Jazz jump out to 31-point halftime lead, hold on to beat Bucks on road

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MILWAUKEE — The Utah Jazz were in dire straits as they made their way to the bench at the end of the third quarter.

Their once 31-point lead had been wilted down to 10, and all the momentum was on Milwaukee's side. Only two teams in NBA history had lost a game after leading by 30 or more at halftime; the Jazz seemed poised to be added to that infamous list.

When the Jazz gathered together during the end of third quarter break, Will Hardy brought some optimism with him: Every single person on the team, in the organization, and even in the fan base would have signed up for a 10-point lead entering the fourth quarter.

They had that; it was then just about finishing it off.

The Jazz fought off a valiant effort by the Bucks to hold on for a 132-116 win Monday at Fiserv Forum.

Utah started the fourth quarter on a 9-2 run and answered every push from the Bucks for the rest of the quarter. A 9-0 run — finished off with a Lauri Markkanen triple with 3:02 left — served as the final dagger.

"That's a good win," said Markkanen, who had 24 points (10 in the fourth) and 14 rebounds. "It's not easy when you lead by 30; it's hard to keep that up. So we knew that they're gonna make a run at some point. We stayed poised and really grinded it out, and so it's a good win."

The catalyst to being able to keep that poise and refocus was that pre-fourth quarter meeting.

"When I sit down in front of the team in a timeout, I recognize that a big part of my job in that moment is to try to not speak in a way that makes everybody too amped up or nervous," Hardy said. "I tried to be as calm as I could in that moment. I'm saying it for them, I'm also saying it for me that, 'Hey, I would have signed up for this to be up 10 going into the fourth quarter.'"

But, Hardy admits, he may not have had to say anything. By the time he got to the bench, Markkanen was already leading the conversation about flushing what had just happened and winning the fourth quarter, because that would be more than enough to win the game.

"They were all saying the right things. Lauri was doing a great job of talking to his teammates," Hardy said. "So It's everybody in those moments that have to bring the temperature down. It's a big part of it is my responsibility, but the players, their ability to internalize what the message is, they're the ones that do go out there and play. And I thought they did a great job of settling down."

The Jazz scored 32 points on 69% shooting and had seven assists in the final quarter. Those would have been more impressive numbers if it weren't for a nearly flawless first half.

Utah played its most complete 24 minutes of basketball of the season in Milwaukee.

By halftime, the Jazz had 16 3-pointers and 21 assists, they had five players in double figures, and held the Bucks to just 33% shooting.

Oh, and they led by 31 points.

It was an onslaught — and everyone who touched the court was involved.

"We shot the ball great, there's no doubt about that, but I think that our spacing was very clean," Hardy said. "I thought we executed the way that we wanted to. And when it comes down to our players being great players and making shots, they did that in the first half."

Game over, right?

Not exactly.

The offense that was so good for 24 minutes got a little bottled up. Missed shots led to transition chances, and suddenly Utah's seemingly insurmountable lead was suddenly in jeopardy.

The Bucks trimmed the lead to just 8 points in the final minute of the third quarter.

"The third quarter got away from us, mostly because of our offense," Hardy said. "We were rushing a little bit. We didn't do a very good job of recognizing matchups and spacing, and that allowed them to play in transition a bunch. They are a really, really hard team to guard in transition."

Utah's offense recovered in the fourth quarter, though.

Keyonte George scored 6 of his 19 points in the first minute of the quarter to help settle things down; Jordan Clarkson had 7 of his 21 in the fourth to go along with Markkanen's big close; Kris Dunn handed out three of his 13 assists in the final frame.

"A lot of guys played well," Hardy said. "We had six people in double figures, 33 assists, we were able to keep our turnovers relatively low, shot the ball well. Great way to end the trip."