Jazz completed best 15-game stretch of Will Hardy's tenure. What's caused the turnaround?

MILWAUKEE — Kris Dunn thinks there are a few reasons why the Jazz have suddenly turned their season around.

"One, communication — playing together, playing hard," Dunn said. "And then it's the swag. I think our swag is starting to just kind of level up a little bit."

So what does he mean by swag, exactly?

"For instance, like when I play Call of Duty, I know I'm gonna go out there and get a couple of wins — I got swag when I'm playing," he said. "When you come out here and you've been winning games, you feel good about yourself, you might walk on the court a little differently, you've got a little bit of swag. The confidence is up. I feel like as a group, we're starting to get that a little bit. We ain't over there, but we're gonna get it."

Monday's 132-116 win over the Milwaukee Bucks will surely help level that swag up a little more.

With the win, the Jazz went 2-1 on a road trip against the top three teams in the Eastern Conference. Even the most optimistic fan would have struggled to predict that. Sure, they had some player availability luck along the way, and the showing in Boston was anything but impressive, but the Jazz are suddenly one of the hottest teams in the league.

The Jazz have gone 11-4 in their last 15 games, which is the fourth-best record in the NBA over that span and the best 15-game run of Will Hardy's tenure. More than half of those wins (six) have come on the road, and four of the last five victories have come against playoff teams.

Things have turned quickly for Hardy's team.

It was just over a month ago Utah left Dallas after a 50-point loss. Hardy grabbed headlines with his frank description of his team's performance that night, calling it a masterpiece of … well, you remember. But that was just one game in a stretch of ineptitude.

They were a bad team that was being compared to the worst of the worst in the NBA. They couldn't win on the road, and struggled to even stay in games against good teams. That 50-point loss was part of a six-game stretch where they won just one game (an overtime win in Salt Lake City over a bad Portland team); they lost by double digits in the other five games.

Funny enough, though, it was that stretch that preluded Utah's current run of play.

So what changed?

"I think they're all continuing to understand more and more that each person has something that they can offer," Hardy said. "Each game is a little different. Your minutes may fluctuate, some of the times that you're in may fluctuate, the actions that we run on offense may change based on who we're playing, but they're very intelligent players and they're capable of problem-solving as a team.

"That's what a lot of these games come down to: Can you solve problems as a group? They're doing a better job of communicating in the moment."

Put another way, the players have bought into their roles and are playing together.

At a recent press conference, Hardy offered up a thought experiment: If he asked the assembled media to take a card and rank the Jazz players, how much variance would there be?

"I imagine Lauri (Markkanen) would probably be No. 1 on everybody's card, and then after that, it's kind of all a little bit subjective," Hardy said.

Some nights, it feels like Collin Sexton — who has averaged 21.2 points, nearly five assists, and shot over 50% from the field since entering the starting lineup — is the obvious answer at No. 2. But then Jordan Clarkson gets loose and wins a game, or Walker Kessler has a dominant defensive performance, or Simone Fontecchio hangs 20 points, or Dunn hands out 13 assists, or … you get the point.

It's subjective, and ever-changing.

"For me, it's fun," Hardy said. "Like, we have a really good group of guys that are all bought into trying to do what we want to do."

Right now, it's working.

The Jazz have the 11th-best defensive rating in the league over the last 15 games of the season — a complete change from where things were a month ago. And as Monday showed, the offense can get going in a hurry, too. The Jazz had six players reach double figures Monday, and eight players hit a 3-pointer.

"Everybody feels involved in the game, because they get to touch the ball," Hardy said. "We're not as stagnant offensively. I think that the team feels a little bit freed up on that end of the floor. And I think it just allows people to really feel like they're a part of the game; and then with that, the energy sort of builds and everybody plays a little bit harder."

After looking like the Jazz were going to compete for the No. 1 pick in the draft, the team is suddenly just a half-game back from the final play-in spot. And as the wins keep coming, so, too, does the confidence.

Check that — so, too, does the swag.

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