❄️Our attention now turns to a colder system arriving late Wed that will bring valley snow between early Thursday AM and Friday AM.
➡️Slow down if you encounter adverse driving conditions (especially for the Thu AM commute!) and allow more time to reach your destination. #utwx pic.twitter.com/E7NHDfnrvE
— NWS Salt Lake City (@NWSSaltLakeCity) January 6, 2026
Utah
The Utah Jazz will eventually have to face their their lack of defense
PORTLAND — The Utah Jazz currently have the worst defensive rating in the NBA (122). If they finish the season that way, it would be the third straight year with the dishonor of having the worst defense in the league.
Of course, there are some caveats that are necessary to point out. Like the fact that this team has been bad by design and built, in large part, to lose games. And, there has been an emphasis on getting offensively gifted players and fostering their development.
It’s also important to point out the lack of Walker Kessler this season and the amount that the Jazz have to try to cover up for what he provides on defense. But even with Kessler, a good defensive player, the last couple of years the Jazz’s overall defense has been very bad.
On offense, the team is generally trending in the right direction — the Jazz had the 7th best offensive rating for games played in December. The emergence of Keyonte George as a massive scoring threat helps that.
“It’s crazy, for how good our offense has been, how little we actually talk about it as a group,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. “Defense is what we’re attacking every day, and it’s what we’ll continue to attack until we get it right.”
Personnel
It’s not like the Jazz players haven’t been continuously told that they need to be better on that side of the ball. They know where they’ve ranked and they know where they are now compared to the other 29 teams.
But, do the Jazz actually have the personnel to play good defense in the NBA?
“I think any group of people can perform to a certain level,” Hardy said when asked that question. “I don’t want to put a limitation on our group at all on that side of the ball. If I didn’t believe in the ability for a group of people to outperform the sum of their parts, or if I didn’t believe in the ability for individuals to grow and get better, then this would be a horrible profession for me. I go to bed with that belief. I wake up with that belief.”
You’ll notice that wasn’t a “yes.”
The Jazz’s point-of-attack defense has been abysmal throughout the rebuild. George has improved this season, but not to the point that he has been a good defender. Statistically he’s still been a negative defender, along with Isaiah Collier, Brice Sensabaugh, Cody Williams and Kyle Filipowski.
The Jazz are hopeful that Ace Bailey can become a positive defender, but he’s still so young and is still trying to adjust to being in the NBA. His growth on defense is something to worry about in the years to come. There’s some grace that Filipowski deserves considering how much he’s been playing the five this season, where he is known to have deficiencies as a defender.
There’s a lot of hope riding on Hendricks, who was drafted in large part because of his defense, but lost last year to injury and has yet to recover the reaction time or quickness required to be the kind of defender the Jazz need at his position.
Some of the Jazz’s best defenders this season (and that’s not saying much) have been Svi Mykhailiuk, Kyle Anderson and Jusuf Nurkić, and those are not the players that the Jazz desperately need to see defensive improvement from.
The future
At some point in the near future, the Utah Jazz are going to have to face the fact that they have a major problem on defense.
“Defense is tiring. Defense is not fun,” Hardy said. “But defense is what gives you the opportunity to win. We can’t show up to the games thinking that we’re just going to outscore everybody. That’s an unsustainable approach. And right now, where we are as a team and as a program, we’re trying to build sustainable habits, a sustainable approach for long term success. Our focus on the defensive side of the ball, individually, has to go up.”
It’s not like the Jazz’s defense needs to be better to win games this season. We all know that’s not the ultimate goal of the front office. But if they were to try to win games next season with this exact roster, the defense would be a problem.
And there’s blame to go around. The Jazz front office has not drafted defensively sound players, Hardy has not been head coach of a good defensive team, and the players on the team have not shown that they care enough on that side of the ball or that they can improve to a reasonable level.
It’s possible that with winning being the goal, the players would care more, that Hardy would coach differently, that players would buy in, etc. But that’s not concrete evidence for us to work with right now.
On Monday night they gave up 137 points to the Portland Trail Blazers, a bottom-10 offensive team. It was just the latest, in a multi-year string of poor defensive outings. The Jazz’s defensive issues are not going away anytime soon. So something has to change if the Jazz want to be a good team in the future.
Utah
Two killed, six wounded in shooting outside Mormon church in Utah
Two people were killed, and at least six were wounded when gunfire erupted outside a funeral at a Mormon church in Utah on Wednesday night, according to authorities and reports.
Eight people were hit by gunfire when shots rang out outside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Redwood Road in Salt Lake City around 7:30 p.m., Salt Lake City Police Department spokesperson Glen Mills told the Salt Lake City Tribune.
Two people were killed, and six people were injured in the shooting that occurred outside in the church’s parking lot as dozens were attending a funeral service inside.
Of the six wounded, three individuals are in critical condition, the Salt Lake City Police Department posted on X. All of the victims were adults.
There were no suspects in custody as of late Wednesday night, and it is not immediately clear if there were multiple gunmen involved. A motive was also unknown.
However, police said they have obtained solid leads in the investigation and are working to locate individuals involved in the shooting.
“We believe this was not a random incident,” Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd told reporters.
The shooting was not believed to be targeting a religion, Redd clarified.
Roughly 100 law enforcement vehicles swarmed the area in the aftermath of the gunfire as helicopters flew overhead.
The area around the Mormon church remained closed into the evening as authorities urged the public to stay clear of the still active scene.
“This should never have happened outside a place of worship. This should never have happened outside a celebration of life,” said Mayor Erin Mendenhall.
The Salt Lake City Police Department did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The incident remains under investigation.
With Post wires.
