The Utah Jazz got Darryn Peterson back Wednesday night and still couldn’t find their shooting, falling 94-82 to the San Antonio Spurs to drop to 1-3 in Las Vegas Summer League play.
Peterson, the No. 2 overall pick, returned after sitting Monday’s win over Chicago without an announced reason — an absence that resolved itself as simple rest. His return was a grind: 15 points on 4-of-16 shooting with four rebounds and four assists, 11 of those points coming in the first half. He was hardly alone. Utah shot 5-of-24 from three as a team, and no amount of defense covers a 21 percent night from the arc. Tamar Bates led the Jazz with 16 points, Bez Mbeng had 12 points, four rebounds and five assists, and Orlando Robinson and Matt Cleveland added 11 apiece.
The game turned the same way twice. Utah led 15-11 late in the first quarter before San Antonio closed the frame on a 13-3 run, and after the Jazz clawed within 46-44 at halftime, the Spurs ran off 15-4 over the final 3:24 of the third to take a 76-64 lead into the fourth that never got threatened. Ja’Kobi Gillespie, the No. 42 pick, scored a game-high 25 points on 10-of-21 shooting for San Antonio, and Hyunjung Lee hit a game-high four threes on his way to 22 off the bench.
The result matters less than the pattern. A roster built around teenage guards was always going to have nights like this one, and the more useful development note is that Peterson played through the cold stretch rather than being pulled early — meaningful handling from a franchise that has been carefully metering his July workload.
Utah closes its scheduled Vegas slate against Portland on Friday at 10:30 p.m. ET on Prime Video.
On the fantasy side, one 4-of-16 night in July moves nothing: Peterson remains the consensus top rookie-draft pick and Utah’s usage plans for him are unchanged. Bates and Mbeng are camp-battle names for deep dynasty rosters only, and the Jazz’s team-wide shooting struggles are a summer-roster problem, not a signal about the NBA rotation.
