Every week during the regular season begins here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring features that let us relive the biggest moments, key performances and hot issues in Jazzland from various angles. Check in every week for the quotes, stats, plays and performances that tell the stories from the last 168 hours in the world of the Jazz.
Kyle Filipowski and Brice Sensabaugh combined for 52 in Phoenix, and each of them had multiple games with 20+ this past week. Which makes this a good time to check in on the offensively skilled youngsters from a macro standpoint.
We have already said that the most important thing the Jazz accomplish with their stretch run is to figure out how many of their current youngsters can be rotational pieces on a 45-win team. Utah's recent moves signal a shift in competitive ambitions, and as such, minutes that are purely development are going to be harder to come by in 2026-27.
Filipowski is making his case: in his last week, he had one clunker against Toronto (6 points, 2/10 shooting), a rest game, and then scored 25 and 26 in aback-to-back. Sensabaugh had 24, then 13, then 26.
What complicates Filipowski's bid for a major role in 2026-27 is that his best outcomes come at power forward, and the Jazz have two All-Stars that will play at least some of their minutes at the position. Lauri Markkanen is a 3/4, Jaren Jackson Jr. is a 4/5, but that doesn't leave a ton of extra minutes for someone whose best NBA role at this point is as a skilled/stretch forward.
The Jazz have a -10.1 net rating so far this year when Flip is on the floor without any of the Jazz's more traditional center types. That's largely due to the offensive end of the floor, where Flip offers little resistance at the rim. (Opponents shoot 71.5% at the rim with him defending.)
The Jazz have tried a lot of weird configurations to be able to still use Flip as a spiritual four even when he's the tallest guy on the floor. When Kyle Anderson was still in Utah, he spent a lot of time fulfilling the job description of the center on both ends so Filipowski could stay where he's most comfortable. More recently, guys like 6-foot-5 John Konchar and even 10-day signee Andersson Garcia have been doing center things.
It's also easy to imaging prioritizing Filipowski minutes as a stretch four if he's shooting better than 31.8% from the corners, 33.9% from out front. That said, the passing chops are undeniable
Sensabaugh doesn't face quite the same minutes crunch as a compact scoring wing who primarily plays the 2/3, except that Utah is likely to draft a guard/wing type if they pick almost anywhere from first through eighth. Bringing Ace Bailey along is clearly a top priority, too.
His reputation as a pull-up shooter might be better than his reality (34%), but anybody talking about him as strictly an outside sniper probably misunderstands his craftiness and scorer's knack. He shoots 56.5% on 5.1 drives per game. Only 13 NBA players who drive as often as him shoot better, and most of the names on that list are stars. He's also at 43.7% on catch-and-shoot threes, which is pretty darn valuable. He's a hooper's hooper, and when he is in a flow he's really fun to watch.
As with Flip, it gets more complicated on the other end. Brice is still a bottom-10 defender based on D-EPM[fn]So are Keyonte George and Isaiah Collier, by the way, although Key more than compensates with his overall offensive value.[/fn].
There's a world where both guys are in the rotation next season. In Flip's case a lot depends on what the Jazz do with Walker Kessler, or if they view JJJ as sliding to the five when the starting center checks out. Sensabaugh could offer some microwave scoring off the bench, although if Utah uses all or some of the mid-level exception on more compact wings or ball handling guards.
It's why it's so much fun to tinker with the Jazz's offseason scenarios. Every decision impacts not just the roster and salary sheet, but also helps determine if there are minutes and possessions available for guys like this two offensively skilled 22-year-olds.
"There's quiet moments where your mind wanders for sure, biut I also have to lead by example. And I'm asking our players to remain present, and that's my job too, is to coach the guys that are available tonight... They're our guys, they're my guys. There's no part of me that wants to be thinking about anything past tonight, because that would be a disservice to them."
- Will Hardy, on whether or not it's tempting to think ahead to next season
What a perfect quote for this part of the season. As the conversation above illustrates, it's hard not to process everything that happens in this part of the calendar without thinking about how it impacts the future.
The Jazz have two under-30 All-Stars and an ascendant guard on their bench in street clothes at the moment. Those three are seven months away from leading a roster into a new era of competitive Jazz basketball. Even as a fan base, it's hard to not start thinking ahead to how Jackson and Markkanen will fit, how George will follow up on his third-year leap, the long-term implications of Kessler's market price as a restricted free agent, and so forth.
