Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — The first play the Utah Jazz ran on Saturday night in Sacramento was for Walker Kessler.
Talen Horton-Tucker set an off-ball screen in the middle of the paint that freed up Kessler for an alley-oop dunk. It was the start of a career-night for the rookie center in Utah's 121-113 loss to the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center.
By the end of the game, Kessler had a career-high 31 points on 14-of-16 shooting and 11 rebounds. It was tied for the fourth-most points scored by an NBA rookie this season, and the first time ever a Jazz rookie had a 30-point, 10-rebound game. Kessler's previous career high was 23 points.
"He was huge," Kelly Olynyk said. "A great, great game by him, great effort."
So what got into Kessler on Saturday?
Honestly, nothing that was a fluke. Kessler scored all 16 of his field goal attempts in the paint, and 14 of those came inside the restricted area. But it was far from being a case where he was bigger than everyone else on the court.
He beat defenders down the court in transition and timed cuts perfectly to be open at the rim; he showed off his developing pick-and-roll game, as he dived to the hoop and finished over defenders. On one play in the fourth quarter, Kessler even had a nice post move that led to a banked hook shot.
"I'm always gonna play hard," Kessler said. "So tonight just happened to happen to go well."
That's putting it a bit lightly.
Kessler modestly said the ball bounced his way, but he mostly put himself in the right position for the ball to consistently find him on Saturday.
"When he runs the floor like that and puts pressure on the rim, that vertical spacing where you can just throw it up where other guys can't get it, that's a huge advantage for us," Olynyk said. "So he's got to keep doing that, keep working to get better, but he was really, really good tonight, and that's what we need from him."
Kessler has proven time and time again that he can be a game-changing defensive force. Saturday showed that he can do a bit of a dominating on the offensive end, too.
Walker Kessler is the first Jazz rookie EVER with 30+ PTS and 10+ REB in a game. Tonight:
— NBA (@NBA) March 26, 2023
31 PTS (career-high)
11 REB
Tough. pic.twitter.com/1ky17b42Sg
Kessler's 12-point second quarter helped the Jazz to a 6-point halftime lead. In that quarter, he showed off the vertical spacing, where he caught a high pass after a strong cut for an easy layup, and finished a layup over two defenders after getting a bounce pass in the paint.
Near the end of the quarter, he waited until Domantas Sabonis committed to a driving Kris Dunn to cut quickly to the basket for what ended up being an easy dunk.
"Tonight, my teammates found me in the right spots, so I appreciate that a lot," Kessler said.
But it was Kessler that put himself in those spots.
The bad news for the Jazz on Saturday was that Sacramento has a rookie that's pretty good, too. Keegan Murray scored 22 points and was 6-of-12 shooting from 3-point range. His late 3-pointer served as the dagger to Utah's upset bid and put the Kings up by 9 points with 1:56 left to play.
"We knew we weren't going to quit, regardless of who was sitting," Kessler said. "I'm super proud of this team and how they played. Obviously, disappointed we didn't get the win, but I think it says a lot about our team."
And it said a lot about Kessler's potential — on both sides of the court.
