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TORONTO — Jordan Clarkson turned to the bench as soon as his shot went up.
He knew it was going in. Why wouldn't it? After all, everything else the Utah Jazz were doing worked brilliantly.
The Jazz entered the fourth quarter down by 13 points, but once Clarkson fired up that corner 3-pointer and made his confident turn, they were up by 10. That was quite the turnaround — literally and figuratively.
Jazz fans, welcome back to the Jordan Clarkson Experience.
Utah rode a hot-shooting Clarkson to a dominant fourth quarter — outscoring the Raptors by 20 points — to come back from down as many as 17 to beat Toronto 126-119 Saturday at Scotiabank Arena.
Clarkson, who missed the last six games with a hamstring strain, caught fire in the final quarter. He scored 16 of his 30 points in the fourth to lead Utah's comeback; Clarkson was 11-of-22 from the field in his return and also added six assists. Utah won for the fifth time in seven games, and improved to 12-18 on the season.
"All of us in Utah know that JC is not normal," Hardy said when asked about how Clarkson was able to fit right back in after missing two weeks. "So when we think a normal player would do this or a normal person would do that, I don't assume any of those things with Jordan."
Hardy played a role in the abnormal Saturday. With 6:52 left in the third quarter, Hardy subbed in Clarkson, and he never came back out.
Clarkson played nearly 17 straight minutes — Walker Kessler did, too — and seemed to just get better as the times went on. He ended up playing 30 minutes, which was more than Jazz doctors suggested.
"Coming back on a little bit of a minute restriction, which I disobeyed," Hardy said, "Even taking 22 shots … I actually thought that he played within the flow of the game really, really well. He shot when he was supposed to shoot and passed when he was supposed to pass. So Jordan is a big part of our team on the floor. He's a big part of the personality of our team and the personality of our organization."
Clarkson wasn't alone in getting heavy minutes down the stretch. Utah went with the same five-man group for nearly the entirety of the fourth quarter. The lineup of Clarkson, Lauri Markkanen, Kessler, Kris Dunn and Ochai Agbaji flipped the game.
Markkanen had 30 points, including 9 in the fourth quarter, nine rebounds and five assists. He also stole an in-bounds pass with 47 seconds left that sealed the game for Utah.
Dunn had 6 points, five rebounds and six assists in the final 12 minutes, and finished with a season-high 13 assists. Agbaj made great plays in transition, and Kessler was the anchor to Utah's game-changing defensive effort late.
"Obviously, we rode that last group for a long time," Hardy said. "We had a couple of guys who played like 19 straight minutes. That was just because I felt like that group had a great rhythm. They had good energy."
Hardy said it felt like a comeback was about to happen throughout the start of the second half. Utah trailed by 16 points at halftime, but things looked to be trending in the right direction. The Jazz solved their defensive paint issues that led to the big deficit and were suddenly stingy near the rim, and the effort was strong.
Still, the lead wasn't shrinking that much.
"The game just was kind of hovering around being down 13, 12, 11 — like we were in that pocket for what felt like a long time," Hardy said. "The team didn't get discouraged. They just kept chipping away and they kept saying in the timeouts that we have a chance to break the game open if we just stay with it."
That happened in the fourth quarter when the Jazz went on a 31-8 run to completely flip the game. Utah solved Toronto's paint attack — Hardy said it was the first time all season the Jazz were able to adjust to that level within a game — and rode some hot shooting from Clarkson and Markkanen to get a surprise win.
"That's a moment where as the coach you're trying to stay out of the way and not ruin a good thing," Hardy said.
