SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Jazz's easy 106-85 win over the New York Knicks from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz's defensive effort wins the game early.

After last night's game, the focus was rightly on the Jazz's terrible defensive performance, after allowing the Kings to score over 120 points per 100 possessions.

Before the Jazz played the Knicks Wednesday night, I asked Quin Snyder what was the cause of all of those problems against the Kings. Snyder listed the issues:

"It starts with getting back... You've got to be very, very urgent. I didn't think our help side was effective. As far as for awareness, we got cut for some baskets. We didn't guard pin downs well, when Bellinelli was in the game. We got beat in straight-line drives off the high quadrant, guys just going downhill. I could go on. There were just a lot of breakdowns. I don't think there's anything you look at and say 'Hey, let's get up early and work on this.' There's just got to be a raised awareness across a lot of areas. Some things that are fundamental, that I know we've spent time on, that the guys just have to make important."

Well, every single issue the Jazz had defensively last night, the Jazz fixed quickly in Salt Lake City against the Knicks. Through the game's first 19 minutes, the Jazz allowed just 18 points while scoring 49 of their own. During that stretch, the Knicks shot just 8-30 from the field.

In fact, the Jazz's first quarter set season records for most first quarter points and fewest points allowed by the Jazz in any quarter. At that point, the Jazz had already won the game.

After that performance, I asked Snyder what went differently tonight. Referring to the quote above, he said, "I can't remember what I told you before the game, but it was that."

"Our habits are there. They're under the surface sometimes, and you have slippage with anything. It's going to keep being hard."

Whether or not the Jazz are going to be successful during this stretch of games without Rudy Gobert is going to be largely dependent on if they play defense like Wednesday night, or if they play defense like Tuesday night. We'll see.

2. Hayward and Favors lead the Jazz offensively

At this morning's shootaround, Knicks star Carmelo Anthony was asked which of Derrick Favors or Gordon Hayward was most dangerous. Here's what Anthony said:

"Favors. And that's not taking anything away from Gordon, but if Favors gets it going, he creates fouls, offensive rebounding, there's times when he creates havoc on the offensive glass. We have to be mindful of where he is all the time."

The Knicks responded to neither challenge. On the first two offensive plays for the Jazz of the night, Anthony went under screens, leading Hayward to just pull up and hit the easy 3-point shot. Hayward had all facets of his offensive game going tonight, no matter who he was being guarded by, and it was great to see.

But Favors was equally important for the Jazz. Favors both easily disrupted what the Knicks were doing offensively, while scoring himself down in the paint and on wide-open free-throw line jumpers. The Knicks made it so easy for both of the Jazz's offensive weapons to get going, and they paid for it dearly.

Favors and Hayward ended up shooting 13-20 from the field for a combined 34 points in the first half, in a combined 31 minutes. The fault was on the entire Knicks lineup: Neto (who had 5 assists in the first half) was easily driving past Calderon, which forced the Knicks to help, which Anthony, Porzingis, and Lopez didn't do well at all.

3. Free chicken for everyone!

The Jazz are running a promotion this year, sponsored by Chick-Fil-A, which is a unique and fun way to get the fans involved. Basically, if an opponent misses both free throws in one trip to the line in the fourth quarter, every fan in the building can turn in their ticket and get free chicken at Chick-Fil-A.

This is cool. Unlike most of these promotions that require fans to care about getting over arbitrary markers like scoring 100 points, this one encourages fans to get loud and rowdy during 4th quarter clutch free throws. It keeps the fans engaged during the entire quarter, and maybe even makes an impact on the game. It's great.

It was also the major subplot for the entire fourth quarter tonight. In the 4th quarter, the Knicks took five 2-shot trips to the line, giving Jazz fans five chances to boo loudly to force the Knicks to miss. Sasha Vujacic missed his first FT, but made the second twice during the quarter, hilariously holding a finger to his lips to shush the booing crowd despite being down by more than 20 on the scoreboard both times.

Finally, Lou Amundson came to the line. Amundson, a career 44 percent free throw shooter, obliged Jazz fans with two misses with 38 seconds to go in the game, winning free chicken for all. Thanks, Lou.

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