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SALT LAKE CITY — It was a tale of two halves on Saturday as the Utah Jazz outscored the San Antonio Spurs 63-35 in the second half to come away with a 118-102 win at Vivint Arena.
"We're talking a lot this year about our team being flexible in its thinking and our ability to adapt and learn, not only over the course of the season but in a game," Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. "And I think today was a good example of that."
The Jazz looked lethargic out of the gate after an exhausting overtime win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday, and failed to make a 3-pointer until late in the second quarter.
Utah trailed San Antonio, who arrived in Salt Lake sporting a 15-game losing streak and the second-worst record in the NBA, by double digits for almost the entire first half.
"San Antonio came out, put a ton of pressure on the ball, and did a great job of denying us early in the game," Hardy said. "It took us out of our rhythm early in the game, and our team had to adjust as the game went on on both ends."
The first 3-pointer of the night came from newcomer Kris Dunn with 4:16 left in the first half, which opened up a bit of a scoring run for the Jazz, which included a backward alley-oop pass from Jordan Clarkson to Lauri Markkanen to get the crowd back into the game.
Still, the Jazz struggled to get defensive stops on the other end and entered the locker room down 65-55 at halftime.
The Jazz cut the Spurs' lead to three halfway through the third quarter and then took its first lead, 76-75, with 4:28 left in the third quarter. Utah had a 6-point lead going into the fourth after outscoring San Antonio 30-14 in the third quarter.
Hardy attributed the second-half turnaround to improvement in his team's offensive spacing and the defense providing more scoring opportunities in transition.
Will Hardy post-game thoughts. pic.twitter.com/bPTkDYxIK7
— Caleb Turner (@calebturner23) February 26, 2023
"This is what you have to do if you want to win: You have to be able to adjust on the fly, and I thought our team did a great job of that tonight," Hardy said. "A lot of guys contributed — five guys (were) in double figures, three guys had 9 points and (we had) 28 assists. I thought it was another good team win."
Utah extended its lead to double digits in the fourth quarter as Markkanen scored 14 of his 27 points in the final period. Dunn finished with the second-most points on the team with 15 and rookie Ochai Agbaji continued his first-year growth with 14 points on 4-for-4 shooting from the free-throw line.
The Spurs will get another crack at breaking their losing streak on Tuesday against the Jazz, once again, in Salt Lake City.
