Jazz bounce back strong with 123-112 road win over Cavaliers

CLEVELAND — After a 55-point loss — the second largest in franchise history — it was difficult to go anywhere but up.

The Jazz not only went up, the team had an impressive regroup that resulted in a 123-112 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night.

A hot start for Utah helped the Jazz take an early lead before Cleveland made a run of its own. After regrouping, the Jazz put together a strong team performance to come away with the road victory.

"It's a great bounce-back win," Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. "Beating a team like that on the road obviously shows a ton of character from the team."

With a former Jazz All-Star guard on the other side, Keyonte George scored some big buckets late for Utah to help the Jazz hold onto its second-half lead and secure the win. George finished with a game-high 32 points and also dished out nine assists.

George is now the first Utah guard with double-digit 30-point games since Donovan Mitchell in 2022.

Lauri Markkanen returned from a one-game absence with Jusuf Nurkic, who missed the previous two games. Hardy made some other tweaks to Utah's rotation as he inserted Cody Williams and Svi Mykhailiuk into the starting lineup.

The changes made an early impact on how the Jazz opened up the game. Utah came out ready to play the Cavaliers, jumping out to a 21-4 lead.

After flushing an abysmal performance on Saturday, the Jazz had completely flipped the script from their previous game.

Markkanen dominated in his return, scoring 28 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. Markkanen had his shot going early, while it took George a bit to find his groove.

Former Jazzman Donovan Mitchell didn't get off to a hot start, either; but once he got going, he helped Cleveland erase the early deficit and take a halftime lead. He poured in 21 points for the Cavaliers.

"As the half wore on, we got really sloppy with the ball," Hardy said. "We had 14 turnovers in the first half and that caused our communication and our effort to dip on the defensive side but we came out in the second half, allowed 14 paint points and only had five turnovers and that's how you win on the road."

Utah wasn't phased by the second quarter letdown, coming out strong in the third quarter and taking control in what has typically been Cleveland's best quarter of the season.

George, the third-year guard from Baylor, exploded for 16 points in the third quarter to help Utah regain momentum and take the lead.

Down the stretch, the Jazz were poised. After taking the lead in the second half, Utah refused to let the Cavaliers make another comeback. With Markkanen and George taking over scoring duties, veteran bigs, Kevin Love and Nurkic made some key plays.

Love knocked down some timely 3-pointers and Nurkic was a monster on the boards, collecting 17 rebounds in the game to go along with his 11 points to give him the double-double.

With the game in Cleveland, Love made his return to the city where he helped bring their first NBA championship and rightfully received a standing ovation from the home crowd. Love had 11 points off the bench with three made 3-pointers.

After getting outrebounded by Charlotte by over 30 rebounds, Nurkic's presence helped the Jazz muster a complete 180 on the glass. Utah finished with 50 total rebounds, 20 more than the Cavs.

"I thought the team made a really concerted effort on both sides of the ball to rebound and I thought Nurk and Lauri had big nights," Hardy said.

Hardy has been preaching the importance of defense and its ability to not only hold opponents to less points, but open things up on offense. With a complete team effort on that end tonight, it showed.

"We gave up 50 points in the second half, I thought the team was really connected," Hardy said. "A ton of really good individual performances as well."

One performance that may get lost among other high scoring outputs was that of rookie Ace Bailey.

After missing seven of the past eight games, Bailey made his impact in other ways. Bailey only had four points but two offensive rebounds and a block in the fourth quarter made a difference.

"I thought Ace had some really big possessions late in the game," Hardy said. "Had a couple of offensive rebounds that were big plays for us, really contributed in the win tonight."

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