Utah
Kevin Love Admits He Didn’t See Jazz Trade Coming
The Utah Jazz’s experiment to bring in 18-year league veteran Kevin Love thus far into the 2025-26 campaign has been a pretty solid success in the first two-plus months of the season.
Love has been a positive voice in the locker room as the most tenured NBA veteran on the roster, he’s been vocal about enjoying his time and role with the organization, and for his time on the floor throughout the first 30 or so games of the regular season, he’s nestled into a consistent rotational player as the Jazz’s backup center as Walker Kessler has been out with a shoulder injury.
But when he first arrived in Utah via a three-team trade from the Miami Heat, packed within the deal that sent John Collins to the LA Clippers, Love didn’t quite know what to expect out of his experience; he didn’t even anticipate being traded to the Jazz in the first place.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I got here, but I’ve been very pleasantly surprised from everything, from ownership, and Ryan Smith to the front office to the coaching staff, players all the way through,” Love said of the Jazz on The Old Man and the Three. “It’s been a blessing in my 18th year to be a part of this team and some place, I mean, you never know where you’re going to end up.”
“I did not expect to be traded but as far as a landing spot goes and just saying, yeah, so many people are saying ‘Oh what if it doesn’t work out? What if it doesn’t work out?’ I’m like ‘What if it does?’, right?And I think just adding value whether I’m playing or not is something that’s given me a lot of happiness and a lot of joy this late in my career. And I think that has allowed me to see a lot of the good and what this team has been able to bring and move forward.”
Kevin Love Settling in Nicely With Utah Jazz
Love’s value stretches both on and off the floor for the Jazz, which makes sense for why the veteran big man has been loving his time since being on the roster. The 2016 NBA champion was vocal before the season about his desire to be a value add for wherever that may be, including Utah, and he’s been able to carve out just the right role for himself at this point in his career.
During his 20 games played for the Jazz this season, Love has averaged 7.2 points, 5.4 rebounds, and shooting 41.1% from the field in just over 17 minutes a night when he plays, and has proven he can still be a guy worthy of a few minutes down the rotation to fill out an NBA frontcourt, as he has for the year in Utah so far.
It remains to be seen just how long Love’s time in Utah will last. There’s not even a guarantee that the 37-year-old will finish the regular season on the roster, depending on how the next few weeks transpire around the trade deadline and as the buyout market begins to gain some traction. But, for the time that he is in Salt Lake City, he’s made it into a nice home for what’s now the fourth roster he’s been on through nearly two decades in the league.
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Utah
Winter weather advisories issued for Utah valleys ahead of arriving snowstorm
Utah has significantly benefited from this week’s series of storms.
Alta, Brighton, Snowbird and Solitude resorts in the Cottonwood canyons all received over 2 feet of snow between Sunday and Tuesday, while several other resorts across the state’s northern half gained close to or even over a foot to 1½ feet of fresh powder.
What turned into the biggest storm of the season so far was great for winter recreation and for the state’s water supply. Alta gained nearly 4 inches of water through the storm, which helped Little Cottonwood Canyon’s snowpack jump from 58% of its median average on New Year’s Day to 110% of its median average for this point in the year.
The state’s average snowpack jumped from 57% of its median to 74% in just one week.
“(It) was some wet, water-logged snow,” said KSL meteorologist Matt Johnson, adding that many communities north of Salt Lake City were big winners, as Kaysville, the Ogden bench and Logan all ended up with over 0.75 inches of precipitation.
There’s at least one more storm before things begin to settle down, which this time includes more valley snow.
The National Weather Service issued winter weather advisories across the state’s mountains, which could receive another foot of snow or more by the end of Thursday. It also issued its first advisory of the season for the Wasatch Front and other valley communities, which could end up with a few inches of snow.
Storm timing
A pair of low-pressure systems — one off the California coast and another off the Alaska coast on Tuesday — are projected to collide over the Four Corners in the coming days, which factors into the forecast.
Some scattered snow showers ahead of the low are possible in northern Utah on Wednesday afternoon, before a mix of rain and snow arrives in more parts of the state later in the day, Johnson said. The rain is expected to transition into snow from Logan to central Utah by Thursday morning, possibly causing a slick commute.
Additional showers could linger into the afternoon, with the Great Salt Lake playing a “wild card” role in potentially aiding snow totals on Thursday and potentially again on Friday morning, before drier conditions return by the weekend.
Potential accumulations
Another 6 to 12 inches of snow is generally expected across the mountains in Utah’s northern half, while 4 to 8 inches are possible in the central and southern mountains by the end of Thursday, according to the weather service’s advisories. “Locally higher” totals are possible in the upper Cottonwood canyons and Bear River range.
Lower elevations, including the Wasatch Back and valleys scattered across Utah’s northern half, could receive 1 to 4 inches of snow by late Thursday, with lake-effect snow potentially enhancing totals southeast of the Great Salt Lake.
Salt Lake City has collected only 0.1 inches of snow so far this season, but one weather service model lists Utah’s capital city as having over a 70% chance of collecting 2 inches of snow.
“Slow down and use caution while traveling,” the agency wrote in its alert.
Rain is more likely closer to St. George, but Johnson said there’s a chance of some flurries. The weather service projects that the city could wind up with about a tenth of an inch of precipitation.
A cool and dry weekend
Cooler and drier conditions are expected this weekend, as the system clears out. High temperatures may only top out in the mid-to-upper 30s across the Wasatch Front and northern Utah this weekend, with overnight lows in the teens closer to Logan and in the low 20s elsewhere.
Hazy conditions may also return across the Wasatch Front by the end of the weekend, as another lull in storm activity moves into the forecast, Johnson said.
High temperatures will dip into the 40s across southern Utah, but are forecast to return to the 50s by the end of the weekend. Full seven-day forecasts for areas across Utah can be found online at the KSL Weather Center.
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