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CHARLOTTE — A small chorus of Utah Jazz fans gathered together around the tunnel leading to the team's locker room waiting to give Talen Horton-Tucker a hero's welcome.
"THT! THT! THT!" the group chanted as the oft-maligned guard made his way to the tunnel. On Saturday in Charlotte, Horton-Tucker earned his flowers.
In a game where Lauri Markkaen had his worst shooting night of the season — by a significant margin — Horton-Tucker put the Jazz on his back and left the Hornets giving chase and scratching their heads in the process.
Remember the player that had averaged as many turnovers as he did assists in his first six games of being the team's starting point guard? On Saturday in Charlotte, he inexplicably looked like one of the best point guards in the league.
Horton-Tucker had 37 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds — coming just two boards shy of breaking Utah's 15-year regular-season triple-double drought (and he had a rebound taken away after the game, so it looked even closer live) — to lead the Jazz to a 119-111 victory over the Charlotte Hornets.
Sometimes stat lines can be deceiving; this one wasn't. Horton-Tucker was every bit as dominant as his numbers suggest. Horton-Tucker was 14-for-24 from the field and showed off his whole bag of tricks.
Quick crossovers for hammering dunks? He had that. Spin moves leading to acrobatic layups? That too. Bullying drives that opened up teammates for looks on the perimeter and lobs? There were plenty of those.
By the time he took a deep step-back 3-pointer in the fourth quarter, everyone at Spectrum Center expected the ball to go in — and, of course, it did.
Then, Will Hardy buried the lede in his postgame presser.
He talked about how tough it is for team's to hold onto leads in the NBA — led by Horton-Tucker's dynamic third quarter the Jazz jumped out to a 23-point lead — and how Utah got contributions from across the board (Walker Kessler had 17 points and 16 rebounds, and Kelly Olynyk finished with 17 points on 7-for-9 shooting).
Then, he finally landed on Horton-Tucker.
"Very clearly the story of the game is Talen Horton-Tucker," he said. "I am incredibly hard on Talen. I have been all season. That is because I believe in him. His talent, his ability — he's still young, he just turned 22 — and he has some real physical gifts that were on display tonight. … He had his best game of mixing attacking to score and attacking to find his teammates. … He was spectacular."
And he couldn't have picked a better night to be spectacular. Markkanen was just 3-for-22 from the field. Those nights happen — they just haven't happened a lot for the star forward. Before Saturday, he had just six games all season where he shot under 40%, and his previous worst shooting night was 3-for-14.
The Jazz are a team that often go how Markkanen goes; Horton-Tucker made sure that wasn't the case against the Hornets.
"Playing here and playing with coach, knowing what they want for me they want me to get down hill and kind of help get other guys involved and sometimes score for myself," Horton-Tucker said. "I feel like I try to do that every game. … Tonight, I gotta do it at a higher clip."
Hardy said the big performance was a culmination of a season's worth of work. There have been times this season where Horton-Tucker wasn't in the rotation, wasn't getting significant minutes, and still showed up eager to get better.
That all paid off on Saturday.
"All the hard work showed tonight. That's not a little thing. He's dug in this season and couldn't be happier for him," Hardy said. "We're very proud and he's part of our program. The way that he's gone about this season, from a work standpoint, from a patient standpoint, competing and controlling what you can control every day, like that's what we want to be about. He embodies that."
It's the second straight big game for Horton-Tucker, who had 23 points and eight assists against the Magic (he also had a strong second half at Dallas). And he believes he has plenty more games like that in him.
"I'm not trying to be like cocky, I just feel like I can do it more," Horton-Tucker said. "It's not the only time I've been able to do that."
The Jazz, who are now 33-35 on the season, climbed back into play-in tournament position with the win. A few more games from Horton-Tucker like Saturday's and maybe — just maybe — they'll be able to stay there.
