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SALT LAKE CITY — After the confetti had fallen all around Ochai Agbaji, he pointed up to the stands high above the Utah Jazz bench. That's where his mother was when she took in the best performance of her son's young NBA career.
It's been months since Erica Agbaji had been to a game at Vivint Arena. She was there the final weekend of October, where she saw Ochai average about 19 minutes per game, but there wasn't a ton of reasons to come back after that.
Ochai Agbaji's first months in the NBA were defined by "did not play" on the state sheet and a few stints playing in the G League.
On Monday, though, Agbaji's mother got to see just how far her son has come from those days. Agbaji was one of the stars of the show in Utah's surprising 128-120 win over the Sacramento Kings.
He scored a career-high 27 points, including 7 points in the final 2:41, to help the Jazz take the lead and pull away for good. Agbaji was 8-for-14 from the field, 6-for-10 from the 3-point line, and added five rebounds and three assists in a superb all-around game.
"We're continuing to see his game start to expand a little bit; the shots that he's looking for, the shots that he's taking," Jazz coach Will Hardy said. "Obviously, it feels better when they go in but I'll continue to say I would feel the same way about Ochai If he had missed a lot of those shots because he's finding and seeing different shots than he was a month ago."
Shots like when he pulled up for a deep 3-pointer with 2:41 left to give the Jazz a 1-point lead driving bank shot moments later. Or choosing to drive hard to the basket and earning two free throws with 41.3 seconds remaining.
Those plays would not have happened a month ago. Now, they are becoming commonplace.
"Just reps every day," he said of his growing conference. "Knowing the shots I'm gonna get going to the game, watching all the film; really just being ready for those shots that I'm gonna get. When we have our pre-practice shooting times just taking those shots and focusing on that."
He knows he's going to get shots now; he didn't always.
Hardy admitted Agbaji could have looked at the Jazz coaching staff as "crazy" at the beginning of the season. The Jazz were young, not expected to be good and he was a lottery pick with an impressive pedigree. He was the Final Four Most Outstanding Player, a consensus First-Team All-American, the the Big-12 Player of the Year. How could he not be playing?
"But he didn't; he just kept working and understood his role and tried to get better every day. And now he's seeing the benefits of that," Hardy said.
Said Agbaji: "Everyone has their own race. I kind of saw that as my own race. My expectations were a little bit different coming in, but starting there (in the G-League), I had to be fine with it, had to go with it and had to give it my all and have a positive attitude while I was doing it. So that's just kind of how I went about that and how I went about this whole entire season."
Now, it's paying off.
His confidence is growing with each game and he's learning from his mistakes quickly. Remember the late-game gaffe against Miami? He's now shined in late-game situations over the last two games; all while being asked to cover some of the best players in the NBA on the other end. It's been an impressive jump.
"He's just continued to get better and better and better and his confidence is just continuing to grow and grow and grow and he's made huge shots the last two games; like massive shots," Kelly Olynyk said. "It's just fun to watch him and fun to watch him grow."
And on Monday, his mother got to see just how fun.
"It's a really special night for her to see that," Agbaji said.
