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SALT LAKE CITY — Alex Jensen was still dry when he got to the podium. That might be the only disappointment of Wednesday night.
Jensen, the former University of Utah standout and interim Utah Jazz head coach, got his first NBA win when Utah beat the Denver Nuggets 108-104 Wednesday at Vivint Arena — something that is usually followed by a customary water bottle shower.
You could forgive the Jazz, though, for forgetting that tidbit. It's been a long time since they had a different coach, and it's been a while since they've actually won a game.
Wednesday's win snapped a five-game losing streak as the Jazz try to recover from January's disastrous stretch.
"To get a win like that, sometimes that's all you need to get back on track," Mike Conley said.
It wasn't the game ESPN thought they signed up for when the game was scheduled.
Somehow even without Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Jordan Clarkson, Hassan Whiteside, Danuel House Jr. and Joe Ingles, the Jazz still had the personnel advantage.
That's how dire things were with the Nuggets Wednesday, who were without their top four players — including reigning MVP Nikola Jokic — and were on the back end of a back-to-back.
Advantage: Jazz, if only so slightly. But the biggest edge the Jazz had Wednesday was a two-way guard out of Florida State.
Trent Forrest scored 18 points, had eight assists and lived in the paint against Denver. The Nuggets were powerless to stop his right-handed drive that either resulted in a layup or a kick out.
"Just reading my defender, reading how they were playing," Forrest said about his ability to get inside over and over and over. "Even though guys are out, I mean, the spacing was good. So I was able to kind of get to my spots."
It was kind of a mishmash of a game for the Jazz, who were without five main rotational pieces and therefore had to change some things to their game plan. Conley, who had 17 points, said the playbook had to be cut in half — to be honest, it looked like it was cut much more than that.
In fact, the game was pretty rudimentary for much of the night. Each team was matchup hunting, which often meant a screen and a straight-line drive to the hoop, or finding a post mismatch. It made for wonky lineups — the Jazz played Forrest, Conley and Jared Butler together at one point in a three point guard lineup — and created a game that would be won at the rim.
It also showed the trust the Jazz have in Forrest, who despite being in the rotation for much of the year is still not on a regular contract (if the Jazz want him to play in the playoffs, they'll need to convert his deal).
At the end of the third quarter, it was Forrest who had the ball in his hands — not Conley — setting up the final possession. He made a drive into the paint and made a great read by passing to the corner for an open 3-pointer. The shot missed, but it showed the control Forrest was playing with in a game he took advantage of with extended playing time.
Conley immediately went over to him and told him that's what the team needed him to do every possession.
"I trust him more than anybody, and his ability to attack the rim and finish is huge; he's a big guard," Conley said.
Forrest was 5 for 6 at the rim in a superb performance.
The Jazz had many chances to extend the lead throughout the second half but could never get separation from the Nuggets; that, though, was to be expected. Utah went 2-11 over the last 13 games, and wins weren't easy to come by in January.
"It seems like everything is just that much harder," Conley said. "Anything we do is gonna be tough. It wasn't going to be a blowout and we had a chance to stretch the lead during the game, and it seemed like it would stay a 2-point game or tie game."
But something, at long last, seemed to break Utah's way: The Jazz got some key late deflections — Royce O'Neale's fourth quarter was superb as he finished with 15 points — and Conley banked in a key shot late on a broken play.
As the buzzer hit zero, the weight of the losing streak seemed to finally lift off the players' shoulders.
"Just happy to see one, put a W up there in front of the home crowd and do it in the way that we did it with the guys that we had on hand and how passionate they played," Conley said. "A lot of guys stepped up and it was a really fun environment."