In the meantime, though, there are seven games left, and Hardy is choosing to focus there before getting carried away with what next year could feel like.
His roster is full of guys looking for their NBA shot. He's started at least one 2-way or 10-day guy in each of the last six games, and for now he's focused on the guys in uniform.
"This is their chance, and they deserve my full attention and our full attention as a staff."
19.6
At 19 years, 222 days old, Bailey is the third youngest player to complete a 3-game span with at least 95 points, a stretch he concluded with his career-high 37 points against Toronto on Monday. Only LeBron James, Cooper Flagg, Devin Booker and Carmelo Anthony were younger when they had their first 3-game streaks with 25+.
7th
Utah's weird, centerless lineups against Washington resulted in their seventh wire-to-wire loss of the season. They had 11 games last year where they never led. The bigger Wiz outrebounded the Jazz by 16 and won the second chance points 22-10.
84
Friday's contest in Denver was pretty freaking fun, starting with Utah's 84 paint points, the most by any Jazz team since the stat was first tracked 30 years ago. If Utah had made even a few more threes (27.3%), they likely would have completed the upset against the ostensibly contending Nuggets.
38.6%
Outside of Sensabaugh and FIlipowski, the other Jazzmen shot just 38.6% combined from the field in Phoenix on the second night of a back-to-back. Those two accounted for 57.7% of that points, as their eight active teammates all together managed a true shooting figure of 45.8%.
20.9
Cody Williams was probably due a clunker (0-for-9 in a scoreless night in Phoenix) after averaging 20.9 points over his previous seven games. He had 58.9% true shooting over that span, while also averaging 4.0 assists, 3.7 rebounds.
The Jazz bring their wings to the ball out of corner pindowns a lot, and sometimes defenses are so bored guarding that action that they just sort of handle it by memory. Last week, we showed a play where Bailey was the screenee and caught his man anticipating it so he cut back for a highlight jam. Well the same thing can work for the picker:
But what we really need to dissect this week is the way Utah just picked apart the Nuggets. They did a lot of early scoring, which was clearly intentional. When they were in the halfcourt, they were forcing certain players into the action as much as they could, and Sensabugh and Filipowski in particular chewed up indecisive Denver defenders.
For example, here are two plays where they target Jamal Murray in a couple different ways, once for Brice and once for Flip.
That first one is such a great read by Bailey. He gets the switch, but then as he starts to go, he notices that Murray pauses in the lane to stunt his drive. This makes sense initially because Brice's cut to the corner will make Murray the help man anyway, and Aaron Gordon is there to zone cover the weakside while Murray is in. But the second Bailey clocks Murray's decision, he gets ride of the ball. This forces Gordon to commit to Williams, who swings immediately to a now open Brice. As soon as the ball flips to that side, Murray knows his guy is now strongside and starts to recover, but the Jazz are banking that he won't cover the 24-feet distance in time.
On the next one, just watch Murray the whole time. Nikola Jokic even points for him to take Flip so he can shadow-guard the driver, and Murray starts to comply but then gets distracted by a handsy John Konchar. Flip slides behind at that moment, and you can see exactly when Murray notices, "Oops, I'm supposed to be guarding him." Meanwhile, Williams denies the screen and then smartly spins into the Jokic help to engage him, so he doesn't notice that Murray has completely lost track of Flip. Murray quickly flashes a "my bad" signal while Jokic tries not to side-eye him.
Although in fairness, the Jazz went at Jokic a ton, too. Here, the Nuggets try to get Jokic out of the immediate pick-and-roll defense with a pre-switch, but the Jazz have a counter ready:
Jokic signals for Gordon to swap out for him on the P&R defense, which he does by waiting for Sensabaugh to come around the ball screen. But because he's guarding so conservatively, Flip slips out of the screen early, and by the time he catches the ball he's already behind AG. Great way to use their counter against them.
Later on, the Nuggets would start putting Jokic on Williams to keep him out of the P&R defense, to which the Jazz simply replied, "OK, then we'll just have Williams be the screener." It was a pretty interesting chess match as far as the Utah dictating the terms with a smart game plan.
