Utah Jazz fall to Knicks, who have won 9 straight games

The New York Knickerbockers have won 19 of their last 24 games and are on a nine-game win streak after a 119-103 victory over the Utah Jazz on Wednesday night.

Karl-Anthony Towns paced the Knicks with 31 points and 21 rebounds, Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby combined for 49 points and Josh Hart had a triple-double (15 points, 14 rebounds, 12 assists) for the second consecutive game.

Wednesday’s win brings the Knicks within a half a game of the Boston Celtics, who are in second in the Eastern Conference.

The Jazz were just outmatched on Wednesday. They didn’t shoot the ball as well as the Knicks, were beat in the paint by the Knicks and they turned the ball over against the Knicks, who scored 34 fast break points.

“We did a really poor job protecting the rim and transition was an issue,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. “Our collective thought process of protecting the rim as a group wasn’t good enough. We can’t rely on one person to protect the rim. I think especially when we go a little bit smaller, and Walker’s not on the court, or we start switching with Walker, and he’s a little bit away from the basket, everybody else has to up their physicality and commitment to protecting the basket.”

Lauri Markkanen’s off night and defensive contributions

The Jazz’s best player had an abysmal night shooting the ball, going 1-of-10 from 3-point range. That’s not something that’s always going to happen but it’s notable that the Jazz don’t have a way to counter when Markkanen has an off night.

“You know, 13-of-43 from 3 is not what I would expect, Lauri being 1-of-10 is not what I would expect,” Hardy said. “That’s not to say, ‘Hey, we didn’t make shots,’ and we move on. There’s things that we can learn on both sides of the ball. But some nights, the reality is, when you generate those good looks from 3, you gotta knock them down to to keep the momentum and the balance of the game right.”

Something that stood out to me Wednesday was that Markkanen did try to up his contributions on the defensive end. It really stands out when Markkanen puts in extra effort on that side of the ball.

When Markkanen is making effort plays on defense — chasing down balls to steal, trailing for blocks, staying in front with physicality — it makes me think a lot about what Markkanen’s potential could be on a team that was constructed with more talent.

He has so much of the offensive burden for the Jazz and even when he is carrying that load, there’s so much that can go wrong for the Jazz on defense because they don’t have the personnel to compete at a high level at every position.

Maybe if the Jazz had a more traditional No. 1 option on offense, maybe if they had some perimeter defenders who were more reliable and didn’t put so much pressure on Walker Kessler, maybe if they just generally had players who would take some of the overall responsibility off Markkanen’s shoulders, he’d be able to make more plays like shown in the video above.