HOUSTON — Three thoughts on the Jazz's 89-87 win over the Houston Rockets from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz execute down the stretch to win game

Yes, the Jazz had done a great job to get within striking distance in the third and fourth quarters (more on that later). But after Patrick Beverley hit a difficult floater from 16 feet, the Rockets still led by 3 with 1:08 left. Win probability models showed the Rockets having a 85 percent chance of winning that game at that point.

And then nearly everything else went the Jazz's way.

Shelvin Mack hit a pretty difficult three after Patrick Beverley got caught up on a screen. Mack's leaning to his left there, but does a great job of recognizing he's open and taking the best chance that was likely to come in that possession. That's among the biggest shots by a Jazzman this season.

Since it hadn't been uploaded to Twitter yet... Shelvin Mack's gigantic 3 with under a minute to go: pic.twitter.com/7OLXHunxxp — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 24, 2016

With the Rockets needing a score, Beverley dribbles the ball up, trying to find James Harden open in a good spot on the wing. But Gordon Hayward's ball-denial defense forces a bad pass, which then Hayward flips around Harden to intercept. Great defense to force the steal and then collect it by Hayward.

With the Jazz using a little bit of clock, Mack dribbles the ball to one corner of the floor, and the Jazz use a back screen to free Hayward up. Hayward catches the ball and immediately uses the space the screen created to drive to the basket, hard. He's fouled by Dwight Howard, and makes both free throws.

And the next Jazz offensive play, clever screen for Hayward off the ball, giving him space to drive and get fouled: pic.twitter.com/XBGwOHhue0 — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 24, 2016

On the ensuing inbounds, Hayward again plays ball denial defense on Harden. Hayward gets a hand on the bounce pass delivered, but this time, the deflection goes to Harden, who finds Howard for the easy dunk. This was good defense, actually, by the Jazz, but they didn't come up with the steal. Tie game, 22 seconds left.

As Quin Snyder explained after the game, the Jazz planned not to use a timeout no matter what the outcome of the previous possession was. Hood said, "The play was designed to get Gordon the ball, Ariza denied him." Hayward knew that Ariza was running a denial defense, and that the Rockets were likely to switch any normal screen. So he came up and just ran past Hood, a slip screen designed to have the two Rockets defenders run into each other. They did, Hood had space to drive, and found Favors for the game-winning dunk.

Derrick Favors game-winner, Jazz erase 18-point deficit, move 0.5 games ahead of HOU for final playoff spot in West pic.twitter.com/WuNjCGrJGz — Rob Perez (@World_Wide_Wob) March 24, 2016

"Big time play by G," Hood said after the game about the screen.

After that, the Rockets had 1.6 seconds to find a shot. Harden did a good job of getting open, but Hayward and Booker did enough to contest the shot for it to fall off back iron.

And with that 68 seconds of solid basketball from Hayward, Hood, Favors and Mack, the Jazz now find themselves with a foot in the door of the NBA playoffs.

2. Jazz win despite individual struggles

In the first half, the Jazz's offense couldn't get going. They shot just 30 percent in the first two quarters, then turned the ball over 11 times to boot. At one point, they had an 18-point deficit. At that point, their odds of winning the game were just 7.7 percent.

That included a stretch of eight minutes and 35 seconds where the Jazz's offense didn't score a field goal. We've talked about that before with this Jazz team, but it had appeared that the bench had began to figure it out a little bit, especially on the back of solid play from Trey Lyles and some edited rotations by Quin Snyder.

But Lyles was 0-5 in his five minutes and change, and couldn't make a shot: even on a wide-open three pointer with no one within 15 feet, he missed iron and caught only air. Chris Johnson struggled, as Chris Johnson usually does, and Mack and Gobert acted as turnover machines.

So Snyder had to change things up. After less than a minute on the court (and a foul and a turnover) in the third quarter, Gobert was sent to the bench for Trevor Booker. Booker impressed in his time, making both of his shots and picking up five rebounds too. Booker ended up playing more than Gobert overall, and it was probably the right decision. In the end, Gobert finished the night with only two points, four turnovers, and a game low -14 when he was on the floor.

Hood also played poorly. As he described it after the game, "I don't think I could have played any worse." He was just 2 of 11 from the field, and himself had four turnovers.

The Jazz's ability to win that game despite having such an off night from their normal contributors is a big step forward. Hayward and Favors were able to carry the load against Harden and Howard, last year's Western Conference finalists. Wow.

3. Jazz's defense starting to figure it out again

Here are the Jazz opponent's last point 11 point totals allowed, in reverse chronological order: 87, 85, 92, 69, 84, 99, 93, 115, 91, 94, 94.

See the outlier? Yes, that 115-point outburst is from the Golden State Warriors, who you may be familiar with as a team with a solid offense. Every other game in this stretch, though, the Jazz have allowed under 100 points, and in 9 of the 11, they've allowed 94 or fewer.

That's a big deal for the Jazz. The team is now 23-0 in games where they allow 90 points or fewer from the opposition. Not only does that usually mean the defense is solid, but the Jazz are also playing at the pace they're familiar with: a slow one. Once again this season, the Jazz have the slowest pace in the league.

All in all, in that last three-week stretch, the Jazz have the third-best defense in the league once adjusting for pace, behind only the Atlanta Hawks and the San Antonio Spurs.

Is it sustainable? Yes and no. Clearly, the Jazz have had a relatively favorable schedule: only three of the Jazz's opponents over the last 11 have had an above-average offense (the Rockets, Warriors and Cavaliers). But the Jazz's performance against Houston and Cleveland gives you hope that they can do this sort of thing against other good offensive teams down the road.

Unfortunately, in the playoffs, they're likely to face off against either the Warriors or Spurs: in other words, essentially unstoppable offensive machines. Still, progress now matters, especially as the Jazz try to take a leap forward next season.

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