Utah Jazz struggle to ignore emotions after Joe Ingles injury

MINNEAPOLIS — As the Minnesota Timberwolves celebrated their win, dousing Karl-Anthony Towns with water during his farewell interview, the Utah Jazz walked somberly to the visiting team’s locker room, wondering how they were going to get over what happened Sunday. night.

Yes, the Jazz lost a fifth straight game, trailing by 20 points to the Wolves, but it was what happened shortly before halftime that shook the Jazz to their core and left them unable to focus for the rest of the night.

As Joe Ingles drove to the basket with 5:52 left in the second quarter, his left leg buckled under him and he collapsed on the court, screaming in pain, clutching his knee, twisting his face in clear agony.

“The loss hurts a lot, but Joe … that cost the guys a lot,” Mike Conley said after the game. “Seeing him, tears in his eyes, knowing how much this means to him, this game means to him and what we mean to him, it’s hard. Not everything is supposed to be easy and we understand that. This will build, more character, this adversity that we are going through. You just pray for Joe and hope it’s as little as possible.”

The Jazz won’t know for sure the full extent of Ingles’s injury until probably noon Monday after he undergoes more diagnostic tests and imaging in Salt Lake City, but hearing player reactions seems to indicate the Jazz fear worst.

At halftime, the Jazz found Ingles in the X-ray room at the Target Center and tried to give him words of encouragement, but he really couldn’t help the fact that his ironman, the player who once had the longest streak of games consecutive games played by an active player, he was in pain and couldn’t help them.

“I was in a rough state,” Conley said. “We told him we loved him, we gave him a hug, we told him to keep fighting.”

The team wanted to get back on the pitch and fight for Ingles, come out with a win to soften the blow of what a horrible night it had been. But the wind had already been removed from their sails.

“It was pretty bad to see him suffer,” said Bojan Bogdanovic. “I hope it’s not as bad as it seems now.”

The Jazz needed additional help from Jared Butler, Elijah Hughes and Eric Paschall just to field a full rotation on Sunday night, and while Conley said the team was proud the guys were taking on roles they’re not used to, the Jazz could not. I didn’t find any real base and it seemed to float for the rest of the game.

“Losing Joe obviously had an impact on the guys,” assistant coach Alex Jensen said on a night when he had to fill in for head coach Quin Snyder, who tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in the day. “It is combined with the other things.”

The Jazz finished January with a 4-12 record, losing five in a row and 11 of the last 13. They have been playing without their two best players and now fear Ingles may have suffered a season-ending injury.

When asked if he feels the Jazz just can’t catch a break right now, Rudy Gay shook his head and nodded.

“It feels exactly like that,” Gay said. “But only the strong survive.”