Utah Jazz vs Atlanta Hawks recap and finals score: Jazz down Hawks at home

The Jazz have fully decoupled from the Tyrone Corbin era: Tonight marked the youngest starting lineup in Jazz history, with John Collins, Taylor Hendricks, Brice Sensabaugh, Colin Sexton and Keyonte George. Collins, the elder statesman of the group, led the first quarter effort with 11 points on 4-6 shooting. Atlanta countered with a trio of triples from an even older statesman and former Jazzman, Wesley Matthews. At the end of the first quarter, the Jazz led 34-28 after a Garrison Matthews three was waved off.

Johnny Juzang, Taylon Horton-Tucker, and Walker Kessler stretched the lead to as many as nine in the 2nd quarter, but turnovers and questionable shots helped Garrison Matthews, Dejounte Murray, and Clint Capela erase that deficit in about three minutes. The two teams went back and forth throughout the rest of the half, which ended with Atlanta holding a 62-61 lead.

The Jazz came out swinging in the third, going up by 4 with this gorgeous bit of work by Keyonte George:

Despite a 14-point quarter from Brice Sensabaugh, the game remained tight thanks to Wesley Matthews and Jalen Johnson. Micah Potter opened the lead up to 8 when he hit from deep with 2:27 left, but the Hawks stormed back and cut it to a bucket by the end of the period thanks to Dejounte Murray and De’Andre Hunter.

Micah Potter, Johnny Juzang, Jason Preston, THT, and Walker Kessler led off the 4th, opening up a 108-99 lead. Potter was particularly impressive, notching 6 points, but Atlanta answered with a 7-0 run of their own, as was the theme throughout the night.

Will Hardy took a timeout after the Hawks cut it to 106-108, and the Jazz went on a Sexton/Juzang 8-0 run in a matter of seconds, at which point it was Quin Snyder’s turn to call timeout.

The Hawks got four back, interspersed with several Sexton bricks/turnovers, before Johnny Juzang finally broke the scoreless streak with a nifty cut inside, and on the next possession Keyonte expanded the lead to 8 with a pretty floater. Dejounte Murray cut the lead to 5, John Collins turned the ball over, and Murray hit yet another three to cut it to two. After a pair of offensive rebounds by the Hawks, Keyonte came away with the ball, took it down the court, drove inside, and lost the ball out of bounds off of Atlanta with 7 seconds on the shot clock and 16 on the game clock. The Jazz fell apart on the inbound, took a shot clock violation, and the Hawks had the chance to win or send the game to OT with 8 seconds left. The rest of the game looked like this:

Win or lose, this was a game you should be happy with if you’re a Jazz fan. The young guys got a lot of burn and looked good for the most part. The feel-good story of the night was Johnny Juzang and Micah Potter emerging from the G-League: they combined for 30 points on 11-15 shots from the field, including 7-10 from deep, giving the Jazz a 124-122 victory.

The Jazz will be in action again tomorrow against Mike Conley, Rudy Gobert, and the Minnesota Timberwolves, who are currently No. 3 in the West.