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SALT LAKE CITY — Just as expected, the Utah Jazz beat the Denver Nuggets 123-102 to open the season on Wednesday at Vivint Arena.
Wait? What?
No matter what happens the rest of the season, Jazz fans will have opening night.
That's when their young underdog team didn't just sneak by the Denver Nuggets, widely believed to be a bona fide championship contender, but delivered such a haymaker in the first half that not even the back-to-back MVP could pick them back up off the mat.
That's when their team full of players who feel they've been looked over and deemed expendable by other squads came together to play a frantic and beautiful style of basketball that quickly got the 18,000 fans in the arena behind them.
It's when the fans got introduced to Collin Sexton's closing ability, Jarred Vanderbilt's seemingly never-ending energy (not to mention seemingly never-ending arms) and a team that could be awfully fun to watch.
Especially if the first half is any indication of what's to come.
It was an electric opening two quarters for the home team. By halftime, Utah had scored 75 points, shot lights out from 3-point range, and the pass-happy offense finished with 20 assists. It all led to a 22-point lead at halftime.
Here's a stat to show Utah's dominance in the opening half of the season: Vanderbilt outrebounded Denver by himself 12-11.
"That's the way we've got to play every night to give ourselves a chance," Lauri Markkanen said.
When the Jazz started the second quarter on a 12-0 run, highlighted by multiple extra effort plays by everyone wearing purple, the Vivint crowd rose and gave the team full of new faces a well-earned standing ovation.
That ovation picked right back up in the final minutes of the contest as it became clear what the result was going to be — an absolutely shocking Jazz victory.
"It's a really good team win," Jazz coach Will Hardy said. "We had seven guys in double figures. Every player that played in the game had an assist. On the defensive end, our physicality and tenacity on that end kind of sparked by Jarred Vanderbilt early in the game was really infectious throughout our group."
Nikola Jokic tried his best to save the Nuggets from what many around the league would perceive as an opening night embarrassment; he scored 27 points on 12-of-17 shooting, and tried to bring Denver back from a deficit that soared to as many as 24 points in the second quarter. But each time Denver was on the brink of getting over the hump, the Jazz had an answer.
Maybe none bigger than when Rudy Gay and Malik Beasley hit back-to-back 3s to push the lead back to 13 points with just under five minutes remaining.
Beasley's shot elicited a highlight-reel dance as he stayed in the same spot and shimmied and shook in celebration.
"I watched him do it and I tried to mimic it," said Mike Conley, who had 13 points and eight assists on the night.
The Jazz had plenty of reasons to keep dancing from then on; the team's lead never fell below double digits again. Sexton made sure of it and scored 6 of his team-high 20 points in the final minutes — including a layup right at Jokic — to put the game away.
Markkanen had 17 points in the win, Rudy Gay had 16, and rookie Walker Kessler had 12 points and 10 rebounds in his first NBA game.
"We don't have a guy that is just gonna take over a game that we go to every night," Conley said. "It could be anyone, or five or six guys; we've got to do it with a collective. Tonight we had multiple guys make plays, and Collin made some big plays, Malik had a big shot there, I had the ball there for a little bit. So, I mean, it's just a fun environment."
It certainly was fun on Wednesday.
Unexpectedly so.
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