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.
The Jazz got their first look at the Jaren Jackson Jr. era on Saturday, after surprising the basketball world with the aggressive acquisition last week. His debut was auspicious from the jump, with a 5-for-7 first quarter on the way to 22 total points, three steals and four boards.
Just as importantly, he got his first 16 minutes of run next to Lauri Markkanen. It wasn't even yet a full preview of what is to come, since Walker Kessler remains injured and Keyonte George twisted his ankle before halftime. But already, the signs are pretty darn encouraging, with the All-Star pair combining for 49 points in three quarters.
Utah led by as many as 17 before Jackson and Markkanen were shut down for the night, and the defensive rating through three quarters was 98.9, an elite figure. On offense, you can already tell how these guys will enhance and magnify each other's capabilities.
Screening actions between these two will be pretty interesting, since it will put defensive bigs in positions they just aren't in that often. Here, Markkanen sees the dribble hand-off coming and makes a hard V-cut to get his defender off balance. So when Jackson's lefty dribble pitch arrives, the big man is still mentally processing the switch. The ball is out of the Finn's hands before Wendell Carter Jr. leaves the floor to contest.
This is with the Magic's center guarding Jackson so they can get away with putting Paolo Banchero on Jusuf Nurkic. Other times, especially when Kessler is back next year, they'll have other ways to make this an uncomfortable cover.
Here's a good example, because everybody's cross-matched in semi-transition. Their center has to pick Markkanen up early because of the outside threat, and that leaves guard Anthony Black on Jackson. Jackson tries to run another handoff action with his new teammate, but Markkanen instead signals to JJJ to head to the midpost and go to work, then abandons that area to make it harder for his guy to help.
Teams are going to have a lot of tough choices when they show up to guard an opponent with 7-foot Markkanen at the three and 6-10 Jackson at the four. Orlando tried to get away with putting smaller guys like Jalen Suggs (a good defender!) on Markkanen and it didn't go great.
There were some clunky moments early, which can be expected. For starters, the team as a whole was 1-for-6 on threes when those two were both on the floor. If anything, that makes it all the more impressive that both guys looked so effortless in piling up big numbers in short nights.
Vince Williams Jr. and John Konchar also debuted. The latter finished with four points, seven rebounds and three assists. Williams was scoreless in nine minutes, but had an assist.
They'll have up to 29 more games to keep exploring these new partnerships and the overall JJJ fit. But so far, you can see the outlines of why Jazz brass thought adding Jackson to the Jazz core would accelerate the return to competitiveness.
"I'm feeling over the moon. I’m excited to get going. I’m a worker. I feel the love and embrace of the community, and it’s only been a short time."
- Jackson, in an interview with Lauren Green
In Jackson's first round of interview, he sounds genuinely delighted about his new basketball reality. He sounds humble, hungry, and full of praise for his new situation and the other people in it. For example, he called Markkanen a "freak of nature" and talked about his skill and starpower as a 7-footer.
Markkanen returned the favor.
"There's going to be a lot of exciting things that we can do on the court," Utah's leading scorer said of JJJ. "Offensively, he can do pretty much anything. He can dribble the ball, make good plays, can shoot the 3-ball, and is really good at punishing switches. It's exciting what we can come up with together."
Jackson also lauded George's progress, spoke of Ace Bailey's athleticism and mentioned his prior relationship with Kessler from their shared Team USA experience.
98.9
The Jazz have been a bottom-five defense since trading away their last playoff core in a series of 2022 trades, so without a doubt the most interesting stat this week is the 98.9 defensive rating through three quarters in Orlando. The Magic also have a sub-average offense, but still, Jackson's arrival and Kessler's return could help the Jazz make a significant leap on that end in 2026-27.
96, 22
Isaiah Collier had an intriguing and historic week, starting with the fact that he and Adrian Dantley are the only two Jazz players (and two of just 44 NBA players) in the 3-point era to play all 48 minutes in consecutive regular season games. Then he made more history by eclipsing his career maximums in points (25) and assists (22) in those games. The 22 assists were a Jazz-high dating back to 1992, and four more than the previous NBA season high by a player.
52.4%
Over the last four seasons, starting with his Defensive Player of the Year campaign, Jackson has allowed opponents to shoot just 52.4% at the rim. For an idea of just how elite that is, only two of the 35 players with 200+ rim contests this year have a lower percentage allowed: Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Stewart, both defensive anchors for #1 seeds.
811 + 492
We should make at least passing reference to the departures of Walt Clayton Jr. and Taylor Hendricks. It's never fun to move on from first-round draft projects, but you don't really get a hold of All-Star talent in trades without giving up something that makes you wince a little. That said, Clayton and Hendricks were 9th and 11th, respectively, in total minutes this year. Kyle Anderson was last among healthy Jazzmen and he's also Memphis-bound in the deal, and Georges Niang's second Jazz stint is over before he ever touched hardwood.
