The memory of Monday night had not escaped the minds of Utah Jazz players.
In Milwaukee they led by as many as 33 points and then the Bucks surged back in the third quarter, cutting the Jazz lead to single digits.
“We didn’t want a repeat of what happened in Milwaukee,” Walker Kessler said. “We acted like we’d already won the game and just made it harder on ourselves than it needed to be. That’s a bad precedent to set.”
So when the Jazz went into halftime on Wednesday night, with a 71-53 lead over the reigning champion Denver Nuggets, Jazz head coach Will Hardy didn’t even need to say anything.
“I think the other night scared us all to death,” Hardy said. “I walked in the locker room and they were all saying it before I did … They were talking about winning the third quarter, they were talking about being in this situation again.”
The Nuggets are of course, much like the Bucks, not the kind of team to mess around against. Led by Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, the Nuggets are able to come back in even the tightest of situations and have made huge runs late in games this season, proving that point.
“There was a ton of time left against a really good team,” Kessler said. “And with all due respect to coach, he’s not in the game, he’s not on the court with us. We knew that we couldn’t let that happen again.”
The Jazz players made sure to put their best foot forward this time. They stayed tight on defense, let the game develop organically on offense and never took their foot off the gas pedal.
In particular, the Jazz made sure to keep Jokic from being as good of as passer as he is a scorer and limited Michael Porter Jr. as much as possible.
Jokic finished the night with a game-high tying 27 points, but had just six assists, which is a lower number than he is capable of. Porter only took three 3-point attempts and only converted on one of them.
“That was a pretty complete game by our team,” Hardy said. “The team’s focus defensively against a really, really good basketball team was very, very good from the beginning of the game.”
And importantly, the Jazz proved that they have the ability to recognize mistakes and to not make the same mistakes over and over.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25218767/merlin_3013540.jpg "The Jazz got their 3rd straight win by avoiding making a critical error against the Nuggets")