Here are the top performers from Utah's four most recent losses:
Strong in defeat:
- Jazz 127, Raptors 143: Ace Bailey. Not only did Bailey yet again eclipse his own career high (37) but this time he had the most efficient of his big scoring games: 75% true shooting. He also had six points, three assists and two blocks. My distant runner-up would be Konchar, who tied his career high with 19 on just FIVE field goal attempts. Sensabaugh scored more than Konchar, but far less efficiently because of his 1-for-9 night from deep, and there was some decision-making stuff I didn't totally love. Chandler set career highs in assists (9) and steals (3) and scored 13.
- Jazz 110, Wizards 133: Blake Hinson. I typically have an aversion to rewarding short-lived bursts over actual best player/biggest story type of performances... but the defining memory of this game will be Hinson scoring 21 (five threes) in 11 minutes and then being ushered back to the bench. Really the only alternative is Williams, who scored 24 as the starting center — yeah, you read that right — but that required 20 shots.
- Jazz 129, Nuggets 135: Cody Williams. Filipowski was the leading scorer and the Jazz were +15 in his minutes on a night they lost by 6. But he didn't play the last 18.6 minutes, and this was a pretty big night for Williams, Konchar and Harkless. I went Williams because it's hard to ignore 24 and 7, but Konchar hustled his way to 16 points and 8 boards, and Harkless had all of his 11 in the fourth and guarded Nikola Jokic a ton.
- Jazz 109, Suns 134: Kyle Filipowski. For the first half, literally nobody had it going outside of Filipowski and Sensabaugh. Even though Bailey (13 points, all after halftime) and Svi Mykhailiuk (a delightful 14-point flurry) eventually came along, this is still probably between those two, Utah's co-leading scorers in Arizona. I'll go Flip because his line (26-9-3) was a little more complete than Sensabaugh's (26-2-2) and he was more efficient with a better plus-minus.
It's all playoff-bound opponents for Utah this week — first at home, and then they play four of their final games of the season outside of Utah.
Monday 3/30 vs. Cavs: Cleveland is 12-5 in games that Donovan Mitchell and his new backcourt mate James Harden have played together. Predictably, the offense is awesome when those two share the floor (62.4% true shooting for the team, 124.2 ORtg), but the performance on the other end is equal to a bottom-quartile defense. The Cavs' 5-1 surge has them looking for solid in a homecourt slot for the first round, although they are still 1.5 games behind the Knicks (for #3) and lost the tiebreaker. The Jazz already beat them once, when Lauri Markkanen and Keyonte George combined for 60 in Ohio.
Wednesday 4/1 vs. Nuggets: The season series is 3-0 Denver, but the Jazz made them sweat in the most recent two, despite being shorthanded. In both games, Denver needed a last-minute 6-0 run to win. Denver is struggling defensively this year (21st, ugh) and hasn't had a healthy rotation all year. Nevertheless, they're getting back closer to full strengths and have rattled off five straight wins (and 8 in their last 10). One happy byproduct of the injuries is that it's helped Peyton Watson find some rhythm: his 14.9 points are a career-best and have him as the fourth leading scorer behind Jokic, Murray and Gordon.
Friday 4/3 @ Rockets. Houston was able to paper over the lack of a starting caliber PG[fn]Fred VanVleet is hurt.[/fn] for months because of their commitment to the offensive glass and their sheer shotmaking talent. But eventually it caught up with them: After peaking at 16 games above .500, they're just 8-8 in their last 16. There's still a 4-game gulf between them at sixth and Phoenix at seven, and they play six of their final eight at home as they try to keep pace with the Wolves.
Sunday 4/5 @ Thunder. There was a point in the season when it looks like OKC might have everything sewn up by the second-to-last weekend, but the Spurs (and to a lesser degree the Pistons) have kept the pressure on. Despite winning 14 of 15, the Thunder are just 2.5 games ahead of the Spurs, although they have three more home games to pad their lead before the Jazz come to town. Their rotation guys are all healthy for the first time in a long while, which is why 11 guys saw action against New York on Sunday. Jalen Williams (22) had his first game with 20+ since before All-Star.
I resisted the tempation to do another Bailey deep dive for a third straight week, but this week made it pretty easy to be geeked about his progress as an instinctual scorer.
Check out this thread about some of the specific, technical stuff this 19-year-old is doing to make his pull-up game work. (He's shooting 46.7% on off-the-bounce threes in his last 15 games.)
