He participated in a shooting contest with Elijah Hughes. All we could do was tell him that we loved him and tell him to keep his head up.”Įven Sunday morning in shootaround, Ingles was his normal self, bringing life to a group that had been struggling the last two weeks, much of it without Mitchell and Gobert. “Seeing Joe at halftime, that took a lot out of guys,” Utah point guard Mike Conley said. Then, they played a second half of basketball where their collective minds were clearly not on basketball.Īs a result, Minnesota dominated the third quarter and by the end of those 12 minutes, the game was all but over. The Jazz went into the locker room to check on Ingles and saw how distraught he was. But the intermission was fueled with emotion and shed tears. They built a lead, one they eventually lost by halftime. In the immediate wake of losing Ingles, the Jazz played with energy and emotion. It’s one of the reasons the Jazz, on Sunday night, played a listless second half of basketball. His biting sense of humor, his ability to keep a mood light, his philanthropy within the Utah community, all of those factors contributed to what he came to mean to the Jazz and the organization as a whole.
And, if not the single most important guy, he was certainly on the shortlist. He was one of the best passers and ball movers of the Snyder era and someone who made a living at secondary playmaking.īut, more important than anything Ingles did on the court, he was perhaps the single most important player of the Snyder era within the locker room. He was a terrific defender in his younger years, particularly in help defense. He developed into a knockdown shooter and had excellent size for his position. At his peak, he was one of the better two-way small forwards in the league. Those words encapsulate what Ingles means to the Jazz and has meant to the Jazz. “Just having him in the locker room is good for us. “It’s not even about the basketball at this point,” Utah forward Rudy Gay said. So, unless Ingles gets very lucky, the Jazz are going to have to forge on without one of the staple players of the Snyder era. Team doctors conducted an initial examination, and the fear of significant injury has come from that exam. But, at this point, it will be a near miracle if Ingles escapes significant damage. When he did, his knee buckled, Ingles dropped to the floor, grabbed the knee and immediately screamed in pain.įinal confirmation will come Tuesday morning as Ingles will fly back to Salt Lake City and receive an MRI. He attempted to plant the leg in order to power up and finish at the rim. The injury happened in the second quarter when Ingles went to the basket off the dribble. Veteran small forward Joe Ingles went down in the first half with a left knee injury that will likely be significant and keep him out for the remainder of the season.
And they lost their 11th game in their last 13 tries.Īnd, somehow, the above was not their worst loss of Sunday night.
They didn’t have Trent Forrest, their steady backup point guard. They competed without Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, their two best players. They lost head coach Quin Snyder and small forward Danuel House Jr. They suffered their fifth consecutive loss. On Sunday night, the Utah Jazz were defeated 126-106 by the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Target Center.