when the bugs pile up in the Delta Center

Complicated evening in Salt Lake City. If Jazz confessed heavy defeat on its floor against the Thunder, the Delta Center also had breakdowns. At the start of the match, a smoke machine placed behind one of the baskets started sending out light waves of smoke without anyone commanding it.

If it wasn’t disturbing at first, everything accelerated in the second quarter when she started smoking continuously without anyone being able to stop her, which led to the first stoppage of the match.

At the beginning of the second half, the clocks and the scoreboard stopped working. Due to a computer error, they could no longer indicate the time remaining or the score.

There is a pause in the game as the smoke machine behind the Thunder basket goes off during live action pic.twitter.com/9tGn9b5vgm

— Andy Larsen (@andiblarsen) December 8, 2025

A broken clock gives the correct time twice

After several minutes of trying to correct this technical problem, it was decided that Jazz announcer, Markue Denmon, would announce the remaining time and score.

“It’s funny because it’s the first time in over three years that I’ve heard what’s being said over the microphone,”jokes Will Hardy. “I don’t even know what he usually announces, but here we had to listen to find out where we were in the match.”

After a failed reboot attempt, we had to wait a timeout to replace the entire system and recover the clocks and score. This incident lasted during the first part of the third quarter and disturbed those present on the floor, who constantly need to know how much time is left.

“I haven’t been in this league long, but I’ve never seen anything like it in high school, high school or college,” underscores jazz leader Keyont George. “Obviously it was complicated, you always want to know how much time is left on the clock.

“We had to stay united” adds Thunder’s interior, Brandon Carlson. “We have our habits and we were able to rely on them to keep playing despite all these distractions.”

After the meeting, the Jazz technical team confirmed that there was no connection between the smoke machine problem and the computer error at the scorer’s desk.