Will Hardy Breaks Silence on Reasons for Extreme Jazz Lineup Reshuffle

The Utah Jazz made some unexpected changes to the starting lineup that yielded positive results.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. With the Utah Jazz trending in the wrong direction fast, head coach Will Hardy reshuffled his starting lineup in the 105-100 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday night.

With Lauri Markkanen and Jordan Clarkson not able to participate in the contest, Hardy chose to give Kris Dunn, Omer Yurtseven, and Simone Fontecchio their first starts of the year. Hardy explained the logic behind the shake-up on Saturday night. 

"We feel like Kris is going to bring an element of perimeter defense and a secondary ball handler to assist Keyonte [George] in ball-handling duties," Hardy said via The Salt Lake Tribune's Eric Walden. "Simone has played very well so far this season, and we want to give him an opportunity and see what his size and length looks like as a perimeter defender on a guy like Brandon Ingram. John [Collins] has been in the starting lineup the whole year so we’re gonna keep them there. And Walker [Kessler] is in his first game back from a long layoff — there’s no hard-cap restriction, but to think that he’s unrestricted is not probably in our best interest just to say, ‘Hey, he can play as many minutes as he wants. And Omer’s physicality against [Jonus] Valanciunas I think will help us. He’s played well in the minutes and will give us an opportunity to kind of monitor Walker throughout the game and hopefully just get him through the night healthy and with an appropriate amount of minutes in his first game back.”

Will Hardy, explaining why he went with tonight's starting lineup pic.twitter.com/1ouN38iEaG

— tribjazz (@tribjazz) November 26, 2023

It wasn’t always pretty on the offensive end. Utah finished the game with 23 turnovers and only scored 68 points heading into the last quarter. 

However, the high energy on the defensive end kept Utah in striking distance, and thanks to Collin Sexton getting hot at the right time, the Jazz outscored New Orleans by 14 points to secure the victory. Hardy was all smiles in his post-game press conference after the win.

"A very gritty team win," Hardy said. "Our offense came alive in the fourth quarter, turnovers went down, we finally made a few shots from the perimeter, but this is for sure the first game this year that we've won because of our defense."

It's been a roller coaster ride so far this season, with more downs than ups, but the victory may send a message to the regular starters that could turn the season around. It also raises the question of what the starting lineup will look like moving forward.

It's a safe bet that Markkanen, Clarkson, and Kessler will be put back in the starting lineup, but the leash will be much shorter for the players who struggle on defense and disrupt the offensive flow with overdribbling. These are the two areas that Hardy touched on last week after the blowout loss against the Los Angeles Lakers.

"The only two things that I care about are play hard and pass," Hardy said. "We're at a point now where if you're not willing to do both of those things, you cannot play for the Utah Jazz. We have had pockets where that's been our identity, and we've had pockets where we have wavered."

Dunn is the one player who may have earned an opportunity for rotational minutes. The former lottery pick is Utah's best wing defender and would help contribute to Utah competing on the defensive end. 

If Hardy is serious about improving Utah's lackluster defensive rating of 118.2 on the season, giving Dunn more minutes is a no-brainer. Jazz fans will find out what Hardy has in store on Monday night when the Jazz face the Pelicans.

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