Utah
The Jazz fall to the Miami Heat in another narrow loss
The Utah Jazz have played in a ton of close games lately, something that has made head coach Will Hardy really happy, despite the fact that they’ve lost most of them.
That the team is fighting, proving to themselves they are able to meet the level of their competition and stick to a game plan, and that every player whose number is called is giving it their all is making Hardy optimistic about the trajectory of the team and how the players are developing. But more than anything, even when the team falls short, Hardy is glad they’re learning what it takes to grind out NBA wins.
“It’s the value of each possession and the value of every minute you’re on the court,” Hardy said. “But that you always look back at a game that’s close, and these are the ones where it’s easy for your brain to go crazy, because it’s, ‘what if this, what if that. if I’d made that shot, or if I’d made that free throw, or we’d have been in a different situation.’ I think the guys being in these situations, it continues to hammer home the sentiment that we try to have every day, which is to give value to every minute you’re on the floor and you can’t take it for granted.”
In six of the last 10 Jazz games, they’ve played clutch minutes — where the score is within five points in the final five minutes — including on Thursday night when they narrowly lost to the Miami Heat, 97-92.
“We’re fighting the very end,” center Walker Kessler said. “Obviously, got some things we’ve got to straighten out, but we’re competing, and it’s fun. It’s fun to be in these kind of games. Obviously not fun to lose. But we’re in those games. So it’s a lot of fun.”
That’s exactly the chord that Hardy is hoping strikes for each of his players. He wants for the losses to sting, especially the close ones. He wants the players thinking about what more they could have done, what small and subtle action they could have given more effort to in order to impact the game.
It’s not that he wants them to feel bad. He’s really happy with how they’ve been playing and wants them to see that they are making strides. But he does want them to be hungry and to search for ways to be even better.
“I don’t want them to wallow for long periods of time,” Hardy said. “But if you lose a game and you’re not driving home a little bit pissed off, then this probably isn’t for you. It can’t be just, ‘okay, well, we lost.’ It should bother you. We’re competitive, but there’s a line … I would expect that everybody on our team, staff, players, we all drive home a little frustrated with things we wish we’d done differently or better. And then tomorrow we come in, we regroup, and get back to work.”
For Collin Sexton, who had a game-high tying 23 points and five assists, he said he’ll be thinking about boxing out, failing to get a hand up on a late shot clock attempt, allowing second-chance points.
For Isaiah Collier, he’ll be thinking about things on the defensive end that he let slip, like not going over on screens and failing to recognize personnel in clutch minutes.
Every Jazz player is thinking about small things. Every one of them is upset about missing an opportunity to win. But they can also be proud of how far they’ve come as a group since the start of the season.
Jon Anderson will be charged with moving the Orem school forward following the death of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk on campus last year.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Incoming UVU President Jon Anderson poses for a photo with his family after an event announcing his selection at Utah Valley University in Orem on Friday, July 17, 2026.
BEAVER COUNTY, Utah — A massive community effort is underway as volunteers and Beaver County crews distribute thousands of sandbags to protect homes from the potential path of floodwaters.
After the Cottonwood Fires, residents have been waiting for weeks for relief to come in the form of rain, though officials now warn it may come all at once with an increased risk of flooding and debris flow.
Emergency Service Director Les Whitney believes that the fire has left plenty of debris to bring trouble for residents.
“We got a lot of water. We’re bringing debris with it, so tree branches, tree limbs, logs, lots of different size firewood, and that’s all in the creeks. We’re worried about that plugging up our bridges and stuff, so we have heavy equipment and excavators located in strategic places so that we can keep those bridges open,” said Whitney.
An estimated 140 homes and condominiums were spared from the flames, but remain in the paths of floodwaters.
Residents can also pick up sandbags at the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office or at the Beaver County Rodeo Fairgrounds.
EAGLE MOUNTAIN — An Eagle Mountain man currently on pretrial release in 4th District Court who is accused of abusing his dog has been arrested again for allegedly punching the same animal.
Keith Reaves Davis, 43, was booked into the Utah County Jail on Wednesday for investigation of aggravated cruelty to an animal.
Utah County sheriff’s deputies were called Wednesday afternoon to a grocery store on a report that a man was beating his dog after it had gotten off its leash and was stopped by a bystander, according to a police booking affidavit.
“I reviewed security camera footage from the grocery store, and an individual matching the description of the suspect was seen holding the dog in the air by one paw and repeatedly striking the dog on the right hind leg area. I observed the male strike the dog several times before dropping the dog from approximately 1-2 feet. The strikes appeared to be as hard as the male could hit,” the arresting deputy wrote in the affidavit. “The dog did not cry out or whimper as if the dog was accustomed to the abuse.”
When questioned, Davis “admitted to striking the dog because it was not behaving,” the affidavit states.
An animal control officer who responded to the scene to take custody of the dog noted it was the same dog he had taken from Davis exactly three months earlier during another animal abuse investigation.
In that case, Davis was charged in 4th District Court with aggravated cruelty to an animal, a class A misdemeanor; and public intoxication, a class C misdemeanor, after deputies received a tip from a neighbor that a dog was being abused at Davis’ home, according to charging documents. When questioned, Davis “acknowledged hitting his dog as punishment,” the charges state.
Deputies also reviewed videos that the neighbor had filmed. The neighbor told investigators “there was blood from the dog on the ground of the garage and (the neighbor) can hear the dog screaming as if it’s being hurt. Deputies got the videos from the (neighbor) and you can hear very loudly the dog screaming and crying with a lot of loud banging noises. In one of the videos, you can hear the dog sounding like it is being choked by a collar and is grasping for air,” a police booking affidavit states.
Davis’ next court hearing in the April case is scheduled for July 28.
In their latest booking report, sheriff’s deputies note that they “believe further harm will be inflicted on this dog if it is released back to the male a second time,” and have recommended the dog not be returned to Davis.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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