The Jazz are 8-15 so far this NBA season and figure to finish near the bottom of the Western Conference standings yet again. Utah is still in rebuilding mode following the teardown of the Rudy Gobert-Donovan Mitchell core and are starting to see some small returns; Keyonte George has enjoyed a breakout campaign so far and rookie Ace Bailey is clearly talented even if the need for development is equally as obvious. But this young team will struggle to win consistently and it seems all but certain the Jazz are aiming to land a high draft pick in a loaded class by the end of the season.
That will not stop Will Hardy from coaching his guys fiercely. He was hired in 2022 and quickly earned a reputation for getting the most out of his roster. On Monday, fans were treated to a behind-the-scenes look at how Hardy coaches.
Utah hosted the league-leading Thunder on Sunday and got smoked, 131-101, despite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander getting the night off. To be completely frank the game wasn’t even as close as the final score suggests. The Jazz were outscored 45-20 in the first quarter and gave up a huge barrage of threes. At one point during the loss Hardy was caught on video furiously cussing out his team for the effort they were showing on the court.
“I’m tired of f---ing doing this every game,” Hardy barked in a video posted by Jazz writer Kato Pariña. “F---ing play harder!”
The video and all its NSFW language can be found below.
Will Hardy being a little bit too vocal during a timeout pic.twitter.com/TF7MuQSPvV
— Kato Pariña (@KatoParinaSLC) December 8, 2025
It was the second consecutive brutally bad performance by the Jazz, which may have been the primary motivator for Hardy’s explosive rant. Utah got lambasted by the Knicks, 146-112, on Friday night; two days later the same thing happened against OKC. Obviously both of those teams are contending for a title this year and can trot out significantly better talent than the Jazz for every minute of the game. But expectations and talent and skill have nothing to do with effort. Hardy clearly did not enjoy what he saw in that department on Sunday.
It does seem like the message got through in some capacity. While Utah got blown out of the water in the first quarter the Jazz were only outscored by five points over the last three quarters. Which means nothing in the win/loss column but reflects a greater level of effort, if anything, from the players—just as Hardy requested.
More NBA on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Sideline Video Shows Will Hardy Furiously Cursing Out Jazz for Not Playing Hard.
