Jusuf Nurkić did something special Saturday night. He logged his third straight triple-double - a feat no player in Jazz (or even pre-relocation New Orleans Jazz) history has ever pulled off.
And he did it while battling through illness. That alone should’ve been the headline.
It should’ve been the story we were all talking about.
But instead, the conversation is dominated by something far less celebratory: a complete collapse on the glass.
While Nurkić was grinding through fatigue and flu-like symptoms to fill up the stat sheet, the rest of the Jazz were getting outworked - plain and simple. The Miami Heat didn’t just beat Utah on the boards; they owned them.
At halftime, Miami had already pulled down 19 offensive rebounds to Utah’s two. By the end of the night, it was 26 to 7 in favor of the Heat on the offensive glass.
Total rebounds? Miami 64, Utah 34.
That’s a 30-rebound disparity - the kind of margin you almost never see in an NBA game.
And the Heat turned all that effort into points. Twenty-three second-chance points, to be exact.
That kind of production off hustle plays is a backbreaker. Final score: Heat 147, Jazz 116.
“That was as big a physical loss as you can have,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said postgame. “Just got obliterated on the glass. You lose the glass by 30 and give up 26 offensive rebounds, there’s not really a pathway to winning in that game.”
Hardy’s not wrong. You can’t survive in this league giving up that many extra possessions - not against a team like Miami, and certainly not when you're already struggling to get stops.
What makes Miami’s rebounding effort even more impressive is that it wasn’t just about size or matchups. It was about effort - and that’s by design.
Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra doesn’t micromanage who crashes and who leaks out. His philosophy is simpler than that: don’t stand still.
“We want to make the efforts to go to the glass,” Spoelstra said. “Anything that has to do with making multiple efforts. You can stand and watch, can stand and kind of shuffle back, or you can make an effort.”
That effort is what keeps players in the rotation. It’s what separates the guys who want to contribute in every phase of the game from those who are only effective when the ball is in their hands. Miami’s players have bought in - from their bigs like Bam Adebayo to their guards like Dru Smith, who pulled down four offensive boards himself.
“It’s so natural, especially for us perimeters, as shots go up to kind of drift back,” Smith said. “So we’re just trying our best to focus on crashing at least to the elbows. Because those bounces, some of those balls that go over your head - if we can get to those and that can help our offense, then why not?”
That mindset - that commitment to the gritty, unglamorous parts of the game - is what defined Saturday night for Miami. And it’s what was glaringly absent for Utah.
For the Jazz, one problem snowballed into another. Missed shots led to more Heat rebounds.
More Heat rebounds led to more second-chance points. The lead ballooned, and with it, Utah’s energy and focus seemed to fade.
“You get down, and the habits go south, and physicality totally went away,” Hardy said. “I felt like mentally, after the second quarter, it just felt like we were sort of dead.”
The numbers back that up. The last time the Heat had 26 offensive rebounds in a game?
- Saturday marked just the eighth time in franchise history that they’ve hit that number.
It wasn’t just a good night on the glass - it was historic.
And that’s what makes Nurkić’s performance so bittersweet. Triple-doubles are rare.
Three in a row? That’s elite territory.
Before this stretch, Nurkić had just one career triple-double. Now he’s got three in the span of a week.
But when you lose by 30, those numbers feel hollow.
“That’s a hard one,” Hardy admitted. “Because I recognize that statistical achievements in this league are important, and they indicate how special individuals can be in different moments.
I also think that there are times that individual achievements are highlighted in spite of the fact that you lose. While Nurk is playing really good basketball, we just lost by 30.”
So yes, Nurkić deserves his flowers. But the Jazz have bigger issues to address - starting with effort, starting with rebounding, and starting with finding a way to match the kind of grit Miami brought to the floor.
Because in this league, talent only takes you so far. The rest?
That’s about who wants it more.