Lauri Markkanen leaves Jazz loss to Kings with back spasms – Deseret News

The hits just keep coming.

Late in the second quarter of the Utah Jazz's loss to the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night, Lauri Markkanen stretched, jumped, twisted and reached out of bounds to grab a rebound. As soon as Markkanen landed after his brief acrobatics, he grimaced and grabbed his lower back.

A timeout was called and Markkanen cautiously went to the bench, but came back into the game after the timeout expired. However, his time on the pitch was short-lived after that. Less than two minutes later, Markkanen exited the game, still holding onto his lower back, and headed straight to the locker room. He was out for the rest of the game due to back spasms.

“His back is pretty locked up,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. “He was treated for the entire half and with about a minute left on the (halftime) clock he was still on the table not really able to move. So it was my decision and that of our medical team to keep him out. You know, back pain is generally commonplace. He will wake up tomorrow and get treatment and we will see how he feels. We won’t make a decision about him until the day of the game.”

This came just 24 hours after Taylor Hendricks suffered an injury in a season-ending loss to the Dallas Mavericks.

To say that the mental strain on the jazz musicians was heavy would be an understatement.

“When we're in the game and the competition is going on, you kind of lose track of everything else in your life,” Hardy said of himself and the players. “I think once it's over we'll all be thinking about Taylor again.”

But there are also some logistical rotation tasks that Hardy will have to deal with that will be very experimental. Before Tuesday's game even began, Hardy talked about the team needing to try some new combinations on the field.

“It's going to be a little night-by-night over the next few weeks as we try to figure out how this group fits together,” Hardy said in his pregame interview. “Because there are some gaps with Taylor that we have to try to fill. There will be some things we need to adjust a little bit.”

A few hours later, Hardy started a lineup with two rookies (Cody Williams and Kyle Filipowski) in the second half, having already changed the lineup early in the game.

Jordan Clarkson started the game with Colin Sexton coming off the bench on Tuesday, and the Jazz have played with a number of lineups in this young season that had no experience playing together, and with Markkanen ruled out, the tinkering will continue.

There's no definitive timetable for Markkanen, who at least appeared to be in good spirits when he left the arena, but the Jazz aren't in a position to rush anyone back from injury.

That means there will be plenty of opportunities for young players and players who weren't necessarily in the rotation to get some legitimate NBA minutes.