DETROIT — Jazz coach Quin Snyder was pleased to hear his young star had used a certain word: persistence.

It’s been a message that he and his coaching staff have preached time and time again this season. And it was that message that helped the Jazz to a 110-105 win over Detroit Saturday at Little Ceasars Arena.

The Jazz were down by 18 points in the first half and trailed by 11 in the third quarter. They lost two rotation players — two players who helped spark a first-half run — before they had even reached halftime.

And, yet, they won the game. Donovan Mitchell scored 26 points (24 in the second half) to lead Utah’s comeback and help the Jazz (20-20) reach .500 on the season.

“That’s a word we've been using for a while, just the idea of pressing on,” Snyder said of being persistent. “We didn’t make it easy on ourselves. Donovan, maybe, embodied that tonight more than anyone, but our whole group had it.”

“One of those games”

It was the second game on a back-to-back against a team on two days rest. And that looked pretty obvious. The Pistons jumped out to a 30-13 lead in the first quarter against a Jazz team that simply looked unfocused and tired.

“The first half, but especially the first quarter, it was just one of those games in the NBA where you’re on a back-to-back and we don’t come out with the right sense of urgency,” Kyle Korver said. “And they came out hitting everything — they were on fire.”

Every time the Pistons hit a 3-pointer, free shirts were thrown into the stands. Reggie Bullock gave a lot of people free stuff after he hit four triples in the opening 12 minutes as part of a 14-point first quarter.

The Jazz were making mental errors, lazy turnovers; and while the effort was there, the execution wasn’t. Rudy Gobert picked up his second foul early in the first and Joe Ingles didn’t have any better luck with the refs. Nothing seemed to be going right.

But then Dante Exum and Thabo Sefolosha fueled a 14-0 run off the bench to bring the Jazz back into the game, but then more adversity hit. Both those players went down.

It was a literal ankle breaker — or at least an ankle sprainer. Exum was crossed over and collapsed to the ground and was ruled out with an ankle sprain. Then, Sefolosha suffered a right hamstring injury forcing him to the locker room early.

“We had a great activity”

Snyder referenced a single stat in his post-game press conference: deflections.

“Our defense allowed us to get back in the game,” he said. “Deflections, we had 22 deflections in the second half, which means we had a great activity. On a back-to-back, particularly to be able to find that when not starting the game as precise as we needed to be, was really good.”

Mitchell deserves a lot of the credit for the Jazz turnaround — he was phenomenal in the second half. But the Jazz’s defense had long stretches of dominance, too. And even Mitchell credited that defense for turning his game around.

“I think playing defense, getting stops, getting blocks and getting myself going on that end allowed me to push through, allowed us to push through,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell is used to making highlight-reel dunks, but he had a highlight-reel block on Saturday. He skied high and spiked a Bruce Brown layup attempt down. It was those types of plays that fueled the comeback.

“Rudy gets two blocks, Faves get two blocks, and we get out in transition,” Mitchell said. “I think that’s what really got us going.”

"We were able to keep it together”

Even after the Jazz had gone on a 19-4 run to take a nine-point lead in the fourth quarter, the Pistons kept coming. Detroit hit three 3-pointers in the final 2:09 of the game to pull within a single score.

Blake Griffin hit one as part of his 34-point night, Bullock hit another and Reggie Jackson added a third. It was just another surge in a game full of them.

“I thought we made winning plays late,” Snyder said. “They made some terrific plays, they hit some shots but we were able to keep it together.”

But the Jazz made their own. Especially Mitchell, who had three buckets in the final two minutes — none bigger than the pull-up jumper with 26 seconds left to make it 106-102. And he was pretty fired up after the shot. TV cameras caught him pointing and yelling, “This is your fault. You did this,” at someone.

It could have been Andre Drummond, who had been exchanging words with Mitchell all night. Or it could have been a fan in the corner, who had been heckling Mitchell throughout the game. Whoever it was, Mitchell gave them a strong message.

And the Jazz did the same on Saturday.

“We never quit,” Mitchell said. “That’s kind of our thing: we don’t quit at all.”

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