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Houston • Gordon Hayward was looking to put a bad night quickly behind him. The Utah Jazz's leading scorer on the season had finished hitting more iron than twine in a 111-102 loss to the Rockets, when he finished dressing slowly and turned to a scrum of reporters waiting.
"I'm on to the next one," Hayward responded curtly to the first question tossed his way.
Was he in a funk?
"I'm just not playing well," he said, "so we've got another game tomorrow."
Is his busted finger still bothering him?
"It has nothing to do with my finger," he said, "so, uh, we play tomorrow."
That's when the Jazz, losers of three straight games, hope to snap their first official losing streak of the young campaign. To do that, they'll likely need Hayward to snap out of his slump, too.
After breaking his finger during the preseason and missing the first six games of the year, Hayward returned to the court looking like a man who had never left. He dropped 28 on the Knicks in his first game back. He followed that up with 20 in Philadelphia, 29 in Charlotte, 20 more in Orlando and 25 against the Heat.
But that streak of five straight games with 20-plus has come to an end and Hayward's jumper has gone wayward.
The forward went 4-for-14 in a loss to Memphis followed by a 3-for-15 night in Thursday's defeat against the Bulls.
On Saturday, Hayward started the game by going 1 for 7 in the first half against the Rockets. By the time the final buzzer had sounded, the forward had nine points and 4-of-13 shooting in another loss.
"We just tell him to keep going," guard Rodney Hood said. "Gordon's been playing at an all-star level. He struggles. It's the NBA. … He'll be fine. It's just part of it."
Hayward did look better in the second half. He opened the third quarter with an assist to Hood on a 3-pointer and found Shelvin Mack for a layup. And when he knocked down a rainbow 3 of his own, Hayward seemed to breathe a little relief.
"I thought in the second half Gordon got his rhythm back and was making some good plays," Jazz coach Quin Snyder said.
The Jazz hope a slightly better performance in the second half can translate to Monday's matchup in Denver, that game Hayward was looking forward to.
Twitter: @aaronfalk