Will Hardy Sees Positives in Jazz's Double-Digit Loss to Spurs

The Utah Jazz came up short against the San Antonio Spurs for what's now their fourth consecutive loss in their last four regular-season showings, dropping this one on the road against Victor Wembanyama and Co. 110-123.

It's a night where the Jazz turned out to have some struggles as teams usually do with the talent that is Wembanyama, as he logged 30 points of his own along with 10 rebounds, an assist, two steals, and two blocks, leading the way for San Antonio to claim their second win of the season against Utah, and win number 30 for their campaign.

However, while the end result might not be too optically appealing for the Jazz having dropped their fourth game in a row, head coach Will Hardy didn't see things all too badly during his postgame presser, highlighting a lot of the moments that went right rather than those that went wrong.

"It's another example of a game where I feel like we played, like, 37 good minutes," Hardy said postgame. "I think when we play teams like that have a very unique style– and obviously, Wembanyama is very unique, in terms of what he does defensively– it requires a higher level of thinking, a higher level of strategy."

"I think our team continues to to show the willingness to share the ball, to play as a team. We're still learning how to deal with those types of moments. Because I felt like in the third quarter, we really had about a five-minute stretch where we just kind of lost the plot, and the game slips away. But, I thought overall, there's a lot of big positives to take away from the game."

Will Hardy Highlights the Positives in Jazz's Loss to Spurs

For Utah, it turned out to be a quality performance on the scoring end for third-year guard Keyonte George, who had another entry in his breakout campaign with 30 points, three rebounds, and six assists to pick up the slack while Lauri Markkanen and Brice Sensabaugh's absence limited their upside offensively.

The Jazz have routinely struggled in games without the services of Lauri Markkanen in the rotation, as he was for a third-straight game in this one due to a lingering illness. Yet, when Utah gets an edge in key categories like offensive rebounding and possession battle, it allows them to have a puncher's chance, even against one of the best in the world like Wembanyama.

Jan 19, 2026; San Antonio, Texas, USA; San Antonio Spurs guard De'aaron Fox (4) dribbles the ball against Utah Jazz forward Cody Williams (5) during the second half at Frost Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Daniel Dunn-Imagn Images | Daniel Dunn-Imagn Images

Hardy made sure to highlight both of those aspects postgame, which, from his perspective, he'll be searching for more and more the further he and the Jazz get into the latter half of the regular season.

"One, the possession battle. We took 13 more shots than they did, and then rebounding, to only you have three offensive rebounds to that team, and to win the rebounding battle, I think is a a really good marker for us. The paint points were about even, so they got away from us in transition for short pockets of the game...But, I felt like there are way more positive takeaways from tonight's game than negative."

The Jazz now go back to the drawing board before they'll have a quick turnaround on a back-to-back road trip vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves, where they'll try to prevent their losing streak from extending to five against their former Defensive Player of the Year, center Rudy Gobert.

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