them. Just kept drawing fouls early in the shot clock to stop the clock and get it going. Um Christian Brown guarding Shay was pretty good. And I I I was surprised it wasn’t Aaron Gordon, though. They did some interesting things with Aaron Gordon where Jokic then started guarding Caruso. That’s what changed the game defensively. David Adam switched Joic onto Caruso when he was on the floor. So then Homegrren could guard Harkinstein or Homegrren, excuse me, Gordon could. And then when they switch then Gordon’s on Shay. So really Denver did a lot of interesting things and the free throw shooting. There’s no question 13.9’s too early to play. Fall 3. Here’s a note on Fallup 3. It’s not a no-brainer. I’ve done the analytics with a bunch of different people. We’ve walked through it. It is not a no-brainer. It is pretty close. So, when you add an extra round of fouling up three, they shoot free throws, you shoot free throws, they shoot free throws, you if you keep it at two, it’s probably advantageous to foul. The minute you add a third round of that, you’re on the wrong side of the math. You’re gonna miss the free throws like Chad Homegrren did. So Mark Dagnel fouling at 13.9 and then again at 10.7. Both of those might be too early. You can do it once, you’re definitely you’re on the right side of it, but not by a lot. You do it twice, it gets very even. You add a third time, you’re on the wrong side of the math. That’s my understanding. So they foul way too early to some extent. That might be the fear of Jokic. Uh let’s make sure we all understand what we’re watching with Jokic. 42 points, 22 rebounds, six assists. One of the f He is his fiveyear span that he’s in right now is one of the five greatest players of all time. There have been he really borderline should have won the MVP for five straight years. We haven’t seen that very often. If he wants to go in the pantheon of great players, you have to do it for 10 years. But his fiveyear span we’re watching right now is one of the fi is one of the five greatest fiveear spans of all time. Okay, Boston, New York, two things. There’ll be a narrative about the three-point shooting because they missed all these threes. Everybody will be lazy. They did win a championship last year doing that. The second thing is in overtime, they did not jack a bunch of threes. So, there’ll be an even lazier narrative of people not actually paying attention to that. And that is if you actually go through it in the f Jaylen, they run a play with they run a play to open up the overtime and they get nothing out of it. They ran an actual play. They got late in the shot clock. It’s why you don’t run a lot of plays late in games because they couldn’t get it. They tried to get into Horford in the post on Brunson. They end up just getting a 24-second shot clock violation. Then they ran another play. Then they get Tatum on Towns. He goes after him. Then they go or Jaylen on towns. They go after him. Then they go Jaylen isolation. Tatum in the post. They ran a play. Then Tatum beat Horford and they spun it around for a three that they missed on the corner. It’s exactly how you’re supposed to play. Brown misses a layup. So that narrative, you’ll hear it. It’s actually not true for the overtime. They missed a lot of three. I mean, they missed a 45 threes during the most of it during the regular league and they definitely kind of lost their offense. And that’s what I didn’t like about them when I watched them in a game in the first round when I just thought they got stale and they got lacked their offense and they didn’t do a lot. They have a little bit of a problem that when they run a play, it’s pretty mundane and they’re having a hard time getting stuff which then forces into a ton of ISO. I I think this problem existed already. Okay, quick thoughts on this one. Some numbers on this one. We like to look at QSQ. Boston’s shot quality against New York’s shot quality was four percentage points better for the game. 40 54.6 versus 50.7. I I I’m not I don’t think this series will be that close. I really don’t. New York’s drive game was.7. Their isolation game was.7. Their pick and rolls was 082. They really didn’t do much offensively. Ton of picks in this game. Both teams ran well over 80. And Boston’s pick and roll game was far better. They just missed some shots. But New York doesn’t have an answer here. Don’t listen to the pundits on that. Don’t get caught up in the mix and not and when Chris Perzingis was on the floor and Jason Tatum and Chris Spzzingus ran nine pick and rolls, they averaged 1.3 points per pick and roll. If Christopheringus does not have the flu, Boston wins that game. Okay, Denver OKC shot quality. OKC’s was two percentage points better. It’s a big deal. Den Denver ends up with 18 turnovers and Oklahoma City with nine and somehow Denver and five fewer shots and Denver wins it. Kind of crazy. A lot took place there for all that to happen. Oklahoma City’s isolations for the game were really high. 1.3 very very good isolation game for them overall. It’ll be their pick and roll game was not despite Joic dropping in a lot of it. Let’s see what they go to. I do think that Denver had an answer late. The other one that was crazy in this game was the amount of transition. Oklahoma City was in transition 25 times and Denver was in transition 29 times. That number is going to come way down in this series. There’s just no way it can stay that high. I’ll be stunned. So, we’ll keep an eye on that. The Jamal Marie Nicola Joic pick and roll ran 21 times for 1.6 points per pick and roll. That is a really big concern for OKC cuz that’s their play. That is locked on Jazz Tail. Back with you tomorrow. My first watch of Ace Bailey and my first watch of Dylan Harper. And the answer is yes. Next tomorrow on Locked on Jazz. Enjoy us. Thanks tuning in today. Now grab the first ever 247 national NBA channel, Locked on NBA. And make sure you check on audio locked in NBA, your team every day. It’s the Locked on Podcast Network.

David Locke, radio voice of the Utah Jazz and Jazz NBA Insider, breaks down the significance of Will Hardy’s contract extension through 2031. This pivotal move marks the first major piece of the Jazz rebuild, providing stability for incoming players and averting potential disaster. Locke explores the implications for Ryan and Ashley Smith’s leadership, drawing parallels to Brett Brown’s tenure with the 76ers.

The podcast delves into Hardy’s strengths as a coach, including his ability to adjust mid-season, communicate effectively with players, and maintain a vision for the team’s future. Locke also analyzes late-game strategies from recent playoff matchups, focusing on the Denver Nuggets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder and Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks games. He dissects key defensive adjustments, three-point shooting concerns, and the impact of players like Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on their respective teams’ performances.

0:00 Jazz sign Will Hardy through 2031
5:41 First major piece of Jazz rebuild secured
6:00: Disaster Averted
8:00: Ryan and Ashley Smith’s leadership
17:29 Will Hardy’s strengths as a head coach
23:07 Analysis of OKC vs Denver late game
28:47 Jokic’s historic 5-year performance span
30:51 Breaking down Celtics vs Knicks overtime

34:26 Preview of next episode

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Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year.

Gametime
Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.

FanDuel
Right now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.

FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)