Utah Jazz: Early deficit turns into road win for Jazz

Jazz at Bucks boxscore

MILWAUKEE, Wis. — The Utah Jazz were overdue for one of the ever-dramatic team's patented come-from-behind victories.

It had been almost three weeks, after all, since they registered one of their eight riveting rallies out of double-digit deficits.

But after Friday night's 29-point blowout loss in New Orleans, the Jazz were also badly in need of another kind of turnaround performance — or at least a couple of positive possessions.

It took a quarter or so, but this Comeback Crew accomplished all of that and so much more Saturday night at the Bradley Center.

Shaking off Friday's Bayou bashing and another slow start — who woulda thunk it? — the Jazz turned an early 12-point deficit into a timely 95-86 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks.

"Tonight," Jazz center Al Jefferson said, "we knew had to bounce back, take control of the game."

And, after falling behind by 10 in the first few minutes and trailing 39-27 in the second quarter, they eventually did just that.

It so happened they also played tough defense, rebounded with authority and stayed composed as a team in the face of adversity.

"Everything was much better," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said.

The Jazz improved to 19-9 with their second solid win over the 10-15 Bucks in three weeks by outrebounding Milwaukee 46-31 and holding the home team to a meager 40 second-half points.

Utah's defense was especially impressive in the fourth quarter, when the Jazz stifled the Bucks by allowing them only 18 points on 6-for-16 shooting (37.5 percent) while closing out the bounce-back win.

That defense, according to Williams, made all of the difference in the Jazz playing like a completely different team than the one that no-showed in the Big Easy.

"We took last night personal," Williams said of Friday's 100-71 loss. "It was an embarrassing loss to get beat by (29), and we wanted to put forth a better effort tonight."