SALT LAKE CITY — Jordan Clarkson’s foot was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Philadelphia forward Paul George had desperately grabbed an offensive rebound with the shot clock running out and turned to shoot a desperate fadeaway. He caught Clarkson and he fell to the ground.

Foul.

Jazz coach Will Hardy quickly questioned the play, but after review, the decision stood. That was one of three final-minute criticisms that played in Philadelphia’s favor as the 76ers topped Utah with a 114-111 victory at the Delta Center on Saturday.

Was that disappointing?

“Only now that you bring it up,” Hardy joked when asked. “The challenge is for obvious reasons. They were right about both and we were wrong about ours. But yeah, I haven’t been sad until now.”

(Sorry, Will.)

In fact, he left the game feeling pretty good about his team’s progress. Over the last 10 games, the Jazz have had a top-10 offense in the NBA and now have five games in which the team played crucial minutes (although Utah is 2-3 in that stretch).

Saturday was another example of a team improving. The Jazz had 27 assists, three players scored 20 or more points and were within one possession for all but four seconds of the final five minutes.

And all of this against a team that features Joel Embiid (32 points), Tyrese Maxey (32 points and six assists) and Paul George (13 points) together. Those three combined for 21 points in the fourth quarter.

“I don’t think anyone should leave this game discouraged,” Hardy said. “Losing hurts. Losing is no fun. But there are a lot of really good things happening in our team right now; “The cohesion of the group on both sides of the ball has grown significantly in the last few weeks.”

One problem, however, is that some of this progress is being obscured, namely sales. The Jazz had 22 giveaways – including 15 turnovers on live balls – which led to 22 points.

“You can look at the list – it’s all there,” Hardy said. “We don’t do a good enough job of seeing that changing defender. Too often we dribble into a secondary defender. We also have some moments of poor ball security. The team knows that and we will face that reality and we will continue to work on it.”

Otherwise the Jazz played good basketball. They lost at the buzzer on Thursday, lost in the final seconds on Saturday and took Cleveland to the final minutes earlier in the week.

Moral victory? Secure. Regardless, it’s a night and day difference from how the Jazz looked at the start of the season.

“We stuck together even though it wasn’t the best year,” said Lauri Markkanen, who led the Jazz with 23 points and hit a late, deep 3-pointer to keep some hope alive. “We didn’t get the win tonight, or in Portland, or even in the Cavs game, but we were right there.”

If anything, this is the hallmark of Hardy’s Jazz teams. Utah’s front office hasn’t yet given him a team that can truly compete. But in his first two seasons, his teams exceeded expectations – even to the chagrin of some Jazz fans (and perhaps some managers) – and things are starting to trend that way again.

And it comes through veterans and youth.

In each of the last five games, Markkanen has scored over 20 points and Collin Sexton is averaging 22.2 points and 7.2 assists. On Saturday, Brice Sensabaugh showed more patience in reading the floor, resulting in 20 points and two assists; and rookie forward Cody Williams had some bright spots attacking the rim.

“They have a really talented team with some incredibly quality players who have had some great performances,” Hardy said. “But this is an evening where I leave feeling good about our group’s progress.”

The fact that there were even second fights in the last minute proves this.