Gordon Hayward’s 2014-15 season ended Friday night against the Memphis Grizzlies, and he’ll certainly be left with some motivation for the offseason.

G-Time tallied a game-high 27 points, but his Utah Jazz needed just one more. Just before the buzzer sounded at EnergySolutions Arena, he drew a foul on a three-point attempt and went to the line. He hit the first two but his third attempt drew the back iron, and the Jazz fell 89-88.

“Of course there’s pressure, it’s to tie the game and send it to overtime. I just missed it,” the star forward said. “It felt pretty good. Back rim, so it was on target. Hit the first two, those are the tough ones, so—just missed the last one.”

Memphis Grizzlies v Utah Jazz

The Utah star will sit the final three games of the season with inflammation in his Achilles tendon, one of several nagging injuries that are bothering him late in the season. But it has been a career year for No. 20. He played and started 76 games, averaging a career-high 19.3 points per game, as well as 4.9 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 1.4 steals.

He even bested most of those numbers in his final contest of the season, adding seven boards, three assists and two steals in a team-high 38 minutes, though he still felt the need to take responsibility for the loss after the stellar effort.

Not surprisingly, scoring was hard to come by in a meeting between the two best defensive team sin the NBA. Utah has allowed just 94.6 points per contest, a league-high, while Memphis isn’t far behind, giving up 95.2.

That wasn’t the case in the first quarter, however. The Grizzlies started hot, shooting 11-of-19 in the first period, forcing G-Time into action. Gordon scored 11 points in the quarter on a perfect 4-for-4 shooting and 2-for-2 from the line, and rookie guard Rodney Hood put up 10 points on 3-for-5 shooting. The rest of the Jazz scored just two points, which came on a Rudy Gobert dunk, on 1-for-6 shooting.

Memphis Grizzlies v Utah Jazz

No. 20 continued his hot streak in the second period, when he, Hood and Bryce Cotton, another rookie, combined to score 14 of Utah’s first 15 points in the quarter.

By the time the rest of the Jazz joined the party, the dynamic trio had gotten the squad to within three points, 41-38. Gobert and forward Derrick Favors then got a few baskets to go, and Utah briefly took a handful of one and two-point leads as the final minutes of the half became a back-and-forth affair, and Gobert dunked on an offensive rebound to beat the halftime buzzer to tie the game at 49.

Gordon didn’t have the same scoring punch in the second half, seeking instead to get his teammates going after only he, Hood, Cotton and Gobert made more than one field goal in the first half.

The Grizzlies defense held strong and limited Utah to just 37.8 percent shooting and 39 points in the second half, but the Jazz defense was nearly as impressive as the famed “grit-and-grind” Grizzlies’ was. Utah held Memphis to just 42.1 percent from the field in the second half, but the Grizzlies turned it over just four times to Utah’s seven.

Gordon was everywhere in the fourth quarter, doing everything he could to get his teammates in the game and restore some rhythm to the offense. The 25-year-old forward scored four points in the period to go with four rebounds, two assists—both of which came on three-pointers—and a pair of steals while playing every second of the quarter.

Memphis Grizzlies v Utah Jazz

With just more than five minutes remaining, G-Time swiped the ball from Jeff Green and converted a fast break layup on the other end to put Utah up by two. A Hood-to-Gobert alley-oop the next time down the court gave the Jazz a four-point lead, but then the offense flatlined.

Over the next 4:42, Utah missed all six of its shots, committed three turnovers and let a four-point lead turn into a three-point deficit.

That’s when No. 20 caught the inbounds pass from Joe Ingles in the corner, took a quick step behind the three-point arch and launched a potentially game-tying triple. Former defensive player of the year Marc Gasol flew in and got a hand on the ball but swiped Gordon’s hand on the follow through, which was whistled a foul.

G-Time knocked the first two down with ease, but the third attempt was just long and bounced off the back iron as the final tenth of a second ran off the clock. Jazz head coach Quin Snyder was far less disappointed in Hayward than the young forward was in himself, reminding reporters that everybody misses on occasion.

“He was great with the pressure, too,” Snyder said of Gordon. “Sometimes the ball goes in, sometimes it doesn’t. You saw the first two, they were bang-bang, third one didn’t go in. We say it, and we say it because it’s true: The game was about the last five minutes, our transition defense, loose balls and offensive rebounds. We just gave them extra possessions.”

Gordon did agree that the loss came down to more than just one free throw.

“Offensive rebounds for them,” he named as a main reason for the Grizzlies coming out on top. “That’s kind of what they do, but we’ve just got to be better. Tough one to lose for us, but we’ll use it as a learning experience.”

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