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.
Before the season, it felt fairly likely that the Jazz would have to get creative about backcourt minutes given their three recently drafted point guards. After 31 games, it is increasingly evident that the Jazz have three quality points with unique strengths.
Keyonte George is in a class of his own in this conversation, averaging 24 points and 7 assists on 61% true shooting. He's having a borderline All-Star season, and is clearly the best and most impactful of Utah's point guard crop. But the other two guys — Isaiah Collier and Walter Clayton Jr. — have both looked intriguing enough in their own ways to deserve more minutes than are realistically there.
Saturday's win in San Antonio was a great illustration. With Ace Bailey out, Utah had to reorganize its starting lineup and subsequent rotation. It appeared as though Clayton might not play at all, since nine guys appeared before him and he didn't even take his usual stint to start the second. But then Collier took a hard hit and exited to the locker room, and the team performed so well with Clayton running the show in those next few minutes that he forced coach Will Hardy to stick with him.
Hardy called it Clayton's best game as a pro, and admitted that it's been a "tricky" start to the year for the 2025 NCAA champ given inconsistent minutes. What adds to the trickiness is that it's not like they can simply reallocate minutes from Collier, who has also played really well in general.
Collier's NBA superpower is his speed and strength on drives. He breaks the defense at will and then either sheds defenders for the finish because of his big body, or causes defensive panic that opens up his teammates. He only had four assists in San Antonio because of the brief exit and resulting Clayton surge, but before that he had notched eight or more assists in seven straight games.
The only other Jazz player to have such a streak off the bench has a statue outside Delta Center.
He's shooting 78% within three feet of the basket, a huge improvement over his rookie season, and his 3-point shooting is up to a totally acceptable 37%.
Clayton's outside shooting has gotten better over the last 10 games (34.5%), but his college shooting and free-throw percentage indicate that it was probably never a huge problem to begin with. What he primarily brings to the table is patient and smart decision-making, along with a super effective midrange game that gives his pick-and-roll plays more juice. He shoots 61.8% on non-RA paint attempts, an elite figure for a guard. His efficieny on non-paint twos (45.5%) is also solid, though the sample is just 11 attempts.
More than anything, though, it's Clayton's feel that has people wanting to see more of him. The offense and defense are both better with Clayton on the floor.
Both need to play. But with George playing at this level, the answer can't be to siphon minutes away from #3. That leaves the Jazz to find opportunities to play two of the three (and sometimes the whole trio) together.
All versions of the two-guard tandem have defensive issues (all three guards are still bottom-15 players in defensive EPM). George-Clayton lineups have worked well enough on offense to overcome the other end. Collier-Clayton pairings have so far lacked some offensive juice since both guys are best with the ball, although 48 possessions isn't a very steady sample. George-Collier is around league average offensively, which isn't good enough to counterbalance the defensive woes.
Given the near-term priorities, curiosity about where these three could be headed probably supersedes concerns about win math. If George is going to keep playing like a star, Collier is going to keep busting defenses apart, and Clayton is going to keep looking like a heady P&R practitioner, then we should just want to see more of that! It might not add up to wins, but these are three pretty intriguing guards who all need to play.
"We’ve seen this a bunch of times this year where we’re in close games and our team is not afraid. They don’t look scattered, they’re very connected, and they’re stepping up and making a lot of big plays, so I’m so proud of our group, and I want our guys and our fans to enjoy this win."
-Hardy, after the Jazz swept a back-to-back against teams with a combined 47-13 record
The Jazz are somehow fourth in the league in clutch net rating, having won nine of their 15 games that were within five points at some point in the final five minutes. They're +18.1 per 100 possessions under those conditions, per NBA.com, based largely on an absolutely elite clutch defense. It's crazy that the league's second worst defense overall magically turns into the third best late in close games.
George and Lauri Markkanen have ice water in their veins in those situations, as both are shooting over 90% on clutch free throws. George is 5-for-13 on clutch threes, Markkanen is 4-for-10.
The disparity between their efficiency differential in general and whatever ineffable magic happens in the clutch is why Utah has exceeded its "expected" win total by 2.3 victories already. That ties them for what you might call the second luckiest in the league, with only LAL having exceeded its projected wins by more.
2
George's game-winning floater was the second time this year the Jazz star has hit a go-ahead bucket with five seconds or less remaining in the fourth or OT. Only 20 such shots have gone down all NBA season, and Keyonte is one of just three players (along with Desmond Bane and Nikola Vucevic) to hit more than one this season. There are 17 NBA *teams* that haven't made even a single shot like that.
59
Both Markkanen and George had identical 59-point weekends in wins over Detroit and SA. Markkanen has now had five straight games with at least 26, and George over his last eight games is averaging exactly 30 points, with 49-45-90 shooting splits. Their combined scoring average is 52.1, which as Jazz social pointed out would be the highest qualifying duo in team history..
