The depleted Utah Jazz hope to have some injured players back in the lineup when they continue their five-game road trip Saturday night against the Toronto Raptors.
The Jazz were without four rotation players when they defeated the Detroit Pistons 119-111 Thursday night after losing by eight points to the Cleveland Cavaliers Wednesday to open the trip.
The Jazz will catch the Raptors on the second half of back-to-back games. Toronto lost 121-111 Friday to the host Philadelphia 76ers. Pascal Siakam scored 31 points and Jakob Poeltl had 19 for Toronto.
At Detroit, Utah played without four of its top seven scorers: Lauri Markkanen (hamstring injury maintenance), Jordan Clarkson (hamstring), Keyonte George (foot) and Talen Horton-Tucker (foot).
“That’s a really, really good team win for us,” Utah coach Will Hardy said after the Jazz handed the Pistons their 25th straight loss. “That’s a hard game to play — second night of a back-to-back on the road with a bunch of guys out. We absorbed some tough moments, but I thought the way the team approached it as a group was really good.”
George was the only one of the four who missed the game on Thursday to be listed as out for Saturday on the injury report released Friday.
Kelly Olynyk led the Jazz with a season-best 27 points Thursday, and Collin Sexton added 19 points and eight assists.
Hardy has urged Olynyk to shoot more.
“I think I wouldn’t be the only person that’s ever coached Kelly that would say there are moments where you wish he would shoot more,” Hardy said. “He’s a very good shooter, but his nature is to move the ball and to get his teammates involved.”
Olynyk shot 10-for-16 from the field, including 3-for-6 from 3-point range.
He added six assists and four steals.
“For us, we’ve got a lot of young guys who play with a lot of energy,” Olynyk said. “For me, it’s about helping them and putting them in positions to succeed. …I’m just trying to make my teammates better, and they responded.”
The Jazz won both games with the Raptors last season.
Utah won 122-116 at Toronto Feb. 10 to complete the two-game sweep last season. Markkanen and Walker Kessler each scored 23 points.
The Raptors have had few injury problems this season but they have trouble putting out a consistent effort for a full 48 minutes.
They started fast on Friday and led 37-28 after the first quarter. They could not sustain the lead, however, and the 76ets defeated them for the third time this season.
Too often a consistent effort has been absent, with lapses coming at any time in the game — something to watch Saturday against a more rested team.
“There is no scheme that can work without effort, and only when you have effort can you really see that the scheme is working or not,” Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said. “The hardest thing is when there is no true effort and high effort to evaluate your schemes, because nothing is going to work. And then you’ve got to say, ‘Should we adjust, should we not adjust?’
“It’s always that fine line. At the end of the day, we’ve got to do much better and really give more effort from the start of the game.”
–Field Level Media
