There are two sides to every game outcome. And in the case of the Dallas Mavericks’ 147-97 home win over the Utah Jazz Wednesday night, both of them were funny and profane.
That game saw the Mavericks’ Luka Dončić put up a first-half triple-double (29 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists), finish with 40 points, and afterwards drop a f-bomb and a s-bomb in a postgame interview on Bally Sports Southwest. Meanwhile, Jazz coach Will Hardy dropped a s-bomb of his own in a postgame press conference, but from a different perspective reason.
— John Brisker (@JohnBrisker2021) December 7, 2023
“Um, I really don’t know how to describe that game. That was a, that was an absolutely horrendous performance from start to finish. That was a masterpiece of dog****.”
There’s something to be said for Hardy’s bluntness here. And this was an apt description of his team’s play; they shot 35 of 87 from the field (40.2 percent) while allowing the Mavericks to convert 56 of 101 of their own shots (55.4 percent). When your team is playing that poorly, there isn’t necessarily a lot of good to come from candy-coating it. So Hardy’s description, while unusual to hear from a head coach, was a relatively-fair summary of just what kind of a masterpiece this was.
The Jazz are now 7-14 on the season, 12th in the Western Conference. They next play the Los Angeles Clippers at home Friday. We’ll see if they and Hardy (at 35, the second-youngest NBA head coach, behind only Boston’s Joe Mazzulla) can deliver a different kind of masterpiece there.
[John Brisker on Twitter]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.