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Los Angeles • Gordon Hayward's Game 5 started with the All-Star forward making a 3 — a dramatic improvement over how things started for him two nights earlier.
Before the Jazz's Game 4 matchup on Sunday against the Los Angeles Clippers, Hayward's wife, Robyn, had fallen ill and the Jazz's leading scorer, needing sleep before the most important game he had played to this point in his NBA career, left her and went downstairs to try to sleep.
"Maybe it was karma, because two hours later I was back upstairs doing the same thing she was," Hayward said. "Basically up all night. Didn't get much sleep. Couldn't eat anything."
The suspected culprit? A bad sandwich.
"It came on so fast and so sudden and my wife and I both got it," Hayward said. "We both ate the same thing, so I can imagine that's what it was. It was a sandwich from a place. I'm sure — it happens. Everybody's gotten [food poisoning] maybe once. That's all I can tell you."
Team doctors gave Hayward intravenous fluids throughout the day Sunday in hopes that he would be able to play. In the end, the forward would be able to muster only nine minutes of playing time before leaving the bench before halftime, and exiting the arena shortly after that.
"There was really no point in me being in the arena," Hayward said. "I was back in the locker room sleeping with the lights off, trying to regain some composure."
After scoring a career-high 40 points in Game 3, Hayward scored only three in Game 4.
"I was definitely down for the count," he said. "Haven't been sick like that in years, maybe at all. So it was rough, but I'm happy that we got the win. I was really proud of the guys."
The Jazz's best player would watch parts of the final half of the game on the television at home, as he drifted in and out of sleep.
"We won, and I turned it off and went to sleep," he said.
The next morning, he felt "tremendously better."
"I feel back to normal," Hayward said after the team's shootaround Tuesday morning near Beverly Hills.
Hayward said he had lost some weight as a result of the illness but said "I think I'll be fine."
He started the night making three straight 3-pointers en route to 11 first-quarter points.
As for that sandwich place, it shouldn't expect any repeat business from the Haywards. Asked if he would return anytime soon, the All-Star said, "Absolutely not."
Fashion faux pas
Sophomore forward Trey Lyles got an important lesson this week: Jazz nation really dislikes the Lakers.
The 21-year-old Lyles was photographed arriving at the team's Beverly Hills hotel on Monday wearing a Kobe Bryant T-shirt. When the Jazz put the photo on Twitter, Lyles quickly heard about it.
"I just liked the shirt. It had Kobe on it. Kobe's my favorite player, so I wore it," Lyles said. "They were a little upset about it. But it'll be all right. … It shows they care."
Twitter: @aaronfalk