364
In case you're curious, Jackson, Konchar and Williams became the 362nd, 363rd and 364rd Jazz players to check into a game, per SCH's Ken Clayton.
The other big story of the week was Collier's prolific passing, so let's highlight a little of that here. A lot of Collier's best assist work comes by burrowing into the paint on bruising drives, and then dishing out to shooters. But this one came on a play that looked a bit more planful, so let's explore the Xs and Os here.
It starts with the Jazz faking an outside handoff they run a couple dozen times a game, which is why Collier's defender is worried about beating him to the other side of the screen. That overplay leads to the defender getting smoked when Collier cuts hard away from the pick, and now the Jazz have a 4-on-3.
But at the same time, something kind of subtle is happening 30-plus feet away that makes the play work. Cody Williams and Markkanen switch spots in the weak corner so that the smaller Ben Sheppard becomes the help guy. Only since Williams is less of a shooting threat, he doesn't take the corner, instead parking himself in the "dunker" spot so that he's one step away from a flush when Sheppard inevitably comes to help on Collier.
The generous guard reads the situation perfectly, shoveling the pass right as Sheppard commits his full velocity to stopping the drive, and before Jarace Walker decides what he's doing. If those two make slightly different decisions, Collier also has a wide open teammate who happens to be a 51% shooter from the left corner.
That's just one of the staggering 43 assists Collier had in this week's three games. That's the most ina 3-game span by any NBA player this season.
After a bit of a drought, we have a Game Ball to give out this week, along with recognition for Utah's strong performers in their two losses.
Jazz 131, Pacers 122: Isaiah Collier. When a player does something that hasn't been accomplished since 1992, it's a pretty safe bet they're going to get the Wilson. Such is the case for Collier, who became the first Jazz player since the George H.W. Bush adminisration to hand out 22 assists. He also had 17 points, 5 boards, and 3 steals, but his fourth quarter in particular was a true showcase. He had 9 and 9 in that frame, scoring or assisting 30 of the Jazz's first 31 points in the quarter. Even Markkanen (27) and Kyle Filipowski (16 & 16) would likely admit that this could really only belong to "Zay."
Strong in defeat:
- Jazz 119, Hawks 121: Isaiah Collier. Mark Pereira joked that we could give the Game Ball in this one to 24-hour Jazzman Jock Landale, who played with Revenge Game vibes on the way to 26-11-5. But Collier followed up his career high in assists with a career best of 25 points, plus 11 more dimes and 7 boards. Markkanen had 18 points, but didn't close, and Bailey had 20 but needed a lot of shots to get there.
- Jazz 117, Magic 120: Lauri Markkanen. Had the Jazz won, we would have basically had to give the game ball to JJJ for narrative reasons. But on these consolation prizes we don't always have to be as symbolic, and the reality was that Markkanen was the Jazz MVP in this one, with 21 at halftime. He finished with 27, including five dunks. JJJ's stats were 22-4-3 on great shooting, and Collier had 20 and 10 with extended minutes after George rolled an ankle.
Utah will finish their current road trip and then play a home back-to-back before the All-Star break pauses their season with 26 games left.
Monday 2/9 at Heat: Miami has drawn from criticism after being the only team in the East to eschew making a deadline trade, despite bobbling along at roughly .500 all season. Tyler Herro has only appeared in 11 games this season, which is why first-time All-Star Norm Powell is up to 23.0 ppg. Miami runs less pick-and-roll than any team in the league, instead opting for a system that relies on their perimeter players constantly attacking from the wings.
Wednesday 2/11 vs. Kings: The Kings made their move early, acquiring DeAndre Hunter on February 1. But the newest King still hasn't tasted victory with his new squad because they're on a 12-game losing streak. The last time they won a game on the road was — and this is not a typo — December 6. They've split against the Jazz this year, with each team winning at home. Keegan Murray hasn't played in over a month, and Domantas Sabonis came back from injury but sat out their weekend back-to-back due to lingering back issues.
Thursday 2/12 vs. Blazers: Scoot Henderson finally launched his season, with an 11-point, 9-assist effort in 21 minutes as the Blazers trounced Memphis to widen their lead for the 10th seed. But now first-time All-Star Deni Avdija has missed four in a row, and second-leading scorer Shaedon Sharpe exited Friday's game. They too will be on a back-to-back on Thursday, traveling from Minnesota. They're 2-0 against Utah this season, with the final matchup coming March 13 in Portlandia.
At some point we'll take a closer basketball look at the other two former Grizzlies who arrived in Jazzland this week. In the meantime, here's a hilarious story to show you a little bit about Konchar's personality, sense of humor and self awareness.
