SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on Tuesday night's 117-114 Jazz win over the Houston Rockets from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Stars power Jazz to big win

Gordon Hayward, Rodney Hood, and Derrick Favors stepped up in big ways in one of the biggest games of the season Tuesday night. Let's break down their performances.

Hayward was incredibly efficient, in a once-in-a-career sort of way. Check out this stat, courtesy of the ESPN NBA Twitter account.

Gordon Hayward has 2nd-most points on only 7 FGA in the last 30 seasons. Only Chauncey Billups (29) had more. pic.twitter.com/QGl0ZlkSBx — NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) February 24, 2016

The only field goal Hayward missed all night was a half-court buzzer beater, and he shot 13-15 from the free throw line. Without Hayward's contributions, especially 13 points in the third quarter, the Jazz don't win this game. He also added seven rebounds and five assists to complete a well-rounded performance.

Hood was efficient himself, scoring 18 points on 10 shots. Nine of those points were in the 4th quarter and overtime, including two great pull-up threes that James Harden complimented him on after the game.

Hood was also a big part of the Jazz's first-half success, getting five steals that helped the Jazz keep a lead despite their 16 turnovers in those periods. The result was a game-high +15 when Hood was on the floor.

Favors did a ton to help the Jazz, including maybe the game's most critical basket. His putback with 11.8 seconds left to put the Jazz up 3 was huge; the three-point margin meant the Rockets had to take two very tough shots to try to tie at the end of the overtime. Overall, too, Favors was great: 19 points, 12 rebounds, three steals, and two blocks. That's even as he acted as the Jazz's only big man down low for most of the clutch.

Gobert notwithstanding, the Jazz's stars stepped up and won the game for them, outshining the MVP runner-up James Harden and his supporting cast. That the Jazz have such a capable crew is very good for their playoff chances moving forward, for this season and years to come.

2. Jazz shake up point guard rotation

Out was Raul Neto, who has started 53 of the Jazz's 56 games at the point guard position. Inserted into the starting lineup was Shelvin Mack, whose 16-point, 6-assist performance Sunday instantly made him look like the Jazz's best option at the position after only one game.

Mack wasn't as good as he was on Sunday, but he was still pretty impactful. He scored 17 points (a new season high), got to the line a fair amount, and ended up with a +7 for the game. He'll wish that he had made either of the open threes he took from the corner in overtime, but it was otherwise a pretty good scoring game for Mack.

He did have six turnovers, which really contributed to the Jazz's woes in that category in the first half. Mack attributed the turnovers partially to his unfamiliarity with the offense at this point, noting that sometimes he didn't know where his teammates were going to be. That should probably improve. Six turnovers ties his career high, so it's not usually a problem for Mack. He still looks like the Jazz's best option moving forward.

That's good, because Quin Snyder's going to stick with him. Pregame, Snyder said, "When we decide (who the starter is), we think there will be some consistency moving forward." Now that he's the starter tonight, Mack's the favorite to start for the rest of the season.

The other interesting choice for Snyder is who will get the remainder of the point guard minutes after Mack. Snyder chose to go with Neto off the bench first in the first half, but the put Burke in the game first in the second half. Burke was the better player tonight, scoring 15 points in his 28 minutes, shooting 6-11 from the field. Burke's shooting in the fourth gave the Jazz the lead against the Rockets bench early in the quarter, and he was rewarded with clutch minutes for the rest of the game.

Burke was a little up-and-down defensively in those minutes. On the plus side, he was excellent when switched onto Harden, including on some of the game's most crucial possessions. On the down side, he helped off of Beverley too much for an open three to tie the game in overtime. Still, his overall defensive game was an improvement.

I suspect the Neto or Burke decision will depend on matchups moving forward, but Burke gave himself an upper-hand tonight.

3. Jazz standings update

It feels like this sort of update will be happening often as the Jazz go down the stretch run, but after a big win against a playoff competition, let's update the conference standings.

So the Jazz are in 8th, now ahead of the Rockets, but one and a half games behind both Dallas and Portland. Memphis is 4.5 games ahead of the Jazz, but they may slip now that Marc Gasol has been announced out for the season with a broken foot.

Inpredictable.com, a site that runs probabilistic models for the NBA, releases playoff odds for each team every morning based on the chances of each team winning or losing each game moving forward. Here are the Jazz's odds of finishing in the each of the Western Conference's playoff seeds after tonight's result:

After last night's game, the current @inpredict probabilities for Jazz playoff seed:
5: 13%
6: 18%
7: 22%
8: 21%
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9: 17%
10: 8%
11: 1%

— Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) February 24, 2016

In other words, the Jazz have about a 74 percent chance of making the playoffs. And even better, the Jazz have a fighter's chance at getting the fifth or sixth seed in the playoffs, which might mean a competitive playoff series. That would be very good for this young team's development moving forward. 

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