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SALT LAKE CITY — During timeouts, after Will Hardy huddles with his coaching staff and makes his way back to the bench, he'll often find Collin Sexton and Talen Horton-Tucker engaged in a spirited conversation.
"They argue like brothers when they're on the bench," Hardy said.
Those lively talks center around what both guards are seeing on the court — the mistakes each made and the best course of action to fix them.
And, yes, they are animated, but Horton-Tukcer wouldn't call them arguments.
"It's actually kind of funny because everybody — like my family and my teammates — they always think that me and Collin argue, but we're never arguing," Horton-Tucker said. "We're really just having a conversation. It's usually always like we're both trying to help each other."
However you want to categorize, those talks seem to be working.
Sexton and Horton-Tucker put up identical stat lines Monday — 27 points, six assists and three rebounds — to lead the Jazz to a 125-108 victory over the Brooklyn Nets at the Delta Center.
Both players have been thrust into larger roles due to the injuries of Jordan Clarkson and Keyonte George, and each has answered the call.
Sexton has averaged 27 points over the last four games, finding success in a variety of ways. On Monday, he was just 6-of-17 from the field but was 12-of-13 from the foul line. And his teammates credited his drives — and his passing out of those — for opening up the offense for everyone else.
"He's seeing that you can make really good decisions over and over again and still score a lot of points — like they're not mutually exclusive; you can do both," Hardy said of Sexton. "Sometimes when guys think 'I need to be a scorer,' they think that means they don't need to pass as much — like you can do both and it helps keep the defense honest. And then, in turn, you end up having more opportunities."
Hardy also credited Horton-Tucker's improved decision-making, pointing out that he has the highest passing rate of any player when he gets into the paint.
"They're both making noticeable improvements from where they started," Hardy said. "Are they where they want to be or where we want them to be yet? No, like there's still work to be done, but those two have put a lot of work in and those two take coaching very well."
That coaching and that work has led to positive results — both individually and as a team. Horton-Tucker was 11-of-19 from the field Monday, and the Jazz have won for the third time in the last four games; that's the best four-game run of the season.
"I just feel like I'm just in a flow right now, and I just felt like we changed a few things in the offensive scheme," Sexton said. "So it feels good. It feels like the ball is popping. It feels like everybody's involved and when we're all involved, it's fun. It's fun to play. You can tell that we're all out there enjoying it — even the bench is into it. As a whole, I feel like we're starting to come together."
And that's been helped by some friendly — if not a little argumentative — talks on the sideline.
"Collin's whole makeup is like intense, so you never know if he's yelling at you or if he's just having a regular conversation with you, especially when it comes to basketball," said Horton-Tucker, who admitted he often just matches that same level of intensity during those discussions. "But off the court, he's a totally different person; it's just who he is on the court."
