PHOENIX — In his NBA debut, rookie Keyonte George played 18 minutes, 53 seconds. In his second game, on Friday night, he played 12 minutes. Then, on Saturday, in his first-ever second game of a back-to-back, George played 27 minutes.
By the midpoint of the fourth quarter, George was winded and he admitted as much. But, despite looking tired and losing some of his burst, George once again acquitted himself well and continues to impress. For large stretches through the first three games of the 2023-24 NBA season, George has been the best point guard on the Jazz roster.
“He’s representing himself really, really well,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. “His decision-making continues to be good. I thought the shots that he took were the right decision. I thought he made a lot of really good passes. He ended up with six assists and they very easily could have been 11 had some shots gone in.”
The Jazz ended up losing by a significant margin on Saturday night — the Phoenix Suns closing out with a 126-104 victory. But in the second half of the loss, there were some pretty important moments for George.
When Talen Horton-Tucker was issued a Flagrant 1 foul early in the third quarter (his fourth foul of the night), Hardy decided to put George in the game to play alongside the other four starters (Lauri Markkanen, John Collins, Walker Kessler, Jordan Clarkson) and then continued to play with George on the floor for significant portions of the second half.
The fatigue near the end of the game was noticeable but expected and George wasn’t hard on himself for feeling winded after his first back-to-back experience. Instead, he took the lesson in stride.
“I’m honest with myself and yeah, I was kind of gassed,” George said. “So now that tells me I’ve gotta get more into shape…Will wants us to play extremely hard but the goal is to not be tired. If you’re not tired, you don’t come out of the game and you can impact winning.”
Playing with the starters and without another point-guardish player next to him (Horton-Tucker, Kris Dunn, Collin Sexton) was a new opportunity for George and right off the bat, Hardy let him know that he was going to need to see a different side of the rookie guard.
“I told him, number one, when he played with the starters, ‘I don’t care how many years of experience they have, you are in the point guard right now and I’m using you to communicate to them, so you’re gonna have to open your mouth and that means there’s gonna be times you have to tell Lauri he’s in the wrong spot,’” Hardy said. “And that’s uncomfortable for a 19-year-old rookie…But I thought he made a lot of really good decisions.”
Later on in the game when Sexton was playing next to George in the back court, there were some obvious moments of confusion on both ends of the floor.
While playing in a zone defense, George and Sexton had some exchanges on the court, trying to figure out who was going to stay up when Kevin Durant moving into the middle of the court with the ball.
Then on offense, the ball went back-and-forth between Sexton and George with neither really initiating any action and the offense kind of stood still on a few possessions.
“I was really coaching those guys during the timeouts and letting them sort through it in those moments on the court because that’s gonna be part of their growth individually, but also our growth as a team,” Hardy said. “There’s a lot of moments where I can’t communicate with the team and yeah, there was some uncertainty there but I ultimately think that they continue to have conversations and they’re both, you know, super respectful with each other.”
Ironing out defensive schemes and responsibilities is something that will understandably take a little bit of time, but on the other side of the ball, Sexton said that the problem both players were having was that they were trying to set each other up for a shot, which actually demonstrates trust between the two guards.
“We’re just trying to learn each other’s game,” Sexton, laughing a little at the misunderstandings. “A few times, I pitched it back to him, ready for him to step into his shooting motion and then he did the same for me…It was one of those times where we needed it. He was like, ‘hey shoot the ball.’ I was like, ‘why ain’t you shooting it?’ We need those moments.”
Considering that this was just the Jazz’s third game of the season, it’s nice that George is not only playing well, but learning some really valuable lessons.
“That’s the game of basketball, you’re gonna make mistakes,” George said. “Obviously I’m gonna see it on film, Collin is gonna see it on the film, but we were able to talk it out during the timeout…we’re still trying to figure everybody out, but I feel like we’re going in the right direction.”
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