Lost in Friday night’s loss to the visiting Jazz was Jonas Valanciunas and how he played big.

In basketball, the term that best summed up JV’s presence was forceful because he played with force, even playing through five fouls.

Along the way, Valanciunas scored a season-high 28 points, a game-high, to complement his 14 rebounds, another game high.

“He played with a lot of force against one of the best centre defenders in the league (in Rudy Gobert), attacking the rim, rebounding,’’ praised head coach Dwane Casey. “Now we’ve got to get everyone else to join in the party, to play with that type of force to start the game, to set the tone.

“It’s an old saying, the way you start is the way you finish. and we finished the way we started.

We’ve got to learn from it if we’re serious about going somewhere. We can talk all this stuff about winning and beating people but if you don’t approach it and do the job the right way, from the coaching staff right on down to the players, you’re not going anywhere.”

Valanciunas showed the way, but sadly there wasn’t anyone else to lead or at least provide a complementary presence to Valanciunas.

He made 12 of 16 shots.

As a team, Toronto made 37 shots.