10
Utah didn't have a chance after falling behind 19-0 in the first five minutes in Denver on Monday. They opened the game with 10 straight empty possessions: 0/10 from the field (they got their own misses on two of them) and two turnovers. It made it their third wire-to-wire loss of the year.
100%
With Kyle Filipowski and Kevin Love playing as Utah's only available big men in Memphis, the Grizzlies literally scored on every single rim attempt: 13-for-13..
We talked above about Collier's superpower, so let's take a closer look.
The second-year guard can get to the paint seemingly whenever he wants. Watch him here as he breaks the paint without even needing a screen, twice to the benefit of his teammates and once so he can lay it in himself:
On that last one, he's basically a blur.
But where you really notice what makes him special is the combination of his speed and his big, strong body. He is great at finishing through contact and in fact has a veteran-like ability to almost propel himself using the contact:
Sometimes smaller defenders literally just bounce off him, but he actually still passes on a little more than half of his drives.
Here are the heroes of what may be the most impressive Jazz wins of the season to date.
Jazz 131, Pistons 129: Keyonte George. George punctuated an excellent performance (31 points, 7 rebounds, 8 assists) with two huge clutch plays. First, his steal in the backcourt led to a dunk with 1:14 left that put the Jazz up four. Then, after Cade Cunningham scored four straight to tie it, Hardy trusted George and Markkanen to create something in high pick-and-roll without a time out, and George weaved into the lane for the game-winning floater. Markkanen was superb too (30-4-4 on 18 shots) and Sensabaugh had a huge game off the bench with 20, playing 31 of the final 36 minutes after an early benching.
Jazz 127, Spurs 114: Walter Clayton Jr. Since Markkanen and George each contributed exactly 59 points to this impressive back-to-back, it would be fitting to once again dole these two game balls out that way... but the X and BlueSky votes were unanimous that we should instead recognize Clayton. The rookie guard might not have been in the planned rotation at all, but when Isaiah Collier left to the locker room after a collision, Clayton immediately changed the game for the Jazz. They were down double digits at that point, before Clayton zigged and zagged to multiple midrange shots and assisted Jusuf Nurkic and then Markkanen. The Jazz were +20 in that first Clayton stint alone. For the night he was +22 with 17 points on perfect 6-for-6 shooting and no turnovers. He was the walk-off guest, the first player Hardy mentioned after the game, and the story of the night.
Strong in defeat:
- Jazz 112, Nuggets 135: Lauri Markkanen. This one was never really competitive after a 19-0 opening surge by Denver, but Markkanen and Nurkic were the bright spots. The latter's 17-14-6 line looks flashier at first, but he was also a team-low minus-31, largely because he had to tangle with Nikola Jokic. So we'll default to Markkanen's 27 points and eight boards. George had another solid outing (20-8-7) and Brice Sensabaugh had 14 off the bench.
- Jazz 128, Grizzlies 137: Kyle Filipowski. On a night with no Markkanen or Nurkic, Flip stepped into the starting lineup and filled up the box score with 25 points, 13 boards and four dimes. Taylor Hendricks' 21 points were also a big story, and George had an efficient 24.
After the Jazz get Boston out of the way on Tuesday, nine of their next 11 will be away from the Wasatch Front, starting in California on New Year's weekend.
Tuesday 12/30 vs. Celtics: Boston has come a long way since a 3-5 start punctuated by a home loss to the Jazz in November; they've climbed all the way to third in the East, including winning nine of their previous 11 before a Sunday slip-up in Portland. Unsurprisingly, necessity has made this the most explosive season in Jaylen Brown's career, as he's among the league leaders in points (29.7) and usage (36%). They take a boatload of threes and they protect the ball better than anyone (partly because they pass the least and play at a methodical pace).
Thursday 1/1 at Clippers: The Clips have won four straight, highlighted by Kawhi Leonard's 55-point burst in a home win against the Pistons. They're now just two games back of the Jazz, who by the way held their biggest lead of the season in the season opener against LAC. Former Jazzmen Kris Dunn and John Collins are third and fourth among Clippers in minutes played, respectively. Leonard (28-7-3) and James Harden (26-5-8) are also prime competition for Markkanen on the West All-Star bubble, especially since their Clippers are hosts of the 2026 game.
Saturday 1/3 at Warriors: Steph Curry continues to play out of his mind: 29-4-4 counting stats and 39% from three on a crazy tough shot diet. Despite milling around .500 all year, they are 10-4 inside the Chase Center, including a 17-point victory over the Jazz before Thanksgiving. Their #3 defense gets even tighter at home. Offensively, they use more of their possessions on threes than any team in the league. They'll be on a back-to-back for this one after facing the vaunted Thunder on Friday.
No shortage of fun stuff this week, but the appearance of Bailey, George and Markkanen on the Old Man and the Three podcast had a ton of delightful nuggets, like this